Vice-counties (the hyphen may be omitted) or biological vice-counties[1] are geographical divisions of the British Isles used for the purposes of biological recording and other scientific data-gathering. They are sometimes called Watsonian vice-counties as they were introduced for Great Britain, its offshore islands, and the Isle of Man, by Hewett Cottrell Watson who first used them in the third volume of his Cybele Britannica published in 1852.[2] Watson's vice-counties were based on the ancient counties of Britain, but often subdividing these boundaries to create smaller, more uniform units, and considering exclaves to be part of the vice-county in which they locally lie.
In 1901 Robert Lloyd Praeger introduced a similar system for Ireland and its off-shore islands.[1][2]
Vice-counties provide a stable basis for recording using similarly-sized units, and, although grid-based reporting has grown in popularity, they remain a standard in the vast majority of ecological surveys, allowing data collected over long periods of time to be compared easily. The vice-counties remain unchanged by subsequent local government reorganisations, allowing historical and modern data to be more accurately compared.
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Vice-counties were first introduced by Hewett Cottrell Watson in the third volume of his Cybele Britannica published in 1852. He refined the system in later volumes. The geographical area that Watson called "Britain" consisted of the island of Great Britain – England, Wales and Scotland – with all of its offshore islands, plus the Isle of Man, but excluding the Channel Islands. This area was divided into 112 vice-counties, based on the administrative counties of the time. Larger counties were divided; for example, Devon into the vice-counties of North Devon and South Devon, and Yorkshire into five vice-counties. Each of these 112 vice-counties has a name and a number. Thus Vice-county 38, often abbreviated to "VC38", is called "Warwickshire".[2]
In 1901, Robert Lloyd Praeger extended the system of vice-counties to Ireland and its off-shore islands, based on an earlier suggestion by C.C. Babington in 1859. The Irish vice-counties were based on the historic 32 counties of Ireland, with the six largest being sub-divided; for example, the county of Cork was divided into three vice-counties. This produced a total of 40 vice-counties for Ireland, which were numbered from H1 to H40 ("H" for "Hibernia"). As with the 112 vice-counties of Britain, each vice-county has a name as well as a number. Thus Vice-county (or VC) H3 is "West Cork".[1][2]
Combining these two systems produces a 152 vice-county system. The exclusion of the Channel Islands from Watson's system for Britain has led to variations between different recording schemes. The geographical area covered by the 152 vice-counties may be described as the "British Isles", as in the 2008 Checklist of Beetles of the British Isles.[3] Other recording schemes regard the "British Isles" as including the Channel Islands. As they are not part of the 152 vice-county system, the Channel Islands may be added as an extra vice-county, making 153 in total, being indicated by letter codes such as "C"[4] or "CI".[5] Less usually, each of the five separate islands may be treated as a vice-county, giving 157 vice-counties in total.[6]
Alternative counts of vice-counties used in different recording schemes are shown in the table below.
| Count | Originator | Descriptions |
|---|---|---|
| 112 | Watson | (Great) Britain (including the Isle of Man) |
| 40 | Praeger | Ireland |
| 0, 1 or 5 | Channel Islands (Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Herm) | |
| 152, 153 or 157 | British Isles, (Great) Britain and Ireland |
The vice-counties of Britain alone may be described as "Watsonian vice-counties",[7] or this term may be used for the combined vice-counties of Britain and Ireland,[4] which may also be described as "Watson-Praeger vice-counties".[8] In all cases, the Channel Islands may be excluded,[7] or included,[8] so that the count of vice-counties varies, as noted in the table above.
Great Britain
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Ireland
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Changes to the boundaries of the administrative counties of Great Britain mean that the relationship between vice-counties and counties is no longer straightforward. For example the metropolitan county of the West Midlands, created in 1974, cuts across the former boundaries of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire and the associated vice-counties. Although the West Midlands was later abolished as an authority, the former boundaries of the surrounding counties were not restored, the West Midlands remaining a ceremonial county and its constituent districts becoming unitary authorities.
| (Old) County | Vice counties |
|---|---|
| Bedfordshire | Bedfordshire |
| Berkshire | Berkshire |
| Buckinghamshire | Buckinghamshire |
| Cambridgeshire, incorporating the Isle of Ely | Cambridgeshire |
| Cheshire | Cheshire |
| Cornwall | West Cornwall with Scilly, East Cornwall |
| Cumberland | Cumberland |
| Derbyshire | Derbyshire |
| Devon | South Devon, North Devon |
| Dorset | Dorset |
| County Durham | Durham |
| Essex | South Essex, North Essex |
| Gloucestershire | East Gloucestershire, West Gloucestershire |
| Hampshire | South Hampshire, North Hampshire, Isle of Wight |
| Herefordshire | Herefordshire |
| Hertfordshire | Hertfordshire |
| Huntingdonshire | Huntingdonshire |
| Kent | East Kent, West Kent |
| Lancashire less Furness | South Lancashire, West Lancashire |
| Leicestershire and Rutland | Leicestershire with Rutland |
| Lincolnshire | South Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire |
| Middlesex | Middlesex |
| Norfolk | East Norfolk, West Norfolk |
| Northamptonshire, incorporating the Soke of Peterborough | Northamptonshire |
| Northumberland | South Northumberland, North Northumberland (Cheviotland) |
| Nottinghamshire | Nottinghamshire |
| Oxfordshire | Oxfordshire |
| Shropshire | Shropshire |
| Somerset | South Somerset, North Somerset |
| Staffordshire | Staffordshire |
| Suffolk | East Suffolk, West Suffolk |
| Surrey | Surrey |
| Sussex | West Sussex, East Sussex |
| Warwickshire | Warwickshire |
| West Midlands | Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire |
| Westmorland and Furness | Westmoreland with Furness |
| Wiltshire | North Wiltshire, South Wiltshire |
| Worcestershire | Worcestershire |
| Yorkshire | South-east Yorkshire, North-east Yorkshire, South-west Yorkshire, Mid-west Yorkshire, North-west Yorkshire |
| Anglesey | Anglesey |
| Brecknockshire | Brecknockshire |
| Caernarvonshire | Caernarvonshire |
| Cardiganshire | Cardiganshire |
| Carmarthenshire | Carmarthenshire |
| Denbighshire and Maelor | Denbighshire |
| Flintshire less Maelor | Flintshire |
| Glamorgan | Glamorgan |
| Merionethshire | Merionethshire |
| Monmouthshire | Monmouthshire |
| Montgomeryshire | Montgomeryshire |
| Pembrokeshire | Pembrokeshire |
| Radnorshire | Radnorshire |
| Aberdeenshire | South Aberdeenshire, North Aberdeenshire |
| Argyllshire | Main Argyll, Kintyre, Mid Ebudes, South Ebudes |
| Ayrshire | Ayrshire |
| Banffshire | Banffshire |
| Berwickshire | Berwickshire |
| Buteshire | Clyde Isles |
| Caithness | Caithness |
| Dumbartonshire | Dumbartonshire |
| Dumfriesshire | Dumfriesshire |
| Edinburghshire | Edinburghshire |
| Elginshire | Moray |
| Fife and Kinross-shire | Fife |
| Forfarshire | Angus |
| Haddingtonshire | Haddingtonshire |
| Inverness-shire and Nairnshire less Outer Hebrides | Easterness, Westerness, North Ebudes |
| Kincardineshire | Kincardineshire |
| Kirkcudbrightshire | Kirkcudbrightshire |
| Lanarkshire | Lanarkshire |
| Linlithgowshire | Linlithgowshire |
| Orkney | Orkney |
| Peeblesshire | Peeblesshire |
| Perthshire and Clackmannanshire | West Perth, Mid Perth, East Perth |
| Renfrewshire | Renfrewshire |
| Ross and Cromarty less Outer Hebrides | East Ross, West Ross |
| Roxburghshire | Roxburghshire |
| Selkirkshire | Selkirkshire |
| Stirlingshire | Stirlingshire |
| Sutherland | East Sutherland, West Sutherland |
| Wigtownshire | Wigtownshire |
| Shetland | Shetland |