I love asking UK, especially English, people this question; the answers vary wildly. Once had a Londoner describe the north as “anywhere north of the M25”.
So, lemmings, where is ‘the north’ to you?
Here’s a relevant map men video about this very matter.
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The Midlands do exist! :P
Roughly north of a line from the
MerseyDee to the Humber. If we use counties then the southern borders of Cheshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire form the line.It’s essentially this:
I highly recommend Rory Stewart’s documentary Border Country: The Story of Britain’s Lost Middleland if you can find it anywhere as it does a good job of looking at the North and how it is so strongly connected to Scotland, it’s really Hadrian’s Wall that divided us along an arbitrary geographical feature because it was easy to defend.
edit: as much as I’d like to exclude Cheshire I am allowing them into the North, so changed Mersey to Dee.
Yup, this looks about right to me.
You could argue that some parts of North Lincolnshire are in the North. If you draw a line across, you’d be in the heart of Lancashire.
You could use the same argument to suggest that most of Norfolk is in the Midlands, but it isn’t.
I was actually going to mention that in my original comment. In my mind it kind of is in the midlands seeing as it aligns with the rest of the midlands.
In my mind geological barriers trump all imaginary lines. Latitudes means little when there’s 25 kilometers of water between you and the other side of land. Counties have irregular shapes mostly due to geographic features making it historically difficult to easily traverse over the areas that would become boundaries between two counties; cultural differences between these counties are a phenomenon that arises because of on-the-ground geography rather than imaginary latitudinal lines and to me, that’s why they take precedence.
North of the thames
Those bloody Northerners in Westminster!
Yep, whenever I cross Dartford bridge I always comment to my wife that we’re currently in the Midlands. She doesn’t find me funny…
There’s definitely a Middlesex joke to be had crossing the Thames at some points.
North of the Thames. This means I can claim I moved from South to North.
In actuality the line is somewhere above Nottingham but below Stoke.
Once had a Londoner describe the north as “anywhere north of the M25”
I mean, London’s a big city but I’ve never heard any Londoner say this in all my life living there. It’s always been “comedians” usually Northern ones as a cheeky insult to Londoners: “Oh look they don’t even know geography”. Which, to be fair, we probably don’t.
Personally I’d say anything North of Sheffield is da Naaarth. Roughly anything above Wales.
This would mean that Liverpool isn’t in the North, and Manchester just barely squeaks by (though most of Manchester is at or below Sheffield Latitude). They all dance around 53.3-53.5^o Lat.
Roughly anything above Wales.
Roughly my friend, roughly.
For me the North is where you play tig, the South is where you play tag
Where I come from, we played It. Pretty sure that was the south, even south of Thames.
Yorkshire and up for me
Abderdeen & Inverness
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I stay in the Northern Isles, it’s always fun seeing what companies will deliver to us. Even more ridiculous is the fact I can order a battery charger with batteries no problem but they refuse to send the batteries on their own.
I drove past Watford Gap yesterday, that felt like leaving the South.
Sheffield and above is North, Cambridge and below is South, in the middle is Midlands, lines are a bit wiggly.
A lot of people just think about wealth/poshness and tend to think only in terms of proximity to London.
above the belly button
Anywhere north of me is the north. I’m in North Wales.
North of Northampton because I don’t believe in the Midlands
Well I live in the absolute middle of the Midlands, so anything north of me is “The North” and anything south of me is “The South”.
Simples.
Living in the North of Scotland and listening to people referring to anywhere north of Watford Gap as “The North” will always elicit a raised eyebrow from me.
Oh my sweet southern children, what do you know of the true north? Where the sun hides it’s face for weeks at a time…
Northerners are basically Scots, Scots are basically Vikings, Southerners are basically French
The Wirral is very strongly Viking influenced - there’s a Thingwall, after all.
You do realise York comes from the word “Yorvik” and that ze French never made it that far north, right?
I was going largely by geographic proximity rather than conquest. Also if you’re suggesting that Yorkshire is in the South then they won’t be happy with that!
If we consider GB as a whole, you’re still in the southern half of Great Britain until you get almost up to Carlisle. Manchester, Liverpool, Yorkshire etc. which are all considered “up north” are very much south of this.
