Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a ceremonial county in eastern England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to the north, the North Sea to the east, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland to the south, and Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire to the west. The county town is Lincoln. The county is predominantly rural, with an area of and a population of 1,087,659. After Lincoln (104,565) the largest towns are Grimsby (85,911) and Scunthorpe (81,286). The county contains nine districts; seven are part of a two-tier non-metropolitan county also called Lincolnshire, and the districts of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire are unitary areas. The last two districts are part of Yorkshire and the Humber region, and the rest of the county is in the East Midlands. Lincolnshire is the second-largest ceremonial county and has a varied geography, including the chalk hills of the Lincolnshire Wolds AONB, the wetlands of the Lincolnshire Fens, the Lincoln Cliff escarpment, and the Lincolnshire Marsh. Lincolnshire has had a comparatively quiet history, being a rural county which was not heavily industrialised and faced little threat of invasion. In the fifth century what would become the county was settled by the invading Angles, who established the Kingdom of Lindsey in the north of the region. The late Middle Ages were a particularly prosperous period, when wealth from wool trade facilitated the building of grand churches such as St Botolph's Church, Boston. During the Second World War the relatively flat topography of the county made it an important base for the Royal Air Force, which built several airfields and based two bomber squadrons in the area.