The 1971 Census was therefore the last to include mention of the following counties:
England – Westmorland, Huntingdonshire, Cumberland
Scotland – Caithness, Nairnshire, Kincardineshire, Zetland
Wales – Flintshire, Merionethshire, Radnorshire, Monmouthshire
These counties offer a snapshot of time gone by, and provide a wealth of historical information not only about the administrative geography of the UK, but also the culture and identity of local communities that stretches right back to the Normans, Anglo-Saxons, and Celts.
Zetland was the old pronunciation of Shetland, it america rcs data is thought the derivation is from the Old Norse for hill-land or that the first syllable is derived from the name of an ancient Celtic tribe.
Merionethshire or Sir Feirionnydd supposedly took its name from Meirion, a warrior prince of the 5th Century.
Westmorland or Westmōringaland is the Anglo-Saxon land west of the moors. In England, shires had been created by the Kingdom of Wessex to control their land and then spread to the rest of England following Wessex’s political and military dominance.
The first shires of Scotland were created in Anglo-Saxon settled areas in Lothian and the Borders, King David I of Scotland created shires across his kingdom in the ninth century.
The name “county” was introduced by the Normans, and was derived from a Norman term for an area administered by a Comte or Count. Norman counties were simply the Anglo-Saxon shires, however, and generally kept the same names and borders though some small shires such as Hallamshire and Cravenshire were amalgamated into Yorkshire.