Black Country
Coordinates: 52°32′N 2°2′W / 52.533°N 2.033°W
The Black Country is an area of the West Midlands in England, West of Birmingham, including Dudley, Walsall and Sandwell. In the Industrial Revolution, it became one of the most industrialised parts of Britain with coal mines, coking, iron foundries and steel mills producing a high level of air pollution.
The 14-mile (23 km) road between Wolverhampton and Birmingham was described as "one continuous town" in 1785. The first trace of "The Black Country" as an expression dates from the 1840s. The name is believed to come from the soot from the heavy industries that covered the area, although the 30-foot-thick coal seam close to the surface is another possible origin.
The Black Country has no defined borders but to traditionalists is defined as "the area where the coal seam comes to the surface – so Brierley Hill, West Bromwich, Oldbury, Blackheath, Cradley Heath, Old Hill, Bilston, Dudley, Netherton, Tipton, and parts of Wednesbury, Halesowen, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Stourbridge but not Smethwick and most definitely not Birmingham. Today it commonly refers to the majority of the four boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton although it is said that "no two Black Country men or women will agree on where it starts or ends".
...
Wikipedia