To ask why county boundaries change?

[AutisticLegoLover]

It happens to countries too.
I've just been reading the Manchester Evening News and there was an article on a village that used to be in one county and then it's in another. The MEN is atrocious as far as its journalism goes but I'll link it anyway.

It got me thinking about how my mum and nana used to classify themselves and a conversation with my much older sister back in the 80s. My sister considered herself a Mancunian. She was living in Fallowfield at the time but had grown up between Yorkshire and Greater Manchester/Cheshire. Mum disagreed and said she was a Lancasarian (or similar, I was young and can't remember exactly). My sister was born in Yorkshire so I was totally baffled by this as we were living in the midlands at the time. Mum said I too was from Lancashire. My Nana was from Lancashire as was my Grandad and my mum was born in a lam ashore town that's now part of one of the areas of greater Manchester but not referred to as Lancashire now.
Over the years I've wondered about this because Greater Manchester incorporates several counties. I have never considered myself Mancunian and was brought up and now live in a small town in Cheshire on the edge of Derbyshire or also known as High Peak. The nearest big town is not one I identify with either and find myself a bit lost really when it comes to my regional identity.
It's bloody confusing! We were mostly born within 10 miles of each other except for the Yorkshire born siblings. My dad was born in Lincolnshire i think and lived mostly in Yorkshire as a child and young adult but he was definitely a Yorkshireman and I feel quite an affinity with God's own county.

I suspect that if I looked at Greater London history my mind would be blown. To me it's a fairly far off mystery place that is bloody massive and I don't know where London begins or ends. It has zones according to what I've read here.

Inside the Yorkshire that town that woke up in Lancashire 50 years ago www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/inside-yorkshire-town-woke-up-25616384?utm_source=app

So basically what are they messing about with changing boundaries and if you are from somewhere that has had its boundaries messed with over the years how the hell do you know how to identify yourself?

Well in Wales they changed the names as well as boundaries. Conwy was in Caernarvonshire, Caernarfonshire now it's the town of Conwy, in the county of Conwy. And they're moving it all again in the near future. It's political here

The Greater Manchester case is from 1974. Merseyside too I believe. So it's not so recent. Can't believe how many people say they are from Lancashire or Cheshire when they are not. Even those that are born way after it changed.

As to your question of why. Well, these smaller towns like bury and Stockport etc, over time, fell into the orbit of Manchester. They were no longer very independent of the big city and kind of merged into it as Manchester grew. It therefore makes perfect sense to have an overarching administrative entity.

I was born in a part ofLancashire that’s now in Merseyside. I live in a be part of Lancashire that used to be in Yorkshire.

It happens over history, I believe Manchester and most of the middle of England was part of Mercia historically.

Lancashire lost it's two biggest cities through this process too and a huge chunk of it's population. You can see how Lancashire and Yorkshire were fairly evenly matched historically. If you took West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire out of Yorkshire and renamed them 'Greater Leeds' and 'Greater Sheffield' that's essentially what happened to Lancashire. It gives you some idea how Lancashire was reduced in 1974.

Bournemouth used to be in Hampshire...it's now in Dorset !!!

It 'moved ' in 1974

And Middlesex doesn’t exist at all anymore does it?

I remember there was a massive county boundary change in 1974 - leading to the theoretical demise of Rutland - and just when everybody nearly got used to the changes (kind of) there were loads of boundary changes again.

I have a great aunt from Cumberland (not Cumbria) who waxes lyrical.

When we were in Dubrovnik I got talking to a guy who said his grandfather had only ever lived in Dubrovnik but had had (I think) 4 different passports due to the changes!

Local government boundaries have changed for various reasons, most notably in 1974 and the abolition of Metropolitan councils in the 1980s. However, postal addresses have not, seemingly. Cricket counties are the original ones as well.

I identify my area by the cricket county, though usually don't talk about counties very much.

There's massive chunks of Cheshire that have been nicked - including Manchester Airport (which pays £££££££ to Manchester CC) and the Wirral.
Look at the maps pre 1974.

We don't even have a local BBC radio station...
Choose between Merseyside, Manchester, Wales, Staffordshire, Shropshire and Derbyshire...well worth the license fee not

A woman I met recently, described herself as a Hungarian from Romania. I thought that meant she was originally from Hungary, but her family later emigrated to Romania. In fact this Hungarian family have lived in the same area for generations, but the country borders moved and left them behind! They are Romanian citizens with Hungarian names, who speak Hungarian at home and enjoy a good gulas/goulash.

That is because large parts if what was Hungary were carved off randomly and given to neighbouring countries like Croatia and Romania at the end of the second world war, even though those areas had been part of Hungary since the country was formed. Hungary has a very different culture and linguistic roots etc to those places so it was entirely artificial, also geographically in terms of mountain ranges etc that provided natural land borders. The people living in those areas as you say still consider themselves Hungarian, have nost of their extended family in Hungary and speak it as their native language, but have been denied the right to self-determination. I believe many are allowed by the Hungarian Government to vote in Hungarian elections, but the countries they ostensibly live in now won't let them decide to rejoin the country they feel they belong to. I believe in Romania in particular there has been lots of prejudice against the Hungarians living there, with the Romanian Government attempting to outlaw them speaking Hungarian and taking down road signs with ancient Hungarian places names on etc.

There was, maybe still is a village near East Midlands Airport that had something like a Nottingham dialing code, a Derbyshire postcode but was in Leicestershire. In fact the airport might have been the same.

Pretty much the whole of Saddleworth still thinks that they're in Yorkshire..... they even celebrate Yorkshire Day!

I’m also in a Lancashire town that’s now in greater Manchester, We have a Manchester dialling code and a Lancashire postcode.
I always say I’m from Manchester, I was born in a central Manchester borough but moved to my now hometown in high school, my MIL insists we are in Lancashire though.

I must live near where you're talking about OP. New Mills?

I'm in Cheshire, that used to be Lancashire. Although it falls under Greater Manchester now too. Its very odd being on the edge of 3 counties and the border of 2 council towns. 1 mile away in one direction they have a different start of post code and in the other direction is a different telephone prefix. I'm in a weird blend of 2 towns.

Come April 2023 the county council of Cumbria is going to be reorganised into two new administrative councils that will be called....

Cumberland

Westmorland and Furness

For the poster above who said historical county boundaries haven't changed, they absolutely have. What is now the county Cumbria mostly used to be two counties called Westmorland and Cumberland. In the boundary changes in the 1970s those two counties combined along with a few stray bits of Lancashire (Barrow in Furness) and a tiny bit of Yorkshire. These weren't administrative changes but actual boundary changes and renaming of counties.

I didn’t know most of this - I find it very interesting, as well as sad.

Abingdon was deemed to be too close to Oxford to be the county town of Berkshire. The older relatives never got used to it and until the late 90s we were still receiving Abingdon, Berkshire addressed post 😊

I live in Somerset, which has seen a few changes (as a PP described much better than I could). I wouldn’t blame anyone for being confused about whether Bath or Bristol are still part of the county. What I do find odd is the common belief that Taunton, our county town, is in Devon!

That was the Treaty of Trianon in 1920, after WW1.

Ah yes, apologies. Versailles. Amazing that after 100 years it is still doing so much damage to so many people.

It was designed as a punishment for the countries that were on the losing side if the war; huge parts of their countries chopped off and given to their winning side neighbours. Little thought to the people who actually live there and the impact that would have, and is still having now.

I think it's also one of the reasons (among many!) that Romania can't join the EU. There is a basic right to self-determination that they are denying. A bit like with Turkey still occupying half of Cyprus. Economic tests aside, you can't really join if you're occupying part of another country or denying self-determination rights. Mind you, Croatia was allowed to join when their treatment of the majority Hungarian population around Split - which used to be the Hungarian coast - is not that dissimilar.

There are issues like this in other countries in the EU also, many of them a result of that same treaty which was a huge mistake in bow it was designed and to this day causes so many tensions, separating many people from their homelands. All very sad indeed.

I guess administrative county lines within a country moving is inconvenient rather than a disruption on that level, which will persist indefinitely. In the UK because our natural borders are so clearly defined by the sea, we aren't so aware of these types of issues as on the continent where borders of whole countries have moved over time. I have family who live on the French/ German border and had similar issues going back in history. But I suppose this "carve off" by treaty of huge swathes of a country in one go into a fairly alien culture where they don't fit at all was much more damaging, especially when 100 years later still nobody is listening to them!