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Size
and Population of
Yorkshire
I
have been doing a bit of browsing in the Guinness World Fact Book - an
excellent reference work for discovering everything you ever
wanted to know (and several things you didn't) about most
countries in the world.
Particularly interesting are the listed population
figures - based on 1991 estimates - which indicate quite
clearly that the
present-day population of
Yorkshire
makes it considerably larger than
a great many countries of the world. In fact, it would be in the top
half of the world's most populated countries, were it an independent
nation.
Did you know, for instance, that Yorkshire has a greater population than
nations like Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Latvia,
Lithuania, Libya, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay and New Zealand, is
approximately equal in size to countries like Israel and El Salvador and
has a greater population than all but 14 states of the USA?
Applying the same relative figures throughout the last two centuries, it
is reasonable to assume that this has always been the case, and I ask
our overseas cousins to remember this when they ask blithely for lookups
of "my gt-gt-grandfather John Smith,
born in Yorkshire " in a census that hasn't been surname indexed!!!
Those
who are easily bored with statistics need read no further, but
I thought perhaps it may help others to understand the size of
Yorkshire in relation to many independent countries of the world
and to get the family history of your Yorkshire ancestors into some kind
of perspective.
I
base my estimate of
Yorkshire
's
modern population on the fact that
ever since the first
UK
census of 1801, the official figures show
that the county has consistently held within its borders
approximately 10% of the population of
Britain
.
Given, then, that
the
UK
population today is 57-60 million, the current population of
Yorkshire
is around 5-and-a-half to 6 million. This figure is loosely supported
when one adds up the grand total of the huge conurbations
of the West Riding and other major towns.
This
makes it roughly twice the size of
Wales
(2,900,000), substantially
larger than the
Irish
Republic
(3,500,000) and probably larger
in population than
Scotland
(5,111,000). However, it comes as a
bit of a surprise to find that Yorkshire is also larger than the
following countries of Europe: Denmark (5,162,000), Finland (5,092,000),
Norway (4,272,000), Iceland (264,000), Cyprus (756,000),
Malta (360,000) Albania (3,422,000), Bosnia (4,365,000), Croatia
(4,821,000), Estonia (1,536,000), Latvia (2,596.,000), Lithuania
(3,760,000), Macedonia (2,063,000), Slovakia (5,290,000) and
Slovenia (1,966,000). Of
course, I have not counted all the tiddly
little countries like
Andorra
,
Luxembourg
,
Liechtenstein
,
Monaco
,
Gibraltar
,
San
Marino
,
etc, that don't add up even to the population of
Leeds
or
Sheffield
!
Further
afield than
Europe
,
Yorkshire
's
population is larger than more than 20 countries of
Africa
and larger than the following countries of Central and
South
America
:
Belize
(204,000),
Costa
Rica
(3,200,000),
Guyana
(730,000),
Honduras
(5,150,000),
Nicaragua
(4,265,000),
Panama
(2,563,000),
Paraguay
(4,613,000),
Surinam
(405,000),
Uruguay
(3,150,000).
In
the
USA
,
Yorkshire
's
population exceeds that of every state with the exception of the
following:
California
,
Florida
,
Georgia
,
Illinois
,
Indiana
(roughly about the same),
Massachusetts
,
Michigan
,
New
Jersey
,
New
York
,
North
Carolina
,
Ohio
,
Pennsylvania
,
Texas
and
Virginia
.
It is over twice the size of (and several times the size of) some
states: for instance, Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas,
Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New
Mexico, North and South Dakota (together), Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont,
West Virginia and Wyoming.
I
won't bother giving the figures for the numerous Middle Eastern, Asian,
Caribbean and Pacific countries that have smaller populations than
Yorkshire
,
since I'm sure you've got the message by
now. In fact, were it an independent nation Yorkshire
would be about 95th out of
some 200 countries in the world - in the top half, in other words.
NOW,
do you folks over there and in Oz understand why I am constantly
stressing how big
Yorkshire
is and why you should try to be specific in your enquiries? Seriously, I
hope this quick rundown gives you some idea of the size of the problem
when you are researching in our great (in all senses of the word)
county.
Roy Stockdill
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