County Durham

County Durham or officially Durham, is a of  in. Its is. the county consists of ten districts, three of which are s.

It is a county of contrasts; the remote and sparsely populated s and of the  characterise the interior, while nearer the coast the county is highly urbanised, and was once dominated by the  industry.

The form of the county name is unique in England. Many counties are named after their principal town, and the expected form here would be Durhamshire. The reason it is called County Durham is that it did not become a Shire/County until after the language of government was changed from Anglo-Saxon to Norman French in 1066. Previous to that it was a semi-independent.

Durham County Council promotes the non-metropolitan county for tourism purposes as "The Land of the Prince Bishops" in reference to the former palatine jurisdiction of the bishops.

According to a marketing campaign by the charity, County Durham's is the.

History
The County Palatine of Durham and  was a by immemorial custom, with the  being princes until 1836. Until 1971 there were a series of courts in the county, and the offices of Chancellor, Attorney-General, Solicitor-General, Steward and Clerk of Halmotes, Deputy Steward, and Registrar of Halmotes. The Court of Chancery of Durham existed from the 13th century to 1971. In 1836 the separate Court of Exchequer and the Court of Admiralty were abolished. The Durham Court of Pleas survived until 1873.

Historic County
The of Durham includes a main body covering the  of the  in the west, the  in the south, the  in the east and the Rivers  and  in the north. The county several had a number of s:, and  within  Northumberland, and  within the North Riding of Yorkshire. The historic boundaries were used for parliamentary purposes until 1832, and for judicial and local government purposes until the coming into force of the, which merged most remaining exclaves with their surrounding county.

Administrative county
In 1889, under the England and Wales was divided into  and s. Administrative counties, governed by an elected, were based on the historic boundaries, less larger towns which became self-governing as county boroughs.

In 1889 the administrative county of Durham consisted of the historic county less the county boroughs of Gateshead, South Shields and Sunderland. The boundary with the North Riding of Yorkshire was adjusted: that part of the town of Barnard Castle historically in Yorkshire was added to County Durham, while the portion of the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees in Durham was ceded to the North Riding. For all non-administrative purposes, such as, the County of Durham comprised the administrative county and associated county boroughs.

Over its existence, the administrative county lost territory, both to the existing county boroughs, and also due to the creation of county boroughs at West Hartlepool in 1902 and Darlington in 1915. In 1967 the borough of Hartlepool was removed from the administrative county when it merged with West Hartlepool to form a new county borough of Hartlepool, and in 1968 Billingham was included within the boundaries of the county borough of, associated with the North Riding.

The administrative county was abolished in 1974.

Non-metropolitan county
In 1974, with the implementation of the, the administrative county (and the Durham County Council that governed it) were abolished. The Act created three new to act as government administration areas in its place: the non-metropolitan counties of Durham and ' ( the latter containing the boroughs of  and ), and the metropolitan county of ' (containing the boroughs of,  and .) The new non-metropolitan county of Durham also covered the former area of , a part of the historic North Riding of Yorkshire, and south of the historical boundary of the River Tees.

As established in 1974 the non-metropolitan county had a two-tier structure. A new Durham County Council, and eight (each governed by a district council) were formed. In 1997 the district of Darlington was removed from jurisdiction of the county council, becoming a. There are currently seven local government districts in the county. They are:


 * The , including city and the surrounding areas.
 * , including and the  of.
 * , including and.
 * , including and the villages of Teesdale, including the former area of Startforth Rural District.
 * , including, , and , and the villages along.
 * , including and.
 * , including.

The has announced that the seven district councils and the County Council will be abolished and a new unitary authority for the whole of the existing County Council area will be created. The changes are planned to be implemented no later than 1 April 2009. . The successful Durham County Council bid referred to the new authority as.

Ceremonial county
In 1997 the non-metropolitan county (including unitary Darlington), together with that part of the former county of Cleveland north of the River Tees became a county for 'ceremonial purposes' (reflecting the southern historic and administrative county boundaries). The ceremonial county of Durham is the area to which lord-lieutenants and s are appointed, and has no role in local government.

The term "County Durham" has no strict definition. It should be noted that no government Act has ever named any entity "County Durham": this has arisen out of common usage and despite this has been, and is, widely used even within government to refer to any one of the government administrion areas defined above.

Settlements
This is a list of the main towns in County Durham. The area covered is the entire ceremonial county, hence the inclusion of towns which are no longer administered by Durham County Council.

Education
Durham has a comprehensive school system with 36 state secondary schools (not including s) and 3 independent schools (two in Durham and  in Barnard Castle). Easington district has the largest school population by year, and Teesdale the smallest with two schools. Only one school in Easington and Derwentside districts have sixth forms, with about half the schools in the other districts having sixth forms. In England, 45.8% of pupils gain 5 good GCSE grades including English and Maths; for Durham's 5800 pupils taking GCSE at 16 it is 40.4 - well under the average. There is variety across the county with schools in the former mining areas performing the lowest, and schools in Durham City performing the best, and one in Chester-le-Street. There are no good schools in the Easington district. The best state school at GCSE is in Durham City, which is also as good as the  in Darlington. The catholic schools do particularly well at GCSE. The worst school is Sunnydale Community College in. The schools in Darlington either perform very well or much worse. At A level, the county performs well under the England average, with even Hartlepool getting a better average result. The best school at A-level is, getting respectable results for a comprehensive (and higher than the independent schools), followed by in Chester-le-Street. Darlington gets much better results at A-level - well above the England average, thanks to the.

GCSE results by district council (%)
% of pupils gaining 5 grades A-C including English and maths at GCSE in 2006; compare to average house price by district.
 * City of Durham 54.3
 * Teesdale 52.0
 * Chester-le-Street 47.7
 * (Darlington Unitary Authority 44.7)
 * Derwentside 42.0
 * Wear Valley 39.8
 * (Hartlepool Unitary Authority 37.5)
 * Sedgefield 36.8
 * Easington 29.0

Places of interest

 * , [[Image:HH icon.png|Historic house]]
 * [[Image:EH icon.png|English Heritage]] [[Image:HH icon.png|Historic house]]
 * , in Stanley [[Image:UKAL icon.png|Accessible open space]] [[Image:Museum icon (red).png|Museum (charges for entry)]] [[Image:HR icon.png|Heritage railway]]
 * , in Barnard Castle [[Image:Museum icon (red).png|Museum (charges for entry)]] [[Image:HH icon.png|Historic house]]
 * , near Stanley
 * and, a
 * , near
 * , near [[Image:EH icon.png|English Heritage]]
 * [[Image:FC icon.png|Forestry Commission]]
 * [[Image:CP icon.png|Country Park]] near
 * and s, on the  [[Image:UKAL icon.png|Accessible open space]]
 * , part of the North of England Lead Mining Museum in [[Image:Museum icon (red).png|Museum (charges for entry)]]
 * railway museum, in [[Image:HR icon.png|Heritage railway]] [[Image:Museum icon.png|Museum (free entry)]]
 * , near Stanley
 * , near
 * , in [[Image:HR icon.png|Heritage railway]]
 * , in [[Image:HR icon.png|Heritage railway]]