To ask what you consider “The North”?

[Hairbrush123]

Just a post about being a Northerner/Southerner which made me think - what do you consider as “The North”? I’ve never had a solid answer for this and just wanted to know the general census on this.

@PuppyMonkey

I don’t see Northants as the East Midlands. East Midlands is Notts, Derbyshire, Leicestershire.

Northamptonshire is in the Midlands and so are Lincolnshire and Rutland. Did a lot of you not have Geography lessons at school? It's not as though you're being asked questions about remote pacific islands 🙄

"So is Middlesbrough in the Midlands, then?" Where? 😂 Oh go on then, you can be a Northener too PickAChew.

Another test is how you refer to going to London. Do you go Down to London, or Up to London? Only southerners go Up to London IMO. In Oxfordshire which is either South Midlands or South East, depending on what sort of identity crisis it's having, people go up to London even though they are going south.

Other tests are of course what your area calls their evening meal. It's tea if you are a northerner. Non of this affected Dinner/supper that the southerners come out with.

The government consider anything north of Watford gap Northern, living in Yorkshire I consider anything below there as Southern.

Anything above York is the north

Anything below Northampton is the south and the bit in the middle is the midlands

@Hairbrush123

I personally consider The North anything above Birmingham .

That's a bit embarrassing

In England, from Middlesbrough upwards.

I would say north of the Midlands up to Scotland.

I’m from cornwall so anything past plymouth

Pretty much everything past Chiverton Roundabout is "Up Country" to me

Staffordshire upwards

Anything above of Derby.

Islington

I’d say Sheffield is he start of the North and the midlands starting from about Northampton.

I think the break between the Midlands and the North can cut across counties too. I'm in South Staffordshire and would say that's definitely Midlands, but northern Staffordshire (Stoke and the Potteries) feels more northern to me. The accents are more 'northern' and less Midlands too. The same with north and south Derbyshire too.

The Guardian had an article a few weeks ago about how Scotland should 'look North' to Denmark for an idea of how things might look post-independence.

Denmark is not north of Scotland - fly north from Edinburgh and you'll see Shetland out of the right window and possibly the Faroe Isles out of the left window, but then nothing until the polar ice comes into view and you eventually reach the North Pole.

Denmark is east of Scotland and the capital of Denmark is further south than the capital of Scotland.

Broadly, anything north of a line from the Mersey to the Humber, although I concede I tend to think of Cheshire as being in the north-west.

I have a Yorkshire born and bred friend who claims that Sheffield is really in the midlands, but because it's in Yorkshire, it considers itself to be in the north.

Lancashire/yorkshire and points north.

Anywhere where a Southern accent changes to a Northern one so Midlands upwards ish.

I’m not convinced there is a definite dividing line tbh. I’m from the very south of the midlands but don’t think of myself as southern (some here would say I was as we are south of Birmingham).

@Divineswirls

Anywhere where a Southern accent changes to a Northern one so Midlands upwards ish.

Most Midlands accents aren’t northern though. Accents don’t start to sound northern till you get to Stoke.

Anything Sheffield and upwards in England.

@Divineswirls

Anywhere where a Southern accent changes to a Northern one so Midlands upwards ish.

Bit the Midlands isn't in the North and a Brummie / Black Country accent for example is Def not Northern

From Manchester/Sheffield and up

(To the PPs saying Watford - time to meet the Midlands )

I never imagine any part of Wales to be northern, so I draw a line from the top of the Welsh border across to the East coast. Anything above that is north, so roughly Liverpool/Sheffield and up.