Northern England

The English North — the old Danelaw. Its roots lie in the swathe of England settled by Vikings in the 9th century and the Anglo-Scandinavian kingdoms of Northumbria and York, leaving Norse-tinged dialect and place-names, and it later became the furnace of the Industrial Revolution in cotton, coal, iron and shipbuilding — both of which mark it off from the Saxon-and-Norman south. Communitarian and nonconformist, with a strong working-class and trade-union tradition, its cities — Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle — gave the world football culture, brass bands and a blunt humour. Post-industrial decline and the 'levelling-up' debate keep its durable North–South divide with the southern capital at the centre of British politics.

• Existed: 900 CE – present
• Type: Entity