County borough

County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom to refer to a borough or a city independent of county administration.

When the first county councils were created, it was decided that to let them have authority over the large towns in them would be impractical, and so any large incorporated place would have the right to be a county borough, an administrative county in its own right. Initially, a town had to have a population of over 50,000 to apply for county borough status, but this threshold was raised to 75,000 in 1926.

In the United Kingdom they were abolished in 1974, with some being made metropolitan boroughs, and others being made districts of administrative counties. This situation did not persist and many of the old county boroughs that were annexed, have now regained independence as unitary authorities - essentially the same as county boroughs, but renamed. In Wales some of the unitary authorities are county boroughs.

In the Republic of Ireland, the relevant legislation remains still in force (although amended), and county boroughs on the original model exist.

Table of contents

1 Republic of Ireland
2 Wales
3 Historical county boroughs

3.1 England
3.2 Wales