A new year, how about a new camping challenge. Spend at least one night camping in every county in the UK.
Sounds easy right, well it is.
We have been doing this for a few years but with COVID it’s taking a little longer than planned. You can create your own rules. Ours is simple: all five of us needed to spend the night for it to count. So trips before the kids and any trips we might not do as a family don’t count.
You might want to do this as solo camper and try camping on your own in each county.
So let’s break it down, below you will find a list of the current counties in the UK. We have not included any historical countries as this is all about now.
How many counties are there in the UK?
There are 109 counties that make up the United Kingdom (UK). The breakdown by country is below.
How many counties are there in England?
There are 48 counties in England.
Below is a list of England counties:
- Bedfordshire
- Berkshire
- Bristol
- Buckinghamshire
- Cambridgeshire
- Cheshire
- City of London
- Cornwall
- Cumbria
- Derbyshire
- Devon
- Dorset
- Durham
- East Riding of Yorkshire
- East Sussex
- Essex
- Gloucestershire
- Greater London
- Greater Manchester
- Hampshire
- Herefordshire
- Hertfordshire
- Isle of Wight
- Kent
- Lancashire
- Leicestershire
- Lincolnshire
- Merseyside
- Norfolk
- North Yorkshire
- Northamptonshire
- Northumberland
- Nottinghamshire
- Oxfordshire
- Rutland
- Shropshire
- Somerset
- South Yorkshire
- Staffordshire
- Suffolk
- Surrey
- Tyne and Wear
- Warwickshire
- West Midlands
- West Sussex
- West Yorkshire
- Wiltshire
- Worcestershire
North Yorkshire is the biggest county in England.
Cornwall
Northumberland
How many counties are there in Scotland?
There are 33 counties in Scotland. A breakdown of the Scottish counties is below.
- Aberdeenshire (or the County of Aberdeen)
- Angus (or Forfarshire or the County of Forfar)
- Argyll (or Argyllshire)
- Ayrshire (or the County of Ayr)
- Banffshire (or the County of Banff)
- Berwickshire (or the County of Berwick)
- Buteshire (or the County of Bute)
- Caithness
- Clackmannanshire (or the County of Clackmannan)
- Dumfriesshire
- Dunbartonshire
- East Lothian
- Fife
- Inverness-shire
- Kincardineshire
- Kinross-shire
- Kirkcudbrightshire
- Lanarkshire
- Midlothian
- Moray
- Nairnshire
- Orkney
- Peebleshire
- Perthshire
- Renfrewshire
- Ross and Cromarty
- Roxburghshire
- Selkirkshire
- Shetland
- Stirlingshire
- Sutherland
- West Lothian
- Wigtownshire
How many counties are there in Wales?
There are 22 counties in Wales. The full list of Welsh counties is below.
- Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
- Gwynedd
- Conwy
- Denbighshire (Sir Ddinbych)
- Flintshire (Sir y Fflint)
- Wrexham (Wrecsam)
- Ceredigion
- Powys
- Pembrokeshire (Sir Benfro)
- Carmarthenshire (Sir Gaerfyrddin)
- Swansea (Abertawe)
- Neath Port Talbot (Castell-nedd Port Talbot)
- Bridgend (Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr)
- Vale of Glamorgan (Bro Morgannwg)
- Rhondda Cynon Taff
- Cardiff (Caerdydd)
- Merthyr Tydfil (Merthyr Tudful)
- Caerphilly (Caerffili)
- Newport (Casnewydd)
- Torfaen (Tor-faen)
- Blaenau Gwent
- Monmouthshire (Sir Fynwy)
How many counties are in Northern Ireland
There are 6 Counties in Northern Ireland. Below is a list of those counties:
- Antrim
- Armagh
- Down
- Fermanagh
- Londonderry
- Tyrone
So now that you have the full list of the UK’s counties which one are you going to camp in first?
Counties which are Coastal?
While Great Britain is an island, a question we get asked a lot is how many of the UK counties have a coast.
There is nothing better than a sea view when camping, especially during the summer.
In total there are 55 British counties that are coastal.
So broken down by the regions of the GB, there are 17 in England, 15 in Wales and 23 in Scotland.
