Essex

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Essex

Geography
Status	Ceremonial & (smaller) Non-metropolitan county
Region	East of England
Area - Total - Admin. council - Admin. area	Ranked 11th 3,670 km² Ranked 11th 3,465 km²
Where Essex is run	The City of Chelmsford
ISO 3166-2	GB-ESS
ONS code	22
NUTS 3	UKH33
Demographics
Population - Total (2005 est.) - Density - Admin. council - Admin. pop.	Ranked 6th 1,645,900 448 / km² Ranked 2nd 1,340,000
Where the people come from	96.8% White 1.2% S. Asian
Politics
Essex County Council http://www.essexcc.gov.uk/ Archived 2010-11-23 at the Wayback Machine
The organisation that is in charge	Conservative
Members of Parliament	David Amess John Baron Simon Burns Douglas Carswell James Duddridge Mark Francois Alan Haselhurst Bernard Jenkin Eleanor Laing Andrew Mackinlay Stephen Metcalfe Brooks Newmark Priti Patel Eric Pickles Bill Rammell Bob Russell Bob Spink John Whittingdale
Districts
Harlow Epping Forest Brentwood Basildon Castle Point Rochford Maldon Chelmsford Uttlesford Braintree Colchester Tendring Thurrock (Unitary) Southend-on-Sea (Unitary)

Essex is a county in the east of England. It has a population of around 1,750,000 people. It is part of the East of England region. Chelmsford is the county town of Essex, as well as being one of three cities in the county alongside Colchester, known to be Britain's first city, and Southend-on-Sea, one of the country's biggest seaside resorts.

Essex has London and Hertfordshire on its western border and the whole of the east of the county is coast-line. The north of the county borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The south of the county is on the Thames Estuary. The Dartford Tunnel can be used to drive under the River Thames between Essex and Kent.

Other large towns in Essex include Basildon, Braintree and Harwich.

There has been lots of recent debate about whether certain sections of East London should be included as parts of Essex, such as Ilford and Romford. Due to boundary changes across the years, these areas were historically in Essex but have been dissolved into the Greater London area since.