Vice-county


A vice-county is a geographical division of the British Isles used for the purposes of biological recording and other scientific data-gathering. It is sometimes called a Watsonian vice-county as vice-counties were introduced for Great Britain, its offshore islands, and the Isle of Man, by Hewett Cottrell Watson who first used them 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 exclaves to be part of the vice-county in which they locally lie.
In 1901 Robert Lloyd Praeger 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 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. 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, but excluding the Channel Islands. 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, Robert Lloyd Praeger 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. As with the 112 vice-counties of Britain, each vice-county has a name as well as a number. Thus Vice-county 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". 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.
CountOriginatorDescriptions
112Watson Britain
40PraegerIreland
0, 1 or 5 Channel Islands
152, 153 or 157 British Isles, Britain and Ireland

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

England and Wales

Isle of Man

Scotland

Ireland

Vice-counties of Great Britain listed by historic county

Historic countyVice counties
BedfordshireBedfordshire
BerkshireBerkshire
BuckinghamshireBuckinghamshire
Cambridgeshire, incorporating the Isle of ElyCambridgeshire
CheshireCheshire
CornwallWest Cornwall with Scilly, East Cornwall
CumberlandCumberland
DerbyshireDerbyshire
DevonSouth Devon, North Devon
DorsetDorset
County DurhamDurham
EssexSouth Essex, North Essex
GloucestershireEast Gloucestershire, West Gloucestershire
HampshireSouth Hampshire, North Hampshire, Isle of Wight
HerefordshireHerefordshire
HertfordshireHertfordshire
HuntingdonshireHuntingdonshire
KentEast Kent, West Kent
Lancashire less FurnessSouth Lancashire, West Lancashire
Leicestershire and RutlandLeicestershire with Rutland
LincolnshireSouth Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire
Middlesex & the City of LondonMiddlesex
NorfolkEast Norfolk, West Norfolk
Northamptonshire, incorporating the Soke of PeterboroughNorthamptonshire
NorthumberlandSouth Northumberland, North Northumberland
NottinghamshireNottinghamshire
OxfordshireOxfordshire
ShropshireShropshire
SomersetSouth Somerset, North Somerset
StaffordshireStaffordshire
SuffolkEast Suffolk, West Suffolk
SurreySurrey
SussexWest Sussex, East Sussex
WarwickshireWarwickshire
Westmorland and FurnessWestmoreland with Furness
WiltshireNorth Wiltshire, South Wiltshire
WorcestershireWorcestershire
YorkshireSouth-east Yorkshire, North-east Yorkshire, South-west Yorkshire, Mid-west Yorkshire, North-west Yorkshire
AngleseyAnglesey
BrecknockshireBrecknockshire
CaernarvonshireCaernarvonshire
CardiganshireCardiganshire
CarmarthenshireCarmarthenshire
Denbighshire and English MaelorDenbighshire
Flintshire less English MaelorFlintshire
GlamorganGlamorgan
MerionethshireMerionethshire
MonmouthshireMonmouthshire
MontgomeryshireMontgomeryshire
PembrokeshirePembrokeshire
RadnorshireRadnorshire
AberdeenshireSouth Aberdeenshire, North Aberdeenshire
ArgyllshireMain Argyll, Kintyre, Mid Ebudes, South Ebudes
AyrshireAyrshire
BanffshireBanffshire
BerwickshireBerwickshire
ButeshireClyde Isles
CaithnessCaithness
DumbartonshireDumbartonshire
DumfriesshireDumfriesshire
EdinburghshireEdinburghshire
ElginshireMoray
Fife and Kinross-shireFife
ForfarshireAngus
HaddingtonshireHaddingtonshire
Inverness-shire and Nairnshire less Outer HebridesEasterness, Westerness, North Ebudes
KincardineshireKincardineshire
KirkcudbrightshireKirkcudbrightshire
LanarkshireLanarkshire
LinlithgowshireLinlithgowshire
OrkneyOrkney
PeeblesshirePeeblesshire
Perthshire and ClackmannanshireWest Perth, Mid Perth, East Perth
RenfrewshireRenfrewshire
Ross and Cromarty less Outer HebridesEast Ross, West Ross
RoxburghshireRoxburghshire
SelkirkshireSelkirkshire
StirlingshireStirlingshire
SutherlandEast Sutherland, West Sutherland
WigtownshireWigtownshire
ShetlandShetland

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 Act 1898. Divergences from the pre-1899 boundaries are noted below.
VCVice countyCountyProvinceJurisdiction
South KerryKerryMunsterRepublic of Ireland
North KerryKerryMunsterRepublic of Ireland
West CorkCorkMunsterRepublic of Ireland
Mid-CorkCorkMunsterRepublic of Ireland
East CorkCorkMunsterRepublic of Ireland
WaterfordWaterfordMunsterRepublic of Ireland
South TipperaryTipperaryMunsterRepublic of Ireland
LimerickLimerickMunsterRepublic of Ireland
ClareClareMunsterRepublic of Ireland
North TipperaryTipperaryMunsterRepublic of Ireland
KilkennyKilkennyLeinsterRepublic of Ireland
WexfordWexfordLeinsterRepublic of Ireland
CarlowCarlowLeinsterRepublic of Ireland
Queen's CountyLaoisLeinsterRepublic of Ireland
South-east GalwayGalwayConnachtRepublic of Ireland
West GalwayGalwayConnachtRepublic of Ireland
North-east GalwayGalwayConnachtRepublic of Ireland
King's CountyOffalyLeinsterRepublic of Ireland
KildareKildareLeinsterRepublic of Ireland
WicklowWicklowLeinsterRepublic of Ireland
DublinDublinLeinsterRepublic of Ireland
MeathMeathLeinsterRepublic of Ireland
WestmeathWestmeathLeinsterRepublic of Ireland
LongfordLongfordLeinsterRepublic of Ireland
RoscommonRoscommonConnachtRepublic of Ireland
East MayoMayoConnachtRepublic of Ireland
West MayoMayoConnachtRepublic of Ireland
SligoSligoConnachtRepublic of Ireland
LeitrimLeitrimConnachtRepublic of Ireland
CavanCavanUlsterRepublic of Ireland
LouthLouthLeinsterRepublic of Ireland
MonaghanMonaghanUlsterRepublic of Ireland
FermanaghFermanaghUlsterNorthern Ireland
East DonegalDonegalUlsterRepublic of Ireland
West DonegalDonegalUlsterRepublic of Ireland
TyroneTyroneUlsterNorthern Ireland
ArmaghArmaghUlsterNorthern Ireland
DownDownUlsterNorthern Ireland
AntrimAntrimUlsterNorthern Ireland
LondonderryLondonderryUlsterNorthern Ireland