North West England
North West England is a statistical region consisting of 23 unitary authorities and one non-metropolitan council area. The council areas that comprise the region cover all of the traditional counties Cumberland and Westmorland, most of Lancashire and Cheshire, plus smaller areas of western Yorkshire and Derbyshire.
By far the largest settlements in the North West are Liverpool and Manchester. Other major towns and cities include Blackburn, Bolton, Carlisle, Preston, Rochdale, Sale, Salford, Stockport and Wigan. Due to their northern characteristics, some areas of Staffordshire, such as the major city Stoke-on-Trent, may be included in more broad definitions of the North West, although this is officially classed as part of the West Midlands for statistical purposes.
Geography
The current statistical definition of the North West of England stretches from the Solway Firth, which forms part of the English border with Scotland, and the Lake District in the north, to the Cheshire Plains in the south, which is bound by the plains of northern Shropshire and Staffordshire in the West Midlands. The region is one of the most mountainous in England; the east of the region is largely characterised by the Pennines, the largest range of uplands in England, which forms a natural boundary with Yorkshire and the Humber and the North East of England. England's tallest mountain, Scafell Pike stands at just under 3,000 feet and is within the Lake District national park, which comprises much of extreme north of the region. To the west, the region is mostly bound by the Irish Sea, with the far south west of the region bordering north east Wales.
The main river in the North West is the Mersey, which marks much of the border between Cheshire and Lancashire, and divides the Wirral and Liverpool at its estuary into the Irish Sea. Another major river in the North West is the River Ribble, which enters the Irish Sea just south of Blackpool. The rivers Tees and Tyne are mostly associated with the North East, but they have their sources in the far North West.
Definitions
The current statistical region, established in 1994, broadly corresponds to the traditional counties Cumberland, Cheshire, Lancashire (save for a small part Yorkshire and the Humber) and Westmorland, with a few large but sparsely populated areas of Yorkshire (such as Bowland and an area of the Howgills around Sedbergh), and an even smaller area of Derbyshire.
Other definitions may be used for official purposes. North West Ambulance Service, for example, covers the statistical region with the addition of a larger area of Derbyshire, the entire High Peak district to be exact.
