Cambridgeshire

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Cambridgeshire


Sovereign state United Kingdom
Country England
Borders Essex
Huntingdonshire
Lincolnshire
Norfolk
Northamptonshire
Suffolk

Cambridgeshire, usually abbreviated Cambs., is a shire of East Anglia, located in eastern and southern England. The county population is around 460,448. The county town is city of Cambridge, which is known for its prestigious university. Other notable centres include March, Wisbech, and the cathedral city of Ely.

Cambridgeshire is largely agricultural, and the terrain is extremely flat: much of the northern part of the county forms part of Fenland, rich, low-lying farmland reclaimed from marshland. To the north lies Lincolnshire, with Norfolk and Suffolk lying to the east, to the south is Essex and to the west Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire.

Geography

The county is located in East Anglia, with Essex lying to the south and the Midlands to the north-west.

History

The Cambridgeshire-Northants border is home to Flag Fen, the site of on of the earliest-known neolithic settlements in Great Britain. The site is at least 3,500 years old.

At the time of Ptolemy in the 2nd century, much of present-day Cambridgeshire was occupied by the British Celtic tribe Catuvellauni, who led the resistance against the Romans in the 1st century. The north-east of the county (around The Fens) was at that time within the territory of the Iceni, the tribe best-known for its association with Boudica. The present-day city of Cambridge was occupied by a Roman settlement, Duroliponte, which originated as an Iron Age hillfort at which the Romans established a small military station in the late 1st century AD.

East Anglia, including Cambridgeshire, was among the first parts of Great Britain to be settled by Germanic-speaking peoples, starting in the 5th century AD. Genetic testing on seven skeletons found in Anglo-Saxon era graves in Hinxton and Oakington found that five were either migrants or descended from migrants from the continent, one was a native Celtic Briton, and one had a mix of continental and native ancestry, suggesting intermarriage.

Transport

There are two main long-distance routes in Cambridgeshire; the A14 road traverses the county from west to east as part of its 140-mile course between the Midlands and Felixstowe in Suffolk, the UK's largest container port. At Girton, just north-west of Cambridge, the M11 motorway heads toward South Woodford in Essex, forming the main link between the county and the London built-up area.

Administration

As of 2024, Cambridgeshire is mainly administered by Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC) and the councils of the various districts into which CCC's area is divided.. However, that council area is larger than the county proper (from which it is legally distinct) and contains areas of other counties, including the vast majority of Huntingdonshire (including the county town of Huntingdon). Part of north-west Cambridgeshire is administered by Peterborough City Council.

Similarly-named county for the purposes of lieutenancy

A county for the purposes of lieutenancy also shares its name (but is both legally and geographically distinct from) the county proper Cambridgeshire. It comprises the council areas of Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council, thus also covering much of Huntingdonshire with the addition of the far east of Northamptonshire.