Norfolk

Norfolk is a shire of East Anglia, for statistical purposes classed as part of the East of England. The county town is Norwich and other major towns include the ports of Great Yarmouth and Kings Lynn, and the seaside resorts of Cromer, Sheringham and Hunstanton. Norfolk is bound by the North Sea to the north and east, with the north-west of the county being located on the Wash, and it has land borders with Lincolnshire to the north and west, Suffolk to the south and Cambridgeshire to the south-west. Hunstanon in the far north-west of the county is around 45 miles as the crow flies from the Spurn Head peninsula in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Norfolk is renowned for its flatness, Noel Coward for example declaring emphatically of the county, "Very flat, Norfolk". Although it is not quite as low lying as Cambridgeshire, large areas of Norfolk would be threatened by a rise in sea level.

Long stretches of the Norfolk coast is comparatively unspoiled, there are several important nature reserves, and extensive areas of saltmarsh and sand dunes. The Norfolk Broads are an area of ancient flooded peat-diggings in the county, connected by rivers, that are a popular holiday destination for boating holidays, and were recently declared a National Park. Breckland, in the south of the county around Thetford, is a thinly-populated area of poor, sandy soil, heathland and pine plantations; much of it is given over to air bases and a battle training area for the British Army.

Norfolk is quite sparsely inhabited by British standards (by contrast with the Middle Ages, when it was one of the richest and most densely-populated areas of England), and important industries include agriculture and tourism.