Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Country	England
Borders	Buckinghamshire Cambridgeshire Hertfordshire Huntingdonshire Northamptonshire
Population	602,847
Area (sq mi)	468 square miles

Bedfordshire is a county of southern England lying between the Home Counties and the Midlands. It is bordered by Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire and Buckinghamshire. The topography is mainly low-lying, with some fenland areas in the east of the county. The county town is Bedford, home of John Bunyan, but the main urban centre is the industrial and university town of Luton. Other notable settlements in the county include Biggleswade, Dunstable, Flitwick, Leighton Buzzard, Sandy and the new town Wixams. Major industries include motor manufacture in Luton and brick manufacture in the north of the county; the need of the brick industry for labour led to the immigration of many people from Italy in the years following the Second World War.

Geography

Bedfordshire is largely low-lying and forms a part of the drainage basin of the River Great Ouse. However, the southern edge of the county contains part of the Chiltern Hills in which the Dunstable Downs, the highest point in the county at 797 ft (243 meters), are located.

The county traditionally divides into nine hundreds: Barford, Biggleswade, Clifton, Flitt, Manshead, Redbornstoke, Stodden, Willey and Wixamtree (after which to modern town Wixams is named).