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A shire county or non-metropolitan county in England, is a county level entity which is not a metropolitan county. The names of most, but not all, shire counties end in the suffix "-shire"; for example, Kent and Staffordshire are both shire counties. Some shire counties that historically had the -shire ending have lost it over time, such as Devon, which was formerly known as Devonshire. The counties typically have populations of 300,000 to 1.4 million. <ref>Jones, B. et al, Politics UK, (2004)</ref>

The term is sometimes used in a restricted sense to refer only to the administrative counties that have a two-tier structure, of a county council and district councils. It therefore excludes the various unitary districts, including Herefordshire and Rutland. The Isle of Wight is a non-metropolitan county, but is also a unitary area, as its district councils have been abolished.

The term "shire county" is actually a tautology, the word county coming from French and shire from Saxon.

There are 34 non-metropolitan counties in England which have multiple districts and a county council:

Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, Durham, East Sussex, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Warwickshire, West Sussex, Wiltshire, Worcestershire

Technically, most unitary authorities in England are also non-metropolitan counties. Berkshire is a non-metropolitan county with multiple districts but it no longer has a county council.

The term 'non-metropolitan county' is also sometimes used to refer to the eight Welsh counties created by the Local Government Act 1972. Although the Act does not use the term specifically when referring to Wales, neither does it in general parts of the act distinguish between the Welsh entities and the English non-metropolitan counties, referring to both as non-metropolitan counties. The Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 amends the Local Government Act 1972 such that the new Welsh principal areas which have the status of counties are not implied to be non-metropolitan counties.

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Lists of English counties
All counties;	By area	By population	By population density	By highest point
Ceremonial counties;	By area	By population	By population density
Non-metropolitan counties;	By area	By population	By population density

Structure of English administrative divisions (since 1995)

Region level:	Region	Region	Region	Region
County level:	Metropolitan county	Shire county	Unitary authority	Greater London
District level:	Metropolitan district	Shire district	n/a	London borough
Parish level:	(Civil parish)	(Civil parish)	(Civil parish)	n/a

cs:Nemetropolitní hrabství

hu:Anglia shire megyéi fi:Shire-kreivikunta