Midlands
The Midlands is the central part of England, bordered by Wales, Northern England, Southern England and the North Sea. The Midlands correspond broadly to the early-medieval kingdom of Mercia, and later became important in the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. They are now split into two official regions, the West Midlands and East Midlands. The Midlands' biggest city, Birmingham, is the second-largest in the United Kingdom. Other important cities include Coventry, Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Wolverhampton, and Worcester.
For other uses, see Midlands (disambiguation).
The Midlands
B Other 'cities'
A1. W Midlands Urban Area (Birmingham, Wolv'n)- A2. Nottingham Urban Area
- A3. Leicester Urban Area
- A4. Stoke/Trent Urban Area
- A5. Coventry Urban Area
B1. Derby- B2. Northampton
- B3. Telford
- B4. Chesterfield
- B5. Worcester
- B6. Lincoln
- B7. Shrewsbury
- B8. Hereford
- B9. Stafford
- B10. Warwick
- B11. Oakham
28,627 km2 (11,053 sq mi)
703.6 m (2,308 ft)
10,831,000
380/km2 (980/sq mi)
Midlander, Mercian
Extent[edit]
There is no single definition for the Midlands. If defined as being made up of the statistical regions of East Midlands and West Midlands,[5] it includes the counties of Derbyshire, Herefordshire, Leicestershire, most of Lincolnshire (with the exception of North and North East Lincolnshire), Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands metropolitan boroughs.
Other definitions include a slightly larger area and the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, describes Gloucestershire as "West Midland", Bedfordshire as "South Midland", and Huntingdonshire as "East Midland" counties respectively. Cheshire is also occasionally recognised as being in the Midlands, while a lot of what was historically part of southern Mercia (Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Cambridgeshire) is often labelled as "Central England", typically used interchangeably with "the Midlands".
Additionally, there are two informal regions known as the South Midlands and North Midlands, which are not NUTS statistical regions of the United Kingdom and their definition varies by using organisation. The former includes the southern parts of the East Midlands and northern parts of Southern England.[6] The latter covers the northern parts of the West and East Midlands, along with some southern parts of Northern England.[7][8][9]
The "midland" name has been used for: