The East of England is one of the nine official regions of England. It was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics from 1999. It includes the ceremonial counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Essex has the highest population in the region.

Its population as of the 2001 census was 5,388,140.^{[citation needed]} The area is mostly low-lying, and the highest place is the top of the Dunstable Downs at 243 m (797 ft).^{[citation needed]}Norwich, Peterborough, Luton and Southend-on-Sea are the region's most populous urban areas. The southern part of the region lies in the London commuter belt.

The area is one of the flattest in the UK. Cambridgeshire is part of The Fens. The lowest point in the UK is Holme Fen, which is 3 metres below sea level.

Before the creation of the East of England region there had been a smaller standard statistical region of East Anglia which did not include Essex, Hertfordshire or Bedfordshire. They had previously been included in the South East region. The East of England civil defence region shared the boundaries of the current region.

England ⁱ/ˈɪŋɡlənd/ is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, while the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separate it from continental Europe. Most of England comprises the central and southern part of the island of Great Britain in the North Atlantic. The country also includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world. The English language, the Anglican Church, and English law—the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world—developed in England, and the country's parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's Royal Society laid the foundations of modern experimental science.