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The non-metropolitan counties are shown in pink, while the metropolitan counties are shown in red and London in orange

A shire county or non-metropolitan county in England, is a county level entity which is not a metropolitan county. The names of most, but not all, shire counties end in the suffix "-shire" such as Wiltshire or Staffordshire. Some shire counties that historically had the -shire ending have lost it over time, such as Devon, which was formerly known as Devonshire. The counties typically have populations of 300,000 to 1.4 million.^[1]

The term is sometimes used in a restricted sense to refer only to the administrative counties that have a two-tier structure, of a county council and district councils. It therefore excludes the various unitary districts, including Herefordshire and Rutland. The Isle of Wight is a non-metropolitan county, but is also a unitary area, as its district councils have been abolished.

"Shire county" is, strictly, a dual-language tautology, the word county coming from French and shire from Anglo-Saxon. Of the 35 non-metropolitan counties in England, 34 have multiple districts and a county council:

Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire

Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumbria

Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, Durham

East Sussex, Essex

Gloucestershire

Hampshire, Hertfordshire

Kent

Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire

Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire

Oxfordshire

Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey

Warwickshire, West Sussex, Wiltshire, Worcestershire

The exception is Berkshire which is a non-metropolitan county with multiple districts but no longer has a county council.^[2] Technically, most unitary authorities in England are also non-metropolitan counties.

The term 'non-metropolitan county' is also sometimes used to refer to the eight Welsh counties created by the Local Government Act 1972. Although the Act does not use the term specifically when referring to Wales, neither does it in general parts of the act distinguish between the Welsh entities and the English non-metropolitan counties, referring to both as non-metropolitan counties. The Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 amends the Local Government Act 1972 such that the new Welsh principal areas which have the status of counties are not implied to be non-metropolitan counties.

1. ^ Jones, B. et al, Politics UK, (2004)
2. ^ [1]Parliament publications, Column 128

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