Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs) is a county in, bordering to the north,  to the northeast,  to the east,  and  to the south, and  and  to the west. Cambridgeshire contains most of the region known as. The is.

Cambridgeshire is twinned with in.

History
Cambridgeshire was recorded in the as "Grantbridgeshire" (or rather Grentebrigescire). Covering a large part of East Anglia, Cambridgeshire today is the product of several local government unifications. In when s where introduced, two were set up, following the traditional division of Cambridgeshire into the area in the south around Cambridge, and the liberty of the. In, these two administrative counties were merged to form. In , this then merged with the county to the west, (which had been created in 1965 by the merger of  with the  - a part of  which had its own county council). The resulting county was called simply 'Cambridgeshire'.

Since the  has been a separately administered area, as a, but is associated with Cambridgeshire for ceremonial purposes such as , and functions such as policing and the fire service.

In 2002, the conservation charity unofficially designated Cambridgeshire's  as the.

A great quantity of finds from the, the  and the  were made in. Most items were found in.

The (or Fen Tigers) county based army unit fought in South Africa, WWI and WWII. Most English counties have nicknames for people from that county, such as a from  and a  from ; the traditional  for people from Cambridgeshire is 'Cambridgeshire Camel' or 'Cambridgeshire Crane', referring to the wildfowl which were once abundant in the fens.

Original historical documents relating to Cambridgeshire are held by.

Geography
Large areas of the county are extremely low-lying and is notable for being the UK's lowest physical point at 2.75 m (9 ft) below sea level. The highest point is in the village of at 146 m/480 ft above sea level. Other hills are  and  in the,  above ,  and the.

Economy
This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Cambridgeshire at current basic prices published (pp.240-253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

is based in Huntingdon. The has a few bases in the Huntingdon and  area. Most of Cambridgeshire is agricultural. Close to Cambridge is the so-called area of high-technology (electronics, computing and biotechnology) companies. is based in.

Education
Cambridgeshire has a completely comprehensive education system with 12 independent schools and 29 state schools, not including s. The average number of pupils in England achieving 5 GCSEs at grades A-C including English and Maths is 45.8%; for Cambridgeshire it is 50.1% which is one of the highest in England for traditional counties. Huntingdonshire district has the highest school population by year, with Fenland having the smallest (closely followed by East Cambridgeshire). There is variation across the county with South Cambridgeshire having a very high percentage with 5 grades A-C; one of the highest performing districts in England. South Cambridgeshire simply does not have any bad schools. At GCSE, the best state school is (CVC) in  in South Cambridgeshire, with  in Cambridge also doing well. The worst school at GCSE is the Queen's School in Wisbech. Huntingdonshire has five good schools and two low performing schools, which could be similar to a selective education system. At A level, the county does reasonably well, but not as good as the results found at GCSE. In general the independent schools do the best at A level, which is not true for the situation in other nearby counties. In the East of England, only one Cambridgeshire state school has particularly good A level results - the in Cambridge. The other state schools are average, but the county has A level results as a whole above the England average. Overall at A level, the best results are dominated by the independent schools, with being the best, followed by, both in Cambridge.

Average score at GCSE by council district (%)
% of pupils with 5 grades A-C including Maths and English in 2006.
 * South Cambridgeshire 61.1
 * East Cambridgeshire 53.4
 * Cambridge 51.9
 * Huntingdonshire 48.9
 * (City of Peterborough Unitary Authority 39.4)
 * Fenland 36.6

Settlements
These are the settlements in Cambridgeshire with a town charter, city status or a population over 5,000; for a complete list of settlements see.


 * (no longer part of the administrative county)
 * (no longer part of the administrative county)
 * (no longer part of the administrative county)
 * (no longer part of the administrative county)
 * (no longer part of the administrative county)
 * (no longer part of the administrative county)
 * (no longer part of the administrative county)
 * (no longer part of the administrative county)
 * (no longer part of the administrative county)

The town of is surrounded on three sides by Cambridgeshire, being connected by a narrow strip of land to the rest of.

Famous people from Cambridgeshire
As well as those born in the county there are many notable people from, or associated with, Cambridgeshire who moved there, particularly due to the presence of Cambridge University.

Cambridgeshire lays claim to Prime Ministers and, businessmen   and , social reformers  and , and. Scientists include and, and. ,, , and are all famous literary figures who hail from Cambridgeshire.

In entertainment, cartoonist, comedian , television presenter , and radio sports presenter are all from Cambridgeshire. , and  are all associated with film, while musicians include, lead singer of ; , lead singer for ;  and  of ; , keyboardist in the rock band Deep Purple; trombonist ; , of dance music band ; , founding member of  and well known  player; and. Athletes, , and are also from the county.

, televangelist, and are from Cambridgeshire.