Here’s where Brits think the North of England actually begins
Key Points
- More in Common asked 2,000 Britons to mark on a map where the North of England starts.
- The average placement falls just above Loughborough, slightly north of the Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire border.
- The Nottinghamshire village of East Leake, population 8,553, sits closest to the centre of that line.
- Most answers cluster in a band running from West and South Yorkshire through the Peak District and the Trent valley into the East Midlands.
- The official statistical North sits considerably further up the map.
Brits place the start of the North of England just above Loughborough, a little north of the Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire border, according to polling by More in Common that asked 2,000 people to mark the line themselves.
The pollster narrowed the average placement to a single village. East Leake, in the Rushcliffe district of Nottinghamshire, sits roughly at the centre of the line. The village recorded a population of 8,553 at the 2021 census, and although it falls inside Nottinghamshire, its postal address runs through Loughborough in Leicestershire.
Individual answers spread widely around that average. The most common placements form a band running from West and South Yorkshire down through the Peak District and the Trent valley into the East Midlands, meaning many respondents drew the line well below cities such as Sheffield and Leeds.
A second, smaller cluster appeared far further up the country, on the Scottish border around Berwick and north Northumberland, from people who count only the top of England as properly northern.
The average line sits south of the official version. The Office for National Statistics splits England into nine regions, three of which make up the North: the North East, the North West, and Yorkshire and the Humber.
East Leake belongs to none of them, falling instead in the East Midlands, which places the statistical boundary a considerable distance north of where the average Briton draws it.
