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When Wessex annexed Mercia in the 10th century, it subdivided the area into various shires of roughly equal size and tax-raising potential or hidage. These generally took the name of the main town (the county town) of the county, along with "-shire". Examples are Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.
Wessex had nine shires, the Danelaw fifteen shires, and Mercia eight shires. Cornwall, Scotland, Strathclyde, Wales and the Isle of Wight were not included within these legal jurisdictions. Cornwall itself is separately mentioned in the laws as being divided into seven shires, these later became known as the hundreds of Cornwall. In the far ...
The Kingdom of Wessex, c. 790 AD, was divided into administrative units known as shires. Each shire was governed by an Ealdorman, a major nobleman of Wessex appointed to the post by the King. The term 'Ealdorman' (meaning 'elder-man') gradually merged with the Scandinavian Eorl/Jarl (designating an important chieftain), to form the modern 'Earl'.
The division of England into shires, later known as counties, began in the Kingdom of Wessex in the mid-Saxon period, many of the Wessex shires representing previously independent kingdoms. With the Wessex conquest of Mercia in the 9th and 10th centuries, the system was extended to central England.
The kingdoms were eventually united into the Kingdom of England in a process beginning with Egbert of Wessex in 829 and completed by King Edred in 954. The Norse kingdom of Jorvik , also known as Scandinavian Yorkshire was not annexed into England until 1066 and the Royal Harrying of the North.
This is a list of the counties of the United Kingdom.The history of local government in the United Kingdom differs between England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and the subnational divisions within these which have been called counties have varied over time and by purpose.
New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Queensland, Victoria, and Western Australia, use the term "shire" for this unit; the territories of the Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands are also shires. In contrast, South Australia uses district and region for its rural LGA units, while Tasmania uses municipality.
The system of shires which was later to form the basis of local administration throughout England and eventually Wales originated in Wessex, where it became established during the 8th century. Wessex and Mercia gradually established an occasionally unstable alliance, with Wessex gaining the upper hand.