What’s the furthest north in the UK you’ve been? Where do you think the north starts?

[BarrelOfOtters]

Prompted by a friend who has never been north of Birmingham and thinks of that as North.

orkney for me.

The thing is, we weren’t given a midlands option. It was north, south, that’s it.

and i stand by my earlier comment. Northern-ness and Southern-ness are a state of mind, not a position of geography. And the West Midlands, which is what I know best, is northern in mindset and culture. It isn’t Southern in any way shape or form.

@DownNative , yes, Great Britain not the UK. I delberately looked for it to get somewhere on land not in the middle of the sea.

And the West Midlands, which is what I know best, is northern in mindset and culture. It isn’t Southern in any way shape or form.

I grew up in the south, lived 6 years in brum before returning to my roots in 'the North' (yorks and lands) ... I wouldn't remotely have called Birmingham 'northern'.
'Southern' is also, of course, a ridiculously vague term with no definable 'culture'. Affluent south-east, rural south west, east Anglia, coastal... in terms of culture a lot depends more on urban/rural and whether it's a post-industrial area.

The term "midlands" simply means "middle part of a country.

West & East Midlands in England is also part of the middle part of the UK along with other bits above it. Lancashire is the centre of the UK, specifically Morecambe Bay.

In terms of direction of travel across a country, it doesn't just go from south to north abruptly. You transition from south to middle part to north and vice versa.

No idea why you mentioned Douglas which is on Isle Of Man and that's NOT part of the United Kingdom! 🤷‍♂️

If you want to see what I mean by north, midlands and south for UK, I posted an image with two lines across it.

The link I gave earlier has the ordanance survey centroids, for GB it's still in Lancashire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CentrepointssoftheeUnited_Kingdom

Its further west than most people would think, maybe because we tend to look at the map skew-whiff and be surprised Edinburgh is further west than Bristol.

Morecambe would be the nearest to UK centre on land. The exact geographic centre is not far off there anyway. 👍

Sorry, my mistake mentioning Douglas. Part of my brain forgot for a moment that the IOM isn't in the UK.

I suppose I made another mistake too. I should have written "If you can find a single reference anywhere other than in your own posts on this thread to 'the midlands' in reference to the central part of the UK, I'll eat my hat."

I know what you mean by the midlands for the UK. As you said, you helpfully posted a map. But this doesn't justify the statement that it writing midlands without an initial capital letter "should be enough to let people know" that it's a reference to the midlands of the UK.

The Oxford English Dictionary only has an entry for Midland, capitalised thus. Similarly, Collins English Dictionary only has the Midlands, capitalised, and defined as "the central counties of England". Even in American English, I can only see a capitalised entry in Webster's, with the definition "the central counties of England".

I really don't believe anyone except you has ever referred to the UK as having "midlands". And that's probably because everyone would assume they meant the Midlands!

Those same dictionaries also state that a midland is the middle part of a country. It gives the USA as an example even though the US doesn't use that term in an official capacity.

In Northern Ireland, the midland of it is officially known as Mid Ulster too.

When we use "midlands" with a lower case, it's an adjective. But if we use it with a capital M as in Midlands its a noun since the Midlands is an official place in England.

Obviously, I'm using it in the sense of 1 and 4 especially.

But this was the point I tried to make on page 1 or 2. People in England think people in the UK understand the phrase 'the north' to mean Newcastle etc. They don't. This is an English phrase, used in England. If you say it in Scotland, people will assume you are talking about the north of Scotland. I honestly wasn't really aware of the whole north-south divide in England until I moved there for university, in the same way many English people won't realise there is something of an east-west divide in Scotland.

Yes, that's why I said 'the majority in the U.K.'.
I'm curious - where would a Scot or welsh person think 'the midlands' meant?

If you draw a line between the Severn and the Wash, below it is the South.

Then another line from the Wirral (Dee estuary) to Hull estuary, and below that is the Midlands.

Everything above that is the North.

Furthest north I’ve been? Arctic Circle 😉

I'm not confusing the UK with England.

It's quite clear that if you're talking about the UK, anything south of Carlisle is closer to the south coast than it is to the north coast

So the only sensible way to answer this question is in terms of England, and Yorkshire is in the north of England.

"midlands" isn't a term usually used in English. Since when has there been an accurate use of upper case and lower case, or indeed any other grammatical construct, on MN?

Furthest north I've been - Inverness.

The north starts above a wavy line drawn between the Wirral and the Humber estuary. Sort of.

But you are since you only used English references when the question concerns the whole of the United Kingdom.

If the question WAS actually about England's internal divide, you would be correct in saying that's the only sensible way to answer it - in terms of England.

But it's not and you're not correct since it is UK wide.

An England centric focus is irrelevant with respect to the actual question posed.

So, I would argue the only sensible way to sort the UK is in terms of north, midland and south since we largely travel up and down. Could substitute midland for Central to avoid any confusion with England's Midlands.

Similarly, you'd sort the USA out in those terms - West, midland or MidWest and East since they largely travel west and east.

So do I, but a friend born in north Yorkshire maintains that Sheffield is actually in the midlands, but claims northern status purely because it's lucky enough to be in Yorkshire.

I've never been north of Edinburgh.

D'oh! I was typing in the plural. The singular does indeed give the generalised definition as you point out.

I still disagree that just writing "midland" (or midlands) without a capital should inherently convey that someone is referring to the midlands of the UK as you stated though. You would need to specify "the midlands of the UK", and even then you're likely to be misunderstood as meaning "the Midlands, which are in the UK". To be safely understood you would probably need to be very explicit, e.g., "the midlands of the UK, as opposed to the Midlands region of England". By that point, it's got so clunky you'd be better just saying "the central part of the UK".

I've never heard or read anything referring to the UK midlands before this thread, whereas the Midlands (And related term Midland), which like it or not is frequently left uncapitalised in informal writing and indistinguishable in speech, is a term is very widespread use.

Similarly, you'd sort the USA out in those terms - West, midland or MidWest and East since they largely travel west and east.

You really wouldn't, if you think about history&culture, geography etc! The MidWest isn't the complete vertical strip you suggest, and the Americans do also use the term 'Midland', not entirely well defined but a region between the north/New England and the South in the eastern part of the country. And I'm not sure where you get the idea that 'they largely travel west and east.' from.

Yep - this. Totally agree.

furthest north for me is Aberdeen.

This feels about right to me, and is pretty consistent with my way line somewhere around Crewe-Grimsby. And for me it's the same answer whether you're talking about the north/south/middle bit of England or the north/south/middle bit of Great Britain.

As to the north/south/middle of the UK, that just isn't something I think of at all. NI is on a separate land mass and I don't particularly have a concept of whether it's in "the north" or not, any more than I have a concept of whether Denmark or the Netherlands are in "the north".

The important thing to note, @DownNative , is that the thread is about where people "think of" as the north. Not where you'd have to draw a line in order for a certain percentage of the land mass or population to be north of the line.

I think of the north of the UK as consisting of Scotland and the north of England, so the north of the UK starts at exactly the same point for me as the north of England does.

Orkney for a rugby match.

When my DPs moved from Croydon to Milton Keynes, a friend asked me how I felt about them moving "Up North"!

It turned out she thought that Milton Keynes was somewhere near Newcastle/Durham.

Anywhere above the border between Scotland and England. To us crossing the border into England is called "going down south".

I've been up to Loch Lomond, that's my northernmost point of reference, but I am that annoying sort of Londoner who thinks that the north begins at Watford. Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire are definitely "up north", they out gravy on their chips FFS!

@YokoOnosBigHat , Watford Gap, not Watford. They aren't the same place. Watford Gap is near Northampton, I think.