British Isles: Historic Counties

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Throughout the histories of the four countries of the UK, a variety of languages have been used to name places. These languages were often used in parallel with each other. As a result, it is often difficult to assess the genuine etymology of a placename, hence some of the entries below are assigned more than one meaning, depending on which language was used to originally give the place its name. One of the most common words used in county names in the UK is the suffix -shire. This is a West Saxon word meaning division.

Historic Counties of the United Kingdom, colored by Name Suffixes