Talk:Administrative counties of England

message: I'm sorry, but to me as an American this is just bizarre. Of course our states don't change boundaries (except rarely), but except for minor annexations/successions, out county boundaries don't either. Our voting districts do on various schedules, perhaps this is why you must do this so often? As an aid to foreigners like me, could someone put a general explanation of why this is needed at the top of the article, before the wonderfully well researched but rather dry "Under the Baldwin government, boundaries in counties to the north of Newcastle where adjusted three rods to the north and east just to confound visitors from the Continent and provide challenge to the Ordnance Survey" bits? I mean this just seems so much churn. orthogonal 07:30, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It is bizarre.  My personal explanation is that the British government has always been deeply unhappy about the 'unfortunate necessity' of delegating power downwards, and thus messes with local governmental boundaries on a regular basis to keep things disorganised. —Morven 07:58, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

text: And as a further note; this is NOT anything to do with electoral districts for Parliament, Europe or anything else; these are regularly messed with in the UK as in the USA. —Morven 08:00, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Boundaries

message: Shouln't this really be moved to Counties of England seem as that is what administrative counties are officially called. With perhaps a link to ceremonial counties and traditional counties? G-Man 15:33, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the disambiguation way it is done now is fine. There needs to be a distinction between the different types of county, so moving one type to the main article would cause even more confusion. Owain 09:43, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Naming

message: Well as a German I'm very confused about the English administration system with all its counties, caeremonial stuff and god knows what else. I always thought that German administration history is confusing, especially since Germany's Borderlines kept changing through the centuries, (well, especially in the 20th)...but these changements are nothing compared with the British administration  changes. Counties appear, vanish again or ar divided up...Foreigners really get the impression that the English/UK governments don't have anything else to do than drawing lines on maps.
::Agreed, it is exceptionally confusing and there is so much mis-information around even most British people can't figure it out; so I have little hope that anyone else could. Hopefully Wikipedia will explain all the different types of county in a non-biased way, but this does require authors who favour one system over the other to compromise their positions somewhat :) Owain 09:49, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Very Confusing

message: Just to say reading this 1) British law and history is messy, and cornwall is a case point. 2) people who are not experts on cornish history/ status beware of allowing the modern view of cornwall to confuse you, it was widely considered seperate from england at least until tudor times, even by the english administration. The decline of this as a popular view (i think) came with the decline of the obvious symbol of the language.  And yes there has been a continuous (variable size) portion of the population who consider it not part of england.
However... I think its fairly clear it is an administative county at present and we don't want this article becoming a replica of the constitutional status of cornwall one. If possible I think complications should be referred to as briefly as possible and then refered to another article.
131.111.8.104
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Is not and never has been a shire county that is why i have removed it from the list of shire counties. If you wish to return it then you will have to provide evidence of it being historically described as a shire or administered as a shire (of Wessex).
Whence county was gradually adopted in English ( scarcely before the 15th century ) as an alternative name for the shire, and in due course applied to similar divisions made in Wales and in Ireland, as well as the shires of Scotland, and also extended to those separate parts of the realm which never were shires, as The Duchy of Cornwall, Orkney and Shetland.
Part definition of the term County.
Complete Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd Ed 1989 p. 1044.
Bretagne 44 26/2/05
:I think you misunderstand the meaning of the list. Cornwall is included because of its style of local government (i.e a county council and districts), not because of any historical reasons. G-Man 19:26, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Why use a silly, inaccurate lable like 'shire county', then, particularly as the Oxford English Dictionary, the authority on the correct use of language (the adherence to which goes without saying in an encyclopaedia), disagrees with it? Using the term administrative county to describe two-tier systems and unitary aithority to describe everything else is far more sensible. All the remaining two-tier administrations are basically modified versions of the administrative counties created in 1888, so the term is accurate and has legislative precedents. Furthermore, the legislation also uses the term unitary authority to refer to single-tier administrative entities. The fact that it uses the word "county" to refer to both and more, willy-nilly is neither here nor there, because it's imprecise and ambiguous. "Counties in the context of this bill" has meant all sorts of completely different things in various pieces of legistlation; 'county' is not an 'official' term; just a handy descriptor which, in legislation, has no single meaning. 80.255 23:01, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: It is not a term I have invented, it seems to be a common term used for counties with a two-tier system of government, as opposed to single-tier counties like Herefordshire and Rutland, or counties without county councils like Berkshire or the metropolitan counties. Also where exactly does Greater London fit into that definition, the London boroughs are not proper unitary authorities, and the Greater London Authority is not a proper county council. G-Man 20:14, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Cornwall]] 

message: Administrative Counties and their divisions were abolished in 1974 and replaced by Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Counties. It is incorrect and misleading for this article to have anything other than information for 1889-1974.  Post 74 information should be moved to another article. Perhaps Modern (post 1974) counties of England   MRSC 22:58, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The fact that they are called 'Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Counties' in the Local Government Act 1972 is neither here nor there with regards the article title. They are administrative counties, as distinct from the other types of county. To call them simply 'post 1974 counties' introduces a whole lot of ambiguity and doesn't take into account the Local Government Act 1992 which allows provision for unitary authorities that wasn't present in the 1972 Act. Owain 08:54, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The Local Government Act 1992 does not change the status of the modern (post 74) counties. It abolished some and created others but their status remains unchanged in so far as they are all distinct from the administrative counties they replaced. I don't understand why clearly showing this creates ambiguity? MRSC 10:41, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Calling something like the County of Milton Keynes a post-1974 county is confusing because it couldn't (and didn't) legally exist until 1997. But the main source of ambiguity by dropping the word 'administrative' would be by confusion with other types of county that also existed 'post-1974'. The ceremonial and traditional counties exist 'post-1974', so they are all types of 'post-1974 county'. The phrase is just too ambiguous. Owain 11:37, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  after 1974 

message: Added the following link
*Celtic Frontier or County Boundary? Competing discourses of a late nineteenth century British border
Bretagne 44 14:44, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Celtic Frontier or County Boundary?

message: Alistair Dent, the Mapping Services Manager for the Office of National Statistics, has advised the helpdesk that this article has been used as research material in developing maps for a forthcoming publication. Well done to all those involved in preparing the article. Capitalistroadster 23:55, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Use of article for Office of National Statistics publications

message: The new map in this article is unreadable, at least with the previous one you had a list of the counties and could read the numbers associated with them on the map. Keith D (talk) 23:32, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Caption needs changing, it shows boundaries from the 1930s as far as I can see (Gloucestershire/Worcestershire/Warwickshire had plenty of enclaves and exclaves until then)Lozleader (talk) 12:28, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Map