Cambridgeshire (historic)
| Cambridgeshire | |
|---|---|
 Flag adopted in 2015 |
|
 Cambridgeshire shown within Great Britain |
|
| Area | |
| • 1831 | 536,853 acres (2,172.57 km2) |
| Population | |
| • 1831 | 143,849 |
| • 1851 | 185,405 |
| • 2011 | 460,621 |
| History | |
| • Created | 10th century |
| Status | Historic county |
| Chapman code | CAM |
Cambridgeshire, also known as the County of Cambridge, is one of ninety-two historic counties of the United Kingdom.
It corresponds approximately to the eastern two-thirds of the local government county known as 'Cambridgeshire'.
The southern part of the county is the more inhabited part, low-lying with a mixture of farmland and villages. It has just one sizable town; the City of Cambridge. North of Cambridge lies the Fenland, encompassing the greater part of the Great Fen which extends over the north of Cambridgeshire and of Huntingdonshire, and southern Lincolnshire. The fenland is flat, parts of it below sea level, and has been drained from the fen over the centuries to produce some of the best arable farmland in Britain. This northern part of the county is known as the Isle of Ely, which was once a Liberty controlled by the Abbot of Ely and later by the Crown.
The Cambridge is the seat of the University of Cambridge and a great deal of high-tech industry has developed in and around the city for that reason, and growing residential suburbs also. The county's other city is Ely; a small country town dominated by its mediaeval cathedral. The only other town of any size in the county is Wisbech in the far north.
Cambridgeshire has never had a traditional symbol as some other counties have. The Justices of Cambridge were wont to use a seal showing the arms of the Borough of Cambridge, and when a new Cambridgeshire County Council was created in 1889 (whose excluded the Isle of Ely) it was granted arms only in 1914, on a novel pattern.
In 2014-2015, a competition was held to design a flag for the historic county. The winning design, by Brady Ells, shows three gold crowns representing East Anglia (and which are also the arms of the Diocese of Ely), with wavy light blue lines representing the river Cam in the colours of Cambridge University, all on a dark blue background. This was registered for the historic county in the UK Flag Registry.
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