- published: 03 Sep 2015
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Coordinates: 52°17′N 0°50′W / 52.283°N 0.833°W / 52.283; -0.833
Northamptonshire ( /nɔrˈθæmptənʃər/ or /nɔrθˈhæmptənʃɪər/; archaically, the County of Northampton; abbreviated Northants. or N/hants) is a landlocked ceremonial county in the East Midlands region of England. Its population is 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with eight other ceremonial counties: Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east, Buckinghamshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the south-west and Lincolnshire to the north-east – England's shortest county boundary at 19 metres (21 yd). The county seat is Northampton. Other large population centres include Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Rushden and Daventry.
Northamptonshire's county flower is the cowslip[citation needed].
Much of Northamptonshire’s countryside appears to have remained somewhat intractable with regards to early human occupation, resulting in an apparently sparse population and relatively few finds from the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. In about 500 BC the Iron Age was introduced into the area by a continental people in the form of the Hallstatt culture, and over the next century a series of hill-forts were constructed at Arbury Camp, Rainsborough camp, Borough Hill, Castle Dykes, Guilsborough, Irthlingborough, and most notably of all, Hunsbury Hill. There are two more possible hill-forts at Arbury Hill (Badby) and Thenford.