The Berkeley Guides:
Great Britain and Northern Ireland:
Central England
By Julie Jares and Irene J. Nexica
Most Londoners consider anything between Birmingham and the Scottish border as the "North," so Central England is something of a misnomer. The two regions covered here, while contiguous on a map, couldn't be farther apart in reality. The area from Wales to England's eastern shores is often called the Midlands, while the western coast from Liverpool to the Lake District is known as the Northwest. Such distinctions are important, because the Midlands are mostly farmland (plus the extraordinary Peak District National Park), only occasionally interrupted by a sooty city like Nottingham or Sheffield. The Northwest, on the other hand, may seem like one unwieldy, gray metropolis. Apart from medieval towns like Chester, the Northwest has a raw, industrial feel that doesn't encourage visitors, particularly those looking for the England of rural villages and castles. This is Britain's equivalent of the Rust Belt, a once-proud bastion of heavy industry and blue-collar values. Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham may have been the economic engines that propelled Britannia in the 18th and 19th centuries, but since World War II the engines have decayed--and the region's prosperity has given way to rising unemployment and discontent.
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