Located in the South West of Britain, Devon, is a big county. The county touches the borders with Cornwall in the west and Dorset and Somerset in the east. Its shore line follows the English Channel in the south and the Bristol Channel in the north. This is the only county in Britain with two separate beach fronts.

Devon, the third in size of the English counties has a population of 1,109,900. The cathedral city of Exeter is the county town and the county has two independent governing authorities, city of Plymouth which has a port and the Torbay urban sprawl of seaside tourist resorts that are added to Devon County Council.

Plymouth is the largest city in Devon. Most of the county has rural background which includes National Park land and density of population is low by British standards. 950 km2 (365 square miles) are covered by Dartmoor.

Britains only natural UNESCO World Heritage Site is situated in the county. Famous as the Jurassic Coast for its geology and geographical features the Dorset and East Devon Coast are also located here. Along side its neighbour Cornwall, Devon is popular as the Cornubian massif.

This geology of both National Parks gives rise to the landscapes of Dartmoor and Exmoor. Devon has many seaside tourist resorts and several historic towns, cities and villages. Its weather is very mild, which attracts large number of tourists and helps in its economy.

The name Devon was kept by the Celtic people, who inhabited the southwestern peninsulas area of Britain at the time when Romans invaded in 50AD. In his 1607 edition of Britannia, William Camden, explained Devon as one part of an ancient and wider area that once contained Cornwall.

There is a dispute over the use of word Devonshire in place of Devon, which means who? and officially it is not recognized by the term Devonshire in these modern times, except for the name of the Dorset Regiment and Devonshire. Another theory that says the shire was added due to a mistake while making the original letters protected for the Duke of Devonshire who was a resident in Derbyshire.

One of the rural counties is a part of the seafront of Torquay, in south Devon at high tide with the problems and advantages that are related to these. In spite of this, the county’s economy is dependant heavily by, Plymouth and Exeter, its two main urban centres.

Like neighboring Cornwall, which lies in the west, Devon has a disadvantage of economically weighed by other parts of southern Britain, because it has seen the decline of several core industries, noted among them are farming, fishing and mining. So consequently, major parts of Devon have succeeded in qualifying for the European Community Objective 2 status, especially around Bideford Bay, Exmoor and the Hartland Point peninsula, which is a little bit cut off from main industrial Britain, due to its poor up keep of road and rail transport links.

Well, there is plenty to digest here about Devon and hopefully has given you food for thought.