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Yorkshire is the largest traditional county of Great Britain, covering some 6,000 sq. miles (15,000 km²) with a population of some five million. It is traditionally divided into West, North and East Ridings (from Old Norse þriðing, "third part", a legacy of the area's ninth century Scandinavian settlers). The county town, York, is not part of any riding.

Few visitors pass through Yorkshire , England's largest county, without spending time in history-soaked York , for centuries England's second city. Famed primarily for its minster, the city is a comprehensive ensemble of medieval alleys, castle ruins, tucked-away churches, riverside gardens and topnotch museums. York's mixture of medieval, Georgian and Victorian architecture is mirrored in miniature in the prosperous north and east of the county by towns such as Beverley , centred on another soaring minster; Richmond , banked under a crag-bound castle; and Ripon , gathered around its honey-stoned cathedral. Knaresborough shares similar attributes, but is overshadowed by the faded spa-town gentility of neighbouring Harrogate . The Yorkshire coast, too, retains something of the grandeur of the days when its towns were the first to promote themselves as resorts: places such as Bridlington and Scarborough boomed in the nineteenth century and again in the postwar period, though the best of the Yorkshire coast is found in characterful, historic places such as Whitby and Robin Hood's Bay.

The engine of growth during the Industrial Revolution was not in the north of the county, but in the south and west. By the nineteenth century, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield and their satellites were the world's mightiest producers of textiles and steel. Ruthless economic logic left some of the cities battered by depression in the later years of the twentieth century, though a millennium vigour has infused South and West Yorkshire. The city-centre transformations of Leeds and Sheffield in particular have been remarkable, both now featuring a series of high-profile attractions, while Bradford and its National Museum of Photography, Film and Television waylays people on their way to Haworth - birthplace of the Brontë sisters.

During even the worst of times, broad swathes of moorland survived above the slum- and factory-choked valleys. The Yorkshire Dales , to the northwest, form a lovely patchwork of limestone hills and serene valleys, ranging from the gentle, grassy spans of Wharfedale and Wensleydale to the majestic heights of Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen-y-ghent, and the wilder valleys of Swaledale, Dentdale, Ribblesdale and Malhamdale . Less visited, but still worth as much time as you can spare, is the county's other National Park, the North York Moors , divided into bleak upland moors and with a tremendous rugged coastline.

The region is also scattered with a host of historic sites and buildings. The stately home of Castle Howard stands out, but there are also imperious relics of the Industrial Revolution, notably the Italianate pastiche of Saltaire , a millworkers' village on the outskirts of Bradford. In an earlier age, before the Reformation, Yorkshire had more monastic houses than any other English county, centres not only of religious retreat but also of a commercial acumen that was to lay the foundations of the region's great woollen industry. Many beautifully situated monastic ruins survive today at Fountains, Rievaulx, Bolton Abbey, Whitby and elsewhere, graceful counterpoints to the more solid remains of the castles at York, Richmond, Scarborough and Pickering - the foremost of more than twenty castles raised in Yorkshire by the Normans.

Yorkshire comprised three ridings.

North Riding which includes:
Allertonshire , Birdforth , Bulmer , Gilling East and West , Halikeld , Hang East and West , Langbaurgh East and West , Pickering Lythe , Ryedale , Whitby Strand

East Riding which includes:
Buckrose , Dickering , Harthill — Bainton beacon, Holme beacon, Hunsley beacon and Wilton beacon , Holderness South Middle and North , Howdenshire , Hullshire , Hunsley Beacon , Ouse and Derwent

West Riding which includes:
Agbrigg and Morley (Agbrigg and Morley divisions), Barkston Ash, Ewcross, Claro Lower and Upper, Morley , Osgoldcross, Skyrack Lower and Upper, Staincliffe East and West, Staincross, Strafforth and Tickhill Lower and Upper

In 1974 the local government system was reformed, with the bulk of the area being split between:

North Yorkshire (including Yorkshire's county town of York — although the county town of North Yorkshire is Northallerton)

South Yorkshire

West Yorkshire

East Riding of Yorkshire

Kingston upon Hull

Middlesbrough

North Yorkshire which includes:
Craven , Hambleton , Harrogate , Richmond, Ryedale , Scarborough , Selby , Redcar and Cleveland , Stockton-on-Tees south of the river

South Yorkshire which includes:
Barnsley , Doncaster , Rotherham , Sheffield

West Yorkshire which includes:
Bradford , Calderdale , Kirklees , Leeds , Wakefield

York

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