Purbeck District

Purbeck Purbeck District
Non-metropolitan district
Purbeck shown within Dorset
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Constituent country	England
Region	South West England
Non-metropolitan county	Dorset
Status	Abolished
Admin HQ	Wareham
Incorporated	1 April 1974 until 1 April 2019
Government
• Type	Non-metropolitan district council
• Body	Purbeck District Council
• Leadership	Leader and Cabinet ( )
Area
• Total	156.1 sq mi (404.4 km2)
Population  (2018)
• Total	46,800
• Density	300/sq mi (120/km2)
• Ethnicity	98.8% White
Time zone	UTC0 (GMT)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+1 (BST)
ONS code	19UG
GSS code	E07000051
OS grid reference	SY9223587441
Website	www.dorsetforyou.gov.uk

Purbeck was a local government district in Dorset, England. The district was named after the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula that forms a large proportion of the district's area. However, it extended significantly further north and west than the traditional boundary of the Isle of Purbeck which is the River Frome. The district council was based in the town of Wareham, which is itself north of the Frome.

The district was formed under the Local Government Act 1972 on 1 April 1974, from the former municipal borough of Wareham, Swanage urban district and Wareham and Purbeck Rural District. The district and its council were abolished on 1 April 2019, together with the other four districts outside the greater Bournemouth area, to form a new Dorset unitary authority.^[1]

Its name is recorded in 948 AD as Anglo-Saxon Purbicinga, meaning "of the people of Purbic", where Purbic may be a former Celtic name, or may contain a supposed Anglo-Saxon word *pur or "male lamb".