Cheshire

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County of northwest England, which has contained the unitary authorities Halton and Warrington since April 1998.

Area
2,320 sq km/896 sq mi.

Towns and cities
Chester (administrative headquarters), Crewe, Congleton, Macclesfield

Physical
chiefly a fertile plain, with the Pennines in the east; rivers: Mersey, Dee, Weaver; a sandstone ridge extending south through central Cheshire together with Delamere Forest constitute a woodland and heath landscape

Features
salt mines and geologically rich former copper workings at Alderley Edge (in use from Roman times until the 1920s); Little Moreton Hall (15th century); Tatton Park Mansion (1790); Old Hall (1520); Chester Roman Amphitheatre (the largest in the UK); Chester Cathedral (1092), Chester Zoo (1930), Chester Races (16th-century; the oldest in the UK); discovery of Lindow Man, the first ‘bogman’ to be found in mainland Britain, dating from around 500 BC; Museum of the Chemical Industry on Spike Island; Quarry Bank Mill (1784) at Styal is a cotton-industry museum

Agriculture
arable farming in the north; cheese (at one time produced entirely in farmhouses) and dairy products in the centre and south of the county

Industries
aerospace industry, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, salt, textiles, vehicles, oil, financial services, tourism

Famous people
Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Elizabeth Gaskell

Population
(2001) 673,800

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