Derbyshire county and vice-county comparison map

A vice-county (also spelled vice county) is a geographical division of the

British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...

. It is also called biological vice-county as it is used for purposes of

biological recording Biological recording is the scientific study of the distribution of living organisms, biological records describe the presence, abundance, associations and changes, both in time and space, of wildlife.Burnett, J., Copp, C., Harding, P. (1995) Biolo ...

and other scientific data-gathering, or sometimes called a Watsonian vice-county as vice-counties were introduced by

Hewett Cottrell Watson Hewett Cottrell Watson (9 May 1804 – 27 July 1881) was a phrenologist, botanist and theory of evolution, evolutionary theorist. He was born in Firbeck, near Rotherham, Yorkshire, and died at Thames Ditton, Surrey. Biography Watson was the eld ...

in the third volume of his ''Cybele Britannica'', published in 1852. Watson's vice-counties were based on the ancient counties of Britain, but often subdividing these boundaries to create smaller, more uniform units, and considering

exclave An enclave is a territory that is entirely surrounded by the territory of only one other state or entity. An enclave can be an independent territory or part of a larger one. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is s ...

s to be part of the surrounding vice-county. In 1901

Robert Lloyd Praeger Robert Lloyd Praeger (25 August 1865 – 5 May 1953) was an Irish naturalist, writer and librarian. Biography Early life and education From a Unitarian background, he was born and raised in Holywood, County Down; he had four brothers and a ...

introduced a similar system for Ireland and its off-shore islands. Vice-counties are the "standard geographical area for county based ..recording". They provide a stable basis for recording using similarly sized units, and, although National Grid-based reporting has grown in popularity, vice-counties remain a useful mapping boundary, employed in many regional surveys, especially county

floras Flora (: floras or florae) is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring ( indigenous) native plants. The corresponding term for animals is ''fauna'', and for fungi, it is ''funga''. Sometimes b ...

and national lists. This allows data collected over long periods of time to be compared easily. The vice-counties remain unchanged by subsequent local government reorganisations, allowing historical and modern data to be more accurately compared. In 2002, to mark the 150th anniversary of the introduction of the Watsonian vice-county system, the NBN Trust commissioned the digitisation of the 112 vice-county boundaries for England, Scotland and Wales, based on 420 original one-inch to the mile maps annotated by Dandy in 1947, and held at the Natural History Museum, London. The resulting datafiles were much more detailed than anything readily available to recorders up to that point, and were made freely available (as a beta version). Intended for use with modern GIS and biological recording software, a final 'standard' version was released in 2008. Up until that point, county recorders only had general access to a set of two fold-out vice-county maps covering the entirety of Great Britain, published in 1969.

Vice-county systems

The vice-county system was first introduced by Hewett Cottrell Watson in the third volume of his ''Cybele Britannica'' published in 1852. He refined the system in later volumes. The geographical area that Watson called "Britain" consisted of the island of Great Britain with all of its offshore islands, plus the

Isle of Man The Isle of Man ( , also ), or Mann ( ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland. As head of state, Charles III holds the title Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Govern ...

, but excluding the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, ...

. This area was divided into 112 vice-counties with larger counties divided; for example, Devon into the vice-counties of North Devon and South Devon, and Yorkshire into five vice-counties. Each of these 112 vice-counties has a name and a number. Thus Vice-county 38, often abbreviated to "VC38", is called "Warwickshire". In 1901,

extended the system of vice-counties to Ireland and its off-shore islands, based on an earlier suggestion by C. C. Babington in 1859. The Irish vice-counties were based on the historic 32 counties of Ireland, with the six largest being sub-divided; for example, the county of Cork was divided into three vice-counties. This produced a total of 40 vice-counties for Ireland, which were numbered from H1 to H40 ("H" for "Hibernia"). As with the 112 vice-counties of Britain, each vice-county has a name as well as a number. Thus Vice-county (or VC) H3 is "West Cork". Combining these two systems produces a 152 vice-county system. The exclusion of the Channel Islands from Watson's system for Britain has led to variations between different recording schemes. The geographical area covered by the 152 vice-counties may be described as the "British Isles", as in the 2008 ''Checklist of Beetles of the British Isles''. Other recording schemes regard the "British Isles" as including the Channel Islands. As they are not part of the 152 vice-county system, the Channel Islands may be added as an extra vice-county, making 153 in total, being indicated by letter codes such as "C" or "CI"., inside back cover Less usually, each of the five separate islands may be treated as a vice-county, giving 157 vice-counties in total. Alternative counts of vice-counties used in different recording schemes are shown in the table below. The vice-counties of Britain alone may be described as "Watsonian vice-counties", or this term may be used for the combined vice-counties of Britain and Ireland, which may also be described as "Watson-Praeger vice-counties". In all cases, the Channel Islands may be excluded or included, so that the count of vice-counties varies, as noted in the table above.

List of vice-counties

Vice-counties of Ireland listed by county, province and jurisdiction

Praeger's fieldwork mostly predates and ignores the county boundary changes made in 1899 under the

Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 ( 61 & 62 Vict. c. 37) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland that established a system of local government in Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots diale ...

. Divergences from the pre-1899 boundaries are noted below. Irish vice counties ex osm multicolour

Notes

References

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External links