England is divided into nine official regions, used for statistics, funding and administration. Alongside them run a set of informal divisions that people actually use in conversation, and which nobody can define precisely.
The nine official regions
- North East — Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Durham, Teesside. The smallest by population.
- North West — Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire.
- Yorkshire and the Humber.
- East Midlands — Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Rutland.
- West Midlands — Birmingham, the Black Country, Coventry, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire.
- East of England — East Anglia plus Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.
- London — a region in its own right.
- South East — the largest by population. Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire.
- South West — Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Bristol.
These were created as government office regions in 1994 and are the basis for most published data. Regional assemblies for them were proposed in the 2000s; a referendum in the North East in 2004 rejected the idea by 78% to 22%, and the plan was dropped.
The informal divisions
The North
Where it begins is a live and enjoyable argument. The official line sits above the Midlands entirely, but people in Stoke, Nottingham, Derby and even Sheffield will place themselves differently, and Northerners will happily deny Northern status to places they consider soft.
Various half-serious tests are offered: whether you say tea or dinner for the evening meal, whether the bath vowel is short, whether a bread roll is a barm, and whether gravy is served with chips.
The Midlands
The most overlooked region, and frequently squeezed out of the north-south framing entirely. East and West Midlands are genuinely distinct in accent and character, and both resent being described as “not really either”.
The Home Counties
The ring of counties around London — Surrey, Kent, Essex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and sometimes more. The term carries a strong class charge, implying prosperous commuter belt, and it is used as often pejoratively as neutrally.
The West Country
Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset, with its own rhotic accent and a tourism economy. East Anglia — Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire — is similarly distinct, flat, dry and historically isolated by fen and marsh.
Why it matters
Regional difference in England is economic before it is cultural. The gap in output per head between London and the North East is among the widest of any developed country, and successive governments have promised to close it under a series of names — the Northern Powerhouse, the Midlands Engine, levelling up.
The one substantive change has been the creation of metro mayors for Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, Liverpool, the North East and elsewhere, who have real powers over transport and skills and have become significant political figures.