Lancashire

Lancashire (lăng`kəshĭr, –shər), county (1991 pop. 1,365,100), 1,878 sq mi (4,864 sq km), N England, on the Irish Sea. The county town is Lancaster. The northwestern portion of the county is part of the Lake District; in the west and south are lowlands (the Lancashire plain) and occasional moors, with deposits of coal, slate, and sandstone. The principal rivers are the Mersey (which forms much of the county's southern border), the Lune, the Wyre, and the Ribble. The coastline is low and broken by estuaries. Morecambe Bay separates Furness from the rest of the county. Lancashire's principal cities are Manchester and Liverpool. The chief manufactures are textiles, paper, chemicals, rubber goods, and glass. Vegetables and dairy products are also economically important, and market gardening is a major source of income near the Ribble estuary. Lancaster and Preston are industrial hubs. Lancashire in Anglo-Saxon times was part of the kingdom of Northumbria. In 1351 it was made a county palatine, and in 1399 the palatine rights were vested in the king. Lancashire's economic growth began in medieval times with the introduction of the woolen industry. The process was accelerated by the Industrial Revolution, and the population increased rapidly in the 19th and early 20th cent. In 1974, Lancashire was reorganized as a nonmetropolitan county.

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Lancashire

Administrative (pop. 2001: 1,134,976), historic, and geographic county, northwestern England. The administrative county comprises 12 districts. In the early Middle Ages it was a province of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. The region included the ancestral lands of the house of Lancaster. In the Industrial Revolution it became an important manufacturing region and a centre of the textile industry. Lancaster and Preston are its major market and industrial cities; it also has resort towns, including Blackpool, on the Irish Sea.

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Lancashire

a county of NW England, on the Irish Sea: became a county palatine in 1351 and a duchy attached to the Crown; much reduced in size after the 1974 boundary changes, losing the Furness district to Cumbria and much of the south to Greater Manchester, Merseyside, and Cheshire: Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool became independent unitary authorities in 1998. It was traditionally a cotton textiles manufacturing region. Administrative centre: Preston. Pop. (excluding unitary authorities): 1 147 000 (2003 est.). Area (excluding unitary authorities): 2889 sq. km (1115 sq. miles)

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Lancashire 

a former (until 1975) county in Great Britain, in England. Situated chiefly on a plain between the coast of the Irish Sea and the foothills of the Pennines, in the basin of the Mersey, Ribble, and Wyre rivers. Area, 4,800 sq km. Population, 5.1 million (1971). Administrative center, Preston.

There are two conurbations in the south—Greater Manchester (centering on Manchester) and Merseyside (centering on Liverpool). This part of the former county is Great Britain’s oldest industrial region, which became famous in the 18th and 19th centuries for its cotton manufacture. The industrial structure of Lancashire has changed considerably. Textile production is still important, but the coal, metallurgy, machine-building, chemical, and food-processing industries have also developed. The machine-tool, automobile, electrical-engineering, and electronics industries are particularly important, as are new chemical enterprises producing chemical and synthetic fibers. The new counties of Lancashire, Greater Manchester, and Merseyside have been formed from the former county of Lancashire. [14–427–7; updated]