Gloucestershire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire to the east, Wiltshire to the south, Bristol and Somerset to the south-west, and the Welsh county of Monmouthshire to the west. The city of Gloucester is the largest settlement and the county town.
South Gloucestershire is a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, South West England. Towns in the area include Yate, Chipping Sodbury, Kingswood, Thornbury, Filton, Patchway and Bradley Stoke. The southern part of its area falls within the Greater Bristol urban area surrounding the city of Bristol.
Avon was a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county in the west of England that existed between 1974 and 1996. The county was named after the River Avon, which flows through the area. It was formed from the county boroughs of Bristol and Bath, together with parts of the administrative counties of Gloucestershire and Somerset.
North Somerset is a unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Somerset, England. The council is based in Weston-super-Mare, the area's largest town. The district also contains the towns of Clevedon, Nailsea and Portishead, along with a number of villages and surrounding rural areas. Some southern parts of the district fall within the Mendip Hills, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
The counties of England are a type of subdivision of England. Counties have been used as administrative areas in England since Anglo-Saxon times. There are three definitions of county in England: the 48 ceremonial counties used for the purposes of lieutenancy; the 84 metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties for local government; and the 39 historic counties which were used for administration until 1974.
Northavon was a district in the English county of Avon from 1974 to 1996.
Glanford was, from 1974 to 1996, a local government district with borough status in the non-metropolitan county of Humberside, England.
A non-metropolitan county, or colloquially, shire county, is a subdivision of England used for local government.
Kingswood was a borough constituency for the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) at least once every five years by the first-past-the-post electoral system.
Wansdyke was a non-metropolitan district within the County of Avon west of England from 1974 to 1996.
Greater Bristol is a term used for the conurbation which contains and surrounds the city of Bristol in the South West of England. There is no official "Greater Bristol" authority, but the term is sometimes used by local, regional and national authorities, and others as a synonym for either the "Bristol Urban Area" or a wider area of the former County of Avon, and by some, TfGB, to refer to the Province of Bristol as defined by C. B. Fawcett (1919) or Derek Senior (1969).
Dinefwr was one of six local government districts of the county of Dyfed, Wales from 1974 to 1996. It was named after Dinefwr Castle which in the Middle Ages had been the court of the House of Dinefwr and one of the three principal royal courts of Wales with Aberffraw and Shrewsbury.
Port Talbot was one of the four local government districts of the county of West Glamorgan, Wales from 1974 to 1996. The borough was initially called Afan, changing its name to Port Talbot in 1986.
Thornbury Rural District was a rural district council centred on Thornbury in the south of Gloucestershire. It was originally formed as a Poor Law Union on 5 April 1836 with 26 Guardians representing the 21 parishes in the Union and the Guardians of the Poor became the Rural Sanitary Authority for the District in 1872. The Rural District Council became a separate body in 1894 although the District Councillors had a dual mandate as members of both the council and the Board of Guardians.The District was enlarged in 1904 when Henbury was transferred from the abolished Barton Regis Rural District. In 1930 the Guardians were abolished when their functions were transferred to the Rural District Council. The arms of the Council featured a "Thorn-berry" tree for Thornbury and a pair of gold wings for the important aircraft industry at Filton and Patchway. It was abolished in 1974 and the majority of it transferred into the new county of Avon, as part of the new district of Northavon.
The District of Swansea was a local government district with city status in West Glamorgan, Wales from 1974 to 1996.
The Local Government Commission for England was the body responsible for reviewing the structure of local government in England from 1992 to 2002. It was established under the Local Government Act 1992, replacing the Local Government Boundary Commission for England. The Commission could be ordered by the Secretary of State to undertake "structural reviews" in specified areas and recommend the creation of unitary authorities in the two-tier shire counties of England. The Commission, chaired by John Banham, conducted a review of all the non-metropolitan counties of England from 1993 to 1994, making various recommendations on their future.
Gloucestershire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Gloucestershire, in England. The council was created in 1889. The council's principal functions are county roads and rights of way, social services, education and libraries, but it also provides many other local government services in the area it covers. The non-metropolitan county is smaller than the ceremonial county, the latter additionally including South Gloucestershire. The council went under no overall control following a change of allegiance in May 2024, having previously been under Conservative majority control. It is based at Shire Hall in Gloucester.
South Gloucestershire Council is the local authority of South Gloucestershire, a local government district in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, England, covering an area to the north of the city of Bristol. The council is a unitary authority, being a district council which also performs the functions of a county council; it is independent from Gloucestershire County Council. Since 2017 the council has been a member of the West of England Combined Authority.
