spec. In Old English times, an administrative district, consisting of a number of smaller districts (‘hundreds’ or ‘wapentakes’), united for…

Each of the territorial divisions of Great Britain and Ireland, forming the chief unit for administrative, judicial, and political purposes.

A division of a large county, treated as a county-area with regard to the distribution of species of plants, etc.

a non-metropolitan county of the U.K., as instituted by the local government reorganization of 1974.