What are the regions of England?
England is divided into nine official regions: the North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, East of England, London, South East and South West. They are used mainly for statistics and planning.
The regions were created in the 1990s for government administration and statistics. They group together counties and local authorities with shared economic and geographic ties.
London is the only region with its own elected regional government, the Greater London Authority, led by the Mayor of London.
What each region includes
The North East includes Newcastle, Sunderland and Northumberland. The North West includes Manchester, Liverpool, Lancashire and Cumbria. Yorkshire and the Humber includes Leeds, Sheffield, York and Hull.
The East Midlands includes Nottingham, Leicester and Derby, while the West Midlands includes Birmingham, Coventry and Stoke-on-Trent. The East of England covers Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire.
The South East surrounds London and includes Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Oxfordshire and Hampshire. The South West includes Bristol, Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset. Many people also talk informally about the North and the South, which have different accents, economies and cultural traditions.