North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire and ceremonial county in England. It is located primarily in the region of Yorkshire and the Humber but partly in the region of North East England.

Created by the Local Government Act 1972, it covers an area of 8,654 square kilometres (3,341 sq mi), making it the largest county in England. The majority of the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors lie within North Yorkshire's boundaries, and around 40% of the county is covered by National Parks. The largest settlements are York (153,717), Middlesbrough (138,400), Harrogate (73,576) and Scarborough (61,749); the county town, Northallerton, has a population of 16,832.

Divisions and environs

The area under the control of the county council, or shire county, is divided into a number of local government districts: Craven, Hambleton, Harrogate, Richmondshire, Ryedale, Scarborough and Selby.

The Department for Communities and Local Government considered reorganising North Yorkshire County Council's administrative structure by abolishing the seven district councils and the county council to create a North Yorkshire unitary authority. The changes were planned to be implemented no later than 1 April 2009. This was rejected on 25 July 2007 so the County Council and District Council structure will remain.

Yorkshire

Yorkshire (/ˈjɔːrkʃər/ or /ˈjɔːrkʃɪər/) is a historic county of Northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Due to its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform. Throughout these changes, Yorkshire has continued to be recognised as a geographical territory and cultural region. The name is familiar and well understood across the United Kingdom and is in common use in the media and the military, and also features in the titles of current areas of civil administration such as North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire.

Within the borders of the historic county of Yorkshire are areas which are widely considered to be among the greenest in England, due to the vast stretches of unspoiled countryside in the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors and to the open aspect of some of the major cities. Yorkshire has sometimes been nicknamed "God's Own County" or "God's Own Country".

North

North is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. North is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west.

Etymology

The word north is related to the Old High German nord, both descending from the Proto-Indo-European unit ner-, meaning "down" (or "under"). (Presumably a natural primitive description of its concept is "to the left of the rising sun".)

The Latin word borealis comes from the Greek boreas "north wind, north", which, according to Ovid, was personified as the son of the river-god Strymon, the father of Calais and Zetes. Septentrionalis is from septentriones, "the seven plow oxen", a name of Ursa Maior. The Greek arktikos is named for the same constellation, and is the derivation of the English word "Arctic".

Other languages have sometimes more interesting derivations. For example, in Lezgian, kefer can mean both 'disbelief' and 'north', since to the north of the Muslim Lezgian homeland there are areas formerly inhabited by non-Muslim Caucasian and Turkic peoples. In many languages of Mesoamerica, "north" also means "up". In Hungarian the word for north is észak, which is derived from éjszaka ("night"), since above the Tropic of Cancer, the Sun never shines from the north.