Essex is a county in the East of England. The county town is Chelmsford and the highest point of the county is Chrishall Common near the village of Langley, close to the Hertfordshire border, which reaches 147 m (482 ft).

Boundaries

The boundaries are to the east with the coastline of the North Sea; to the south with the northern bank, or estuary, of the River Thames and Kent; to the south west with Greater London; to the west with Hertfordshire across the River Lee and the Stort; to the north west with Cambridgeshire; and to the north with Suffolk, mostly marked by the River Stour.

History

The name Essex derives from the East Seaxe or East Saxons. The Kingdom of Essex was traditionally founded by Aescwine in 527 AD, occupying territory to the north of the River Thames, incorporating much of what would later become Middlesex and Hertfordshire, though its territory was later restricted to lands east of the River Lee. It is through this origin as one of the 'Saxon' kingdoms that Essex is specifically not part of the region known as East Anglia (the latter comprising Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire), settled by tribes calling themselves 'Anglian'. Colchester in the north east of the county is Britain's oldest recorded town, dating back to before the Roman conquest, when it was known as Camulodunon, and was sufficently well-developed to have its own mint.

Essex County Council was formed in 1889. However, the County Borough of West Ham, and from 1915 the County Borough of East Ham, formed part of the county but were not under county council control. Southend-on-Sea also formed a county borough from 1914 to 1974.

The boundary with Greater London was established in 1965 when the former area of the East Ham and West Ham county boroughs and of the Barking, Chingford, Dagenham, Hornchurch, Ilford, Leyton, Romford, Walthamstow and Wanstead and Woodford districts was transferred. The metropolitan Essex area had for some time been essentially a vast London suburb, and in the 19th century Charles Dickens had already coined the term 'London Over the Border' for it.

Essex became part of the East of England Government Office Region in 1994 and was statistically counted as part of that region from 1999, having previously been part of the South East England region. In 1998 the districts of Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock separated from the shire county of Essex becoming unitary districts.

Population and settlement

The pattern of settlement in the county is diverse. The London Green Belt has effectively prevented the further sprawl of London into the county, although it contains the new towns of Basildon and Harlow, originally developed to resettle Londoners following the destruction of London housing in World War II but since much expanded. Epping Forest also acts as a protected barrier to the further spread of London. Much of the Epping Forest district, consisting of the residential towns of Chigwell, Waltham Abbey, Loughton and Buckhurst Hill, is more developed and forms part of the Greater London Urban Area.

Because of its proximity to London and the economic magnetism which that city exerts, many of Essex's settlements function as dormitory towns or villages where London workers raise their families. Essex is known for being the origin of the political term Essex man, and of the Essex girl joke. Essex has recently overtaken Lancashire as England's most populous county.

Part of the south east of the county, already containing the major population centres of Southend and Thurrock, is within the Thames Gateway and designated for further development. To the north of the Green Belt, with the exception of major towns such as Chelmsford, the county is rural, with many small towns, villages and hamlets largely built in the traditional materials of timber and brick, with clay tile or thatched roofs.

Transport

The main airport in Essex is London Stansted Airport, serving destinations in Europe and North America; Southend Airport, [1] once one of Britain's busiest airports, is undergoing redevelopment, but still has limited passenger flights to destinations such as the Channel Islands. There are several smaller airfields, some of which owe their origins to air force bases built during World War I or World War II. These are popular for pleasure flights; examples include Clacton Airfield [2] and Stapleford Airfield. [3]

The port of Tilbury is one of Britain's three major ports, while the port of Harwich links the county to the Hook of Holland and Esbjerg. A service to Cuxhaven closed in December 2005. Despite the road crossing to Dartford in Kent across the River Thames, a pedestrian ferry to Gravesend, Kent still operates from Tilbury during limited hours, and there are foot ferries operating across some of the county's rivers and estuaries during the summer months.

The M25 motorway and M11 motorway both cross the county, and the A12 and A13 trunk roads are important radial routes from London. There is an extensive public transport network. [4] The main rail routes include two lines from London to Southend-on-Sea, operated by c2c and several routes operated by 'one' including a third route to Southend, the Great Eastern Main Line and the West Anglia Main Line. The Epping Forest district is served by the London Underground Central Line. The routes operated by 'one' and c2c, both of which are owned by National Express, connect to Liverpool Street and Fenchurch Street stations in the east of the City of London.

Economy

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Essex at current basic prices published (pp.240-253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

	Agriculture	Industry	Services
1995	11,422	282	3,424	7,716
2000	14,998	205	4,335	10,458
2003	18,588	258	5,158	13,172

includes hunting and forestry

includes energy and construction

includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured

Components may not sum to totals due to rounding

Industry and commerce

The Lakeside Shopping Centre at Thurrock was one of England's first out-of-town shopping centres; it remains popular despite congestion on the nearby M25 motorway and direct competition from Bluewater Shopping Centre.

Industry is largely limited to the south of the county, with the majority of the land elsewhere being given over to agriculture. Harlow is a centre for electronics, science and pharmaceutical companies, while Chelmsford is the home of Marconi and Brentwood home to the Ford Motor Company's European HQ. Chelmsford has been an important location for electronics companies since the industry was born, and is also the location for a number of insurance and financial services organisations, and is the home of the soft drinks producer Britvic. Other businesses in the county are dominated by light engineering and the service sector.

County emblems

The traditional county flower of Essex is the Cowslip, locally known as the paigle or peggle, and frequently mentioned in the writings of Essex bucolic authors such as Samuel Bensusan and C. H. Warren. As part of a 2002 marketing campaign, the plant conservation charity Plantlife chose the Common Poppy as the county flower. .

Samuel Bensusan and others have suggested that if Essex had a county bird, it would be the Lapwing, known locally as the peewit, whose lonely cry characterises the Essex marshes known as saltings.

Most English counties have nicknames for people from that county, such as a Tyke from Yorkshire and a Yellowbelly from Lincolnshire; the traditional nickname for a person from Essex is an Essex Calf, so named because the county was famous for rearing beef cattle for sale in London meat markets; calves from the county were famed for their large size and known as 'Essex lions' [5].