The county was established in 1182 [2] and later than many other counties. In the Domesday Book, its lands between the Ribble and the Mersey had been part of Cheshire and the territory to the north formed part of the West Riding of Yorkshire.[15] It bordered on Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire, and Cheshire.
The county was divided into the six hundreds of Amounderness, Blackburn, Leyland, Lonsdale, Salford and West Derby.[16] Lonsdale was further partitioned into Lonsdale North, which was the detached part north of Morecambe Bay (also known as Furness), and Lonsdale South.
The Red Rose of Lancaster is the traditional symbol for the House of Lancaster, immortalized in the verse "In the battle for England's head/York was white, Lancaster red" (referring to the 15th century War of the Roses).
Lancashire is now much smaller than its historic extent due to a local government reform.[17] In 1889 an administrative county of Lancashire was created, covering the historic county except for county boroughs such as Liverpool and Manchester.[18] The area covered by the Lord-Lieutenant (termed now a ceremonial county) continued to cover the entirety of the administrative county along with the county boroughs, and thus was expanded slightly whenever boroughs annexed areas in other neighbouring counties. Examples of this include Wythenshawe (an area of Manchester south of the River Mersey and historically in Cheshire), and southern Warrington. This area also did not cover the western part of Todmorden, where the traditional border between Lancashire and Yorkshire runs through the middle of the town.
During the 20th century the county became increasingly urbanised, particularly the southern part. To the existing county boroughs of Barrow-in-Furness, Blackburn, Bolton, Bootle, Burnley, Bury, Liverpool, Manchester, Oldham, Preston, Rochdale, Salford, St Helens and Wigan were added Blackpool (1904), Southport (1905), and Warrington (1900). The county boroughs also had many boundary extensions. The borders around the Manchester area were particularly complicated, with narrow protrusions of the administrative county between the county boroughs - Lees urban district formed a detached part of the administrative county, between Oldham county borough and the West Riding of Yorkshire.[19]
By the census of 1971 the population of Lancashire (including all its associated county boroughs) had reached 5,129,416, making it then the most populous geographic county in the UK. The administrative county of Lancashire was also the most populous of its type outside of London, with a population of 2,280,359 in 1961.
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Can I stop now? It's hard work saying all this.