Dorset – Facts and Figures

• Dorset is an average sized county on the south coast of England. Its population is 399,900 with an additional 300,500 people living in the unitary authorities of Bournemouth and Poole.
• A county is the medium level of governmental organisation used in the United Kingdom, larger than a town but smaller than a country. The word county is derived from the French word Comte, meaning a Count, the traditional ruler of such an area. The term is a direct equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon word shire which it replaced after the Norman Conquest. Consequently the appellation 'shire' to a county name indicates that the area has been defined since Anglo-Saxon times. Dorset is traditionally known as Dorsetshire.
• Dorset is ranked second in the United Kingdom for the quality of its living environment, both natural and constructed.
• 1229 km² of Dorset has been designated as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, 50% of its total land area.
• Dorset has outstanding levels of biodiversity. 90% of all of the UK's bird species, 85% of mammals, 80% of butterflies, 70% of dragonflies and all of its reptiles and amphibians are found in the county.
• 114km of the Dorset coast is designated by UNESCO as part of the Jurassic Coast, England's only natural World Heritage Site.
• The county is oil rich. The Wytch Farm Oil Field is the largest onshore site in Europe and is expected to continue production until 2020-2025. The field is set in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and consequently special provision has been made so that the site does not spoil the natural environment. Wytch Farm is not Dorset's only oil site. The well at Kimmeridge has been pumping oil since 1959 and is the oldest continuously operating well in the world.
• The county town of Dorset is the historic Roman settlement of Dorchester.
• Dorchester, immortalised as Casterbridge by local writer Thomas Hardy who was born in the nearby village of Higher Bockhampton, was site of Judge Jeffries' infamous Bloody Assizes. It is expanding due to the construction of Prince Charles' experimental Poundbury, built on Duchy of Cornwall land on the outskirts of the older town.
• Hardy is a very common Dorsetshire surname. The tower known as Hardy's Monument, standing on the hills to the south-east of the town of Dorchester, is dedicated not to the writer Thomas Hardy, but to the Captain of HMS Victory, Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy, remembered in Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson's final words.
• Dorset has a long association with military service. The earliest experiments in tank warfare were held near the village of Lulworth, still the site of the Royal Armoured Corps AFV Training school. It was Rudyard Kipling who, upon seeing the hulks of the early tank prototypes in Lulworth, suggested that they should be put in a museum. The oldest of these prototypes is now part of the Tank Museum's collection at Bovington Camp, home of the RAC.