Reading, the largest town in Berkshire, England, is in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers Thames and Kennet. It is on the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, 40 miles (64 km) east of Swindon, 28 miles (45 km) south of Oxford, 40 miles (64 km) west of London, 15 miles (24 km) north of Basingstoke, 13 miles (21 km) southwest of Maidenhead and 15 miles (24 km) east of Newbury. Reading is a major commercial centre, especially for information technology and insurance. It is also a regional retail centre, serving a large area of the Thames Valley, and home to the University of Reading. Every year it hosts the Reading Festival, one of England's biggest music festivals. Among its sports teams are Reading Football Club and Reading Hockey Club, and over 15,000 runners annually compete in the Reading Half Marathon.
Berkshire is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berkshire in 1957 because of the presence of Windsor Castle, and letters patent were issued in 1974. Berkshire is a county of historic origin, a ceremonial county and a non-metropolitan county without a county council. The county town is Reading.
Wokingham is a market town in Berkshire, England, a constituent part of the Reading/Wokingham Urban Area. Wokingham was a borough before the 1974 reorganisation of local government, when it merged with Wokingham Rural District to form the new Wokingham District. Borough status was granted in 2007. It is 37 miles (60 km) west of London, 7 miles (11 km) southeast of Reading, 8 miles (13 km) north of Camberley and 4 miles (6 km) west of Bracknell.
Earley is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Wokingham, Berkshire, England. Along with the neighbouring town of Woodley. The Office for National Statistics places Earley within the Reading/Wokingham Urban Area; for the purposes of local government it falls within the Borough of Wokingham, outside the area of Reading Borough Council. The name is sometimes spelt Erleigh or Erlegh. The town consists of a number of smaller areas, including Maiden Erlegh and Lower Earley, and lies some 3 miles (5 km) south and east of the centre of Reading, and some 4 miles (6 km) northwest of Wokingham. It has a population of around 32,000. In 2014, the RG6 postcode area was rated one of the most desirable postcode areas to live in England. The main campus of the University of Reading, Whiteknights Park, lies partly in Earley and partly in the borough of Reading.
The Borough of Wokingham is a local government district in Berkshire, United Kingdom. It is named after its main town, Wokingham. Other places in the district include Arborfield, Barkham, Charvil, Earley, Finchampstead, Hurst, Sonning, Remenham, Ruscombe, Shinfield, Twyford, Wargrave, Three Mile Cross, Winnersh, Spencers Wood and Woodley.
Twyford is a large village and civil parish in the English royal county of Berkshire, with a population of 6,618 people. It is in the Thames Valley at grid reference SU794752 on the A4 between Reading and Maidenhead, close to Henley-on-Thames and Wokingham.
Reading Buses is a bus operator serving the towns of Reading, Bracknell, Newbury, Slough, Windsor, Maidenhead, Wokingham, Fleet, Henley-on-Thames and the surrounding areas in the counties of Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire, England, as well as parts of Greater London. The operating company is officially known as Reading Transport Limited, and is owned by Reading Borough Council.
Reading East is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Matt Rodda, of the Labour Party. The seat is one of two won by a Labour candidate in 2017 from a total of eight covering Berkshire. Rodda's 2017 win was one of 30 net gains of the Labour Party.
Whitley is a suburb of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. It is also an electoral ward of the Borough of Reading.
A civil parish is a country subdivision, forming the lowest unit of local government in England. There are 104 civil parishes in the ceremonial county of Berkshire, most of the county being parished; Reading is completely unparished; Bracknell Forest, West Berkshire and Wokingham are entirely parished. At the 2001 census, there were 483,882 people living in the 104 parishes, accounting for 60.5 per cent of the county's population.
Wokingham is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom since 1987 by John Redwood, a Conservative.
The A329(M) is a motorway in Berkshire, England. It is 4 miles (6.4 km) long and runs from the west of Bracknell to the north west of Winnersh. It is one of a small number of parts of the motorway system in England that are managed by the local highway authority, in this case Wokingham Borough Council, rather than Highways England.
Lower Earley is the southern portion of Earley civil parish and a large suburb of Reading, within the English county of Berkshire. It forms part of a large suburban conurbation of over 85,000 inhabitants adjoining east and south-east Reading. Lower Earley and Earley have a combined population of around 32,000 and Lower Earley itself has developed since the late 1970s. By the mid 1980s it was considered to be the largest private housing development in the United Kingdom. Lower Earley forms a major part of Wokingham Borough. In 2014, the RG6 postcode area was rated one of the most desirable postcode areas to live in England.
Cemetery Junction is a road junction in East Reading, bordering on Newtown, in the town of Reading in the English county of Berkshire. It is a notorious bottleneck for traffic during rush hour, with the main A4 road meeting the A329 road from Wokingham.
Shinfield is a village and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire, just south of Reading. It contains 4,313 acres (17.45 km2) and is administered by the unitary authority of Wokingham District. Shinfield Park is the northern part of the parish, becoming physically separated when the M4 motorway was constructed in 1971.
Newtown, Reading is a suburb of the town of Reading in Berkshire, England. It is situated in East Reading between the Cemetery Junction and the River Kennet. The population is a socially and ethnically diverse mix of families, professionals and Reading University students.
West Reading is a locality or informal subdivision of the town of Reading in the English county of Berkshire, with its own railway station which opened in 1906, by which time its main roads were an established housing area. West Reading is one of multiple suburbs of Reading such as Tilehurst and Whitley.
Reading's location in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line and the M4 motorway, some 40 miles (64 km) west of London has made the town an important location in the nation's transport system.
