Searching by Modern County/Borough or Older Geographic County at www.GoCoastal.co.uk

A quick history lesson: About 500 (do you know?) years ago, Cities, towns, villages, etc within the United Kingdom and rest of the British Isles including Ireland and Isle Of Man were grouped geographically into larger areas called counties. Thus the British Isles was easier to manage by London and the other ruling cities throughout the British Isles. These geographic counties have stayed roughly the same right up to the early nineteen seventies.

However, more recently, in fact over the past twenty years, these older geographic counties have been further split into smaller administrative areas or unitary authorities as they are otherwise called. And as a result some older geographical counties have actually been abolished and technically no longer exist, well in an administrative sense anyway!

Wales especially has also undergone radical changes over the past twenty years initially in the early eighties when Margaret Thatcher decided to rename and rearrange their counties despite great opposition from the Welsh themselves! However very recently in the mid nineties, these changes were actually reversed and Wales is now proudly and most agree correctly split geographically.

Northern Ireland and Scotland was not spared and has also been rearranged and is now split into smaller administrative areas.

At goCoastal.co.uk the default way we categorise counties is the modern administrative way as adopted more recently throughout the British Isles. These are generally called a "Modern County/Borough". However we have also grouped all cities, towns and villages by their earlier geographical counties, although this is purely for visitors who may not yet understand the modern way the British Isles has been split. And we do not mean to insult the Welsh who generally hate the mere mebtion of the county name Gwynedd or Dyfed!

Grouping cities by modern county/borough can however limit the number of 'resorts' displayed where the modern county is a small borough or small administrative area which can often cover a major city but not the surrounding area; this often falls within another modern county name altogether.

A good example of this The City Of Kingston Upon Hull which is a modern county of its own but only covers the main city and everything surrounding the city which is still technically Kingston Upon Hull is actually in the modern county of East Riding Of Yorkshire! So accommodation here could also be close by!

To help visitors looking for accommodation by modern county we have however listed all surrounding modern counties (e.g. including East Riding Of Yorkshire) which are situated close to the county currently being browsed (e.g. City of Kingston Upon Hull).

However, if you would rather browse by an older geographic county then you can! Just use the "Old Geographic County" drop-down which is listed on every page throughout goCoastal.co.uk.

There is no real advantage in browsing by old geographical county except for a few examples where although the modern counties have been introduced for administrative purposes, most people living in the area and many people searching for this area still use the older geographical county name.

Good examples of older geographical counties which are still referred to and are therefore listed separately at goCoastal.co.uk include: Humberside now known as East Riding Of Yorkshire, City Of Kingston Upon Hull, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire; Lancashire now known as Lancashire (most of it), Blackburn & Darwen and Blackpool; Merseyside which is now split into five smaller modern counties; Tyne & Wear now split into six smaller modern counties, Greater Manchester now split into ten smaller modern counties; Cleveland now split into four smaller modern counties and Avon now split into four smaller modern counties.

We have however, on some occasions, we have grouped some modern counties themselves together and listed them under a single modern county name. This is purely to make browsing more efficient and to reduce confusion. It has also been done to keep our accommodation advertisers happy!

One example of this is Somerset which is a modern county of the older geographical county of Avon. We have however moved all cities, towns and resorts situated in North Somerset to Somerset and removed North Somerset altogether! This was purely to help browsing as many advertisers in North Somerset preferred to be classed under Somerset!

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