I find the idea of counties archaic and outright strange.
Lines on a map that don’t really exist in real life on the land. Towns exist as they are physical entities that you can map as a conurbation to say “I am from here”. Forests, mountain ranges, lakes, islands and continents exist as they are physical entities too.
Counties and even most countries, however, are just made up rubbish that were introduced in order to control people and are really now just their own administrative businesses formulating their justification for existence through their GDP mostly to keep the rich from these places rich or make them richer.
“Lancashire” “Yorkshire” or “England” “Scotland” and “Wales” do not exist. The hamlets, villages, towns and cities on the island of Great Britain do exist though.
Even the idea of “Lancashire” and “Yorkshire” and their emblems are based on a load of historical inaccuracies.
The Wars Of The Roses were battles between elites, who were mostly landowners from the South of England and the Welsh Marches and their subjects, two of whom were given meaningless titles and stately homes in Lancaster and York and involved very little of the populations of Lancashire and Yorkshire. The Lancaster red rose and the York white rose have nothing to do with Manchester or Sheffield yet these two cities have those emblems across their cities and ManCity and SheffUtd have these emblems on their badges even though they are miles away from Lancaster and York and have even less in common with the Southern English or Welsh Marches landowners who were part of the Wars Of The Roses.
And what about what stood before them? What about The Danelaw? What about Northumbria? What about Elmet? What about Yr Hen Ogledd? What about Brigantia?
Why aren’t they talked of?
Well, for the same reasons, “Lancashire” and “Yorkshire” are a load of outdated rubbish n’all if you ask me. The physically existing towns and cities have become more important than the made up county lines.
I am from Manchester. In the wider conurbation of the Greater Manchester Built-up Area. I was born in 1982 after Lancashire was deemed old-hat (Greater Manchester was born in 1974) and therefore have never been a Lancastrian, but, always a Mancunian.
My conurbation, no made up lines, just the physical mapping of the wider built-up area I live within.
Which is within of this great island of Great Britain, no made up lines, just an island in the middle of the sea:
