Dorset

of the titles of this article is ambiguous. For further meanings see Dorset (term clarifying).

Dorset
Geografie
status:	Ceremonies and administrative county
region:	South west England
surface:	2,653 km ²
administrative seat:	Dorchester
ISO 3166-2:	GB-DOR
Demografie
population: - Entire (2002) - density:	696.327 263/km ²
districts
Weymouth and haven country west Dorset North Dorset Purbeck East Dorset Christchurch Bournemouth (Unitary) Poole (Unitary)

Dorset (also Dorsetshire, Kornisch Domnonii) is a county in southwest England. The capital is Dorchester. The neighbouring counties are Devonian in the west, Somerset in northwest, Wiltshire in the northeast and Hampshire in the east.

Dorset counts approximately 645,000 inhabitants and has the highest portion of older people of all counties in Great Britain: 25.9% of the population are old over 65 years.

Bournemouth and Christchurch - both before times Hampshire - became 1974 after Dorset in in common December.

The seaside resort Bournemouth and the port of Poole dominate the southeast of the otherwise rather rurally coined/shaped county. In Poole the Tower park - of Europe largest leisure complex - is resident. Still in 19. Century was the today's population centre hardly more than a small port place surrounded by heath country.

In the literature Dorset is well-known as homeland of the author and poet Thomas Hardy. Numerous places, which he attributes in his narrations to the fictitious Wessex, lie in Dorset. Its Cottage, convenient in the forests east of Dorchester, as well as its house in Dorchester by national the Trust are administered and can be visited. Stalbridge is the homeland of Douglas of Adam, the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide ton the Galaxy. The poet William Barnes, the writers Theodore Francis Powys, John le Carré and P. D. James as well as the Satiriker Thomas Love Peacock originate likewise from Dorset.

Beyond that in Dorset of the artists Sir James Thornhill, the musicians P J Harvey and Robert Fripp (King Crimson) were born, the Paläontologin Mary Anning, the rudder champion Matthew Pinsent and the archbishops John Morton and William Wake.

The port of Poole is world-wide the second largest after Naturhafen from Sydney. In that much lie numerous islands flatten bay. Among them also Brownsea Iceland, the establishment place of the pathfinder movement. Under the port is one of the few British oil fields.

A majority of the coastal line of Dorset was explained because of its unusual geological formations 2001 as the world nature inheritance of the UNESCO.

cities and localities

• Abbotsbury, Ashmore
• Beaminster, Blandford forum, Bournemouth, Bridport, Broadstone
• Cerne Abbas, Charmouth, Christchurch, Corfe Castle
• Dorchester
• East Lulworth
• remotedown
• Gillingham
• Iwerne Courtney, Iwerne Minster
• Kington Magna
• long clay/tone Matravers, Lyme Regis, Lytchett Matravers, Lytchett Minster
• Melcombe Regis, Milton Abbas
• Poole, Poundbury, Puddletown
• Shaftesbury, shearing founts, pc. Ives, Stalbridge, Sturminster marshal, Sturminster Newton, Swanage
• Tolpuddle
• Verwood
• Wareham, west Lulworth, west of moorland, west Stour, Weymouth, Wimborne Minster, Worth Matravers

objects of interest

• Abbotsbury Swannery
• Abbotsbury subtropical gardens
• Badbury of ring
• Brownsea Iceland
• Cerne Abbas Giant
• Corfe Castle
• Edmondsham House
• Forde Abbey
• Hardy Monument (admiral Thomas Masterman Hardy dedicated)
• Hardy Cottage (domicile of the writer Thomas Hardy)
• Roman temple with Jordan Hill
• Jurassic Coast (a world nature inheritance)
  • Chesil Beach and The fleet
  • Durdle Door
  • Durlston Country park
  • Isle OF haven country and haven country Bill
  • Kimmeridge
  • Lulworth Cove
  • South west Coast Path, a remote moving way
  • Studland Bay
• Kingston Lacy
• Lulworth Castle
• Maiden Castle
• Nothe away
• Purse Caundle Manor
• of shearing founts Abbey
• of shearing founts Castle
• Swanage Railway
• tank museum, Bovington
• Wimborne Minster

Web on the left of

Commons: Dorset - pictures, videos and/or audio files

• Dorset County Council (English)

traditional counties of England

Bedfordshire | Berkshire | Buckinghamshire | Cambridge-almost | Cheshire | Cornwall | Cumberland | Derbyshire | Devonian | Dorset | County Durham | Essex | Gloucestershire | Hampshire | Herefordshire | Heart-Ford-almost | Huntingdonshire | Kent | Lancashire | Leicestershire | Lincoln-almost | Middlesex | Norfolk | Northamptonshire | Northumberland | Nottinghamshire | Oxfordshire | Rutland | Shropshire | Somerset | Staffordshire | Suffolk | Surrey | Sussex | Warwickshire | Westmorland | Wiltshire | Worcestershire | Yorkshire