East of England

East of England
East of England region in England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Country	England
Status	Region
Government
• Leaders' board	East of England Local Government Association
• EP constituency	East of England
Area
• Total	7,380 sq mi (19,120 km2)
Area rank	2nd
Population (2011)
• Total	5,847,000
• Rank	4th
• Density	790/sq mi (310/km2)
GVA
• Total	£130 billion
• Per capita	£20,524 (3rd)
NUTS code	UKH
ONS code	E12000006
Website	www.eelga.gov.uk

The East of England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of NUTS for statistical purposes. It was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics from 1999. It includes the ceremonial counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Essex has the highest population in the region.

Its population at the 2011 census was 5,847,000.Bedford, Luton, Basildon, Peterborough, Southend-on-Sea, Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Chelmsford and Cambridge are the region's most populous towns. The southern part of the region lies in the London commuter belt.

The region has the lowest elevation range in the UK. North Cambridgeshire and the Essex Coast have most of the around 5% of the region which is below 10 metres above sea level. The Fens are partly in North Cambridgeshire which is notable for the lowest point in the country in the land of the village of Holme 2.75 metres (9.0 ft) below mean sea level which was once Whittlesey Mere. The highest point is at Clipper Down at 817 ft (249 m), in the far south-western corner of the region in the Ivinghoe Hills.

Basildon and Harlow (Essex), with Stevenage and Hemel Hempstead (Hertfordshire), were main New Towns in the 1950s and 1960s, with much industry located there; three of these are on motorways, and fairly equidistant from London. In the late 1960s, the Roskill Commission considered Thurleigh in Bedfordshire, Nuthampstead in Hertfordshire and Foulness in Essex as a possible .