Lancashire

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)

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

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]

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.