Talk:Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties of England

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[edit] Current metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties

This article is a mess! It starts off with a sections called "current" metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties which has a map showing all the unitary authorities. These are not counties and their inclusion in the extended ceremonial counties (based on the metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties of the same name) proves this. Yorkshire Phoenix 12:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Also: one of the lists at the bottom claims to to show "all counties" ranked by area, but instead of being at the top of the list Yorkshire is completely absent. "All counties" should be rephrased accordingly. Yorkshire Phoenix 12:43, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

No. This article is current and correct. With reference to the LGA1972, unitary authorities are legislated as ceasing to form part of their original non-metropolitan county and forming a new non-metropolitan county of a single district with the exception of the districts of Berkshire which are not non-metropolitan counties, and this is reflected in this article. Mrsteviec 22:49, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

But the "current counties" map suggests there are hundreds of counties, which are mostly just towns? Didn't the former Cleveland districts "return" to North Yorkshire and Co Durham? (I say "return" because prior to 1974 they were part of North Riding County Council, not North Yorkshire.) Yorkshire Phoenix 08:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

That would be so if the article were called "Counties of England", but it isn't. Mrsteviec 10:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I think I understand. Unitary Authorities are "county level" administrative units and thus fall under the metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties umbrella despite being part of larger ceremonial counties? Please review my suggestion on Template_talk:Infobox_England_place#County_Type regarding county types. Yorkshire Phoenix 10:51, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Under legislation the unitary authorities are non-metropolitan counties as defined by the LGA1972. Unfortunately it is not that simple and they also have the status of non-metropolitan districts. So you could include them in an infobox as county or district or both. In practice they are physically more like a district than a county (having no sub divisions) so I'd be inclined to put them at district level. Mrsteviec 11:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course: otherwise we'd have the same entry in District and County with both types as Unitary Authority! What do you think of my suggestion of having a CountyType value with the options of Metropolitan county or Non-metropolitan county then? Given that County already has an IF argument because it is optional, would my suggestion be possible to implement? Yorkshire Phoenix 11:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unitary Authorities in ex-Avon

Can I suggest that the following is slightly reworded for clarity? "On April 1, 1996, the unpopular counties of Avon, Humberside and Cleveland were abolished and their districts turned into unitary authorities." Avon's six districts became only four unitary auhtorities (two mergers of two). SP-KP 00:33, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tyne and Wear

I thought Tyne and Wear had been abolished? Why is it still on the map as though it exists? doktorb _words^deeds 14:51, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Metropolitan county councils were abolished in 1986 but not the metropolitan counties themselves. In Yorkshire and Merseyside the names seem to have stuck after the councils were abolished, but perhaps due to the awkwardness of the name Tyne and Wear people seem to say Tyneside instead (much like the way Teesside was often used in lieu of the official county name, Cleveland). North of the river I expect some have reverted to using Northumberland but I've never heard anyone from Gateshead, Sunderland, South Shields, Washington, etc say they are from Co Durham, and was surprised myself that that was the historic county there. Yorkshire Phoenix (talk • contribs) 08:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah right. A little context here - I work for a contractor doing streetworks on behalf of BT. We deal with the councils in "Tyne and Wear" - Newcastle, Gateshead etc... and we're always looking for decent maps to show the council areas. This would have been perfect but for the Tyne and Wear reference. Does Wiki have a council area map showing Newcastle, Gateshead, South Tyneside etc? doktorb _words^deeds 10:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

That's funny: most maps I've seen show metropolitan boroughs and unitary authorities as though they were counties. Most articles for districts and boroughs do show the boundaries, but they do so on a very plain pink map showing only the boundaries of entities at the same level. I expect this is no use to you as you would need maps showing roads, rivers, etc and the local authority boundaries (so you can see where they are on the ground, not just as a vague area of the UK). Have you tried multimap? At certain zoom levels it uses 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 OS maps, which I believe will show local council boundaries. Yorkshire Phoenix (talk • contribs) 11:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Subdivisions of England may have the map you want. Morwen - Talk 11:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Wicked - now, all I need is [[Image:EnglandSubdivisions.png]] with the names and numbers and we're sorted =D doktorb _words^deeds 15:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

This PDF may help: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/geography/downloads/uk_laduacty.pdf Mrsteviec 22:33, 13 August 2006 (UTC)