Norfolk (UK)

County of eastern England.

Area
5,360 sq km/2,069 sq mi

Towns and cities
Norwich (administrative headquarters), King's Lynn, Great Yarmouth (ports); Cromer, Hunstanton (resorts)

Physical
low-lying with the Fens in the west and the Norfolk Broads in the east; rivers Bure, Ouse, Waveney, Yare

Features
the Broads (a series of lakes famous for fishing and water fowl, and for boating); Halvergate Marshes wildlife area; traditional reed thatching; Grime's Graves (Neolithic flint mines); shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, a medieval and present-day centre of pilgrimage; Blickling Hall (Jacobean, built 1619–24, situated 14 km/7 mi south of Cromer); residence of Elizabeth II at Sandringham (built 1869–71)

Agriculture
cereals (wheat and barley); fruit and vegetables (beans, sugar beets, swedes, turnips); turkeys, geese, cattle; fishing centred on Great Yarmouth

Industries
agricultural implements; boots and shoes; brewing and malting; offshore natural gas; tanning; there are flour mills and mustard works

Population
(2001) 796,700 (comprising Breckland, Broadland, Great Yarmouth, King's Lynn and West Norfolk, North Norfolk, Norwich, and South Norfolk)

Famous people
Fanny Burney (novelist), John Sell Cotman (painter, and vice-president of the Norwich School), John Crome (‘Old Crome’, painter and president of the Norwich School), Diana, Princess of Wales, Rider Haggard, Horatio Nelson, Thomas Paine (writer and political campaigner), Anna Sewell (author of Black Beauty)