Hartlepool is a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of County Durham, north-east England. In 2003 it had a resident population of 90,161, increasing to 92,028 at the 2011 Census. It borders the non-metropolitan county of County Durham to the north, to the south and Redcar and Cleveland to the south-east along the line of the River Tees. It is centred on the town of Hartlepool and forms part of the Tees Valley area.

It is made up of 17 council wards and is coterminous with the Hartlepool parliamentary constituency. The local authority is Hartlepool Borough Council.

After several unification efforts starting in 1902, the county borough of Hartlepool was formed in 1967 by the merger of the original borough of Hartlepool (the "Headland") with the county borough of West Hartlepool further south on Tees Bay, together with the parish of Seaton Carew to provide coastal land for industrial development.

The district was formed on 1 April 1974, by the merger of the previous county borough of Hartlepool, along with the parishes of Brierton, Claxton, Dalton Piercy, Elwick, Elwick Hall, Greatham, Hart and Newton Bewley, from the Stockton Rural District, all of which had been part of the administrative county of Durham. It was one of the four districts of the non-metropolitan county of Cleveland.

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