Southern England

The English South — heir of Wessex. It is the descendant of the kingdom that under Alfred and his successors unified England in the 9th–10th centuries and then, after 1066, became the Norman seat of crown, court and capital. Anchored on London — the seat of crown, church, government and the City — it is the Anglican, mercantile establishment heartland that concentrates the nation's wealth and power, the enduring core the rest of Britain defines itself against. Oxford and Cambridge, Westminster and the Square Mile sit here, and its 'Home Counties', received-pronunciation culture has long stood, fairly or not, for 'England' itself; its prosperity is the other pole of the North–South divide.

• Existed: 871 CE – present
• Type: Entity