Southern England - Divisions

Divisions

In most definitions Southern England includes all the counties on/near the English Channel. In terms of the current ceremonial counties:

• Bristol
• Cornwall
• Devon
• Dorset
• Hampshire
• Isle of Wight
• Oxfordshire
• West Sussex
• East Sussex
• Kent
• Somerset
• Wiltshire
• Berkshire
• Surrey
• Greater London

Despite the general acceptance of these counties as Southern, those which comprise the West Country are occasionally considered as mutually exclusive to Southern England.

The exact northern extent can vary, and, as with most cultural regions, the boundaries of the South are sometimes disputed. In the west, Southern England is generally taken to include Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Oxfordshire; in central Southern England, the counties of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire; and to the east, Essex and the counties of East Anglia (Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk); however, there is sometimes confusion with these counties as to whether they are a part of the Midlands.

Despite these varying boundary definitions, however, the northern boundary is generally taken to correspond to an imaginary line drawn from the Severn Estuary to the Wash (or, expressed in terms of towns, from Gloucester to King's Lynn).