A ceremonial county is an area in England that has an appointed Lord Lieutenant and High Sheriff and is used for ceremonial purposes in relation to the monarchy. They are also known as geographic counties and correspond to the shrieval counties, each with a high sheriff appointed. Most ceremonial counties are entities comprising local authority areas, as they were from 1889 to 1974. The term "ceremonial county" is an anachronism, as they were shown on Ordnance Survey maps as "counties" or "geographical counties," and were referred to in the Local Government Act 1888 simply as "counties". The Lieutenancies Act 1997 defines the "ceremonial counties" in terms of local government areas created by the Local Government Act 1972 as amended. The following are the ceremonial counties since 1997:
- Bedfordshire, including Luton
- Berkshire
- Bristol
- Buckinghamshire, including Milton Keynes
- Cambridgeshire, including Peterborough
- Cheshire, including Halton and Warrington
- City of London
- Cornwall
- Cumbria
- Derbyshire
- Devon
- Dorset
- Durham
- East Sussex
- Essex
- Gloucestershire
- Greater London
- Greater Manchester
- Hampshire, including Southampton and Portsmouth
- Herefordshire
- Hertfordshire
- Isle of Wight
- Kent
- Lancashire, including Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool
- Leicestershire, including Leicester
- Lincolnshire, including North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire
- Merseyside
- Norfolk
- North Yorkshire, including Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, and York
- Northamptonshire
- Northumberland
- Nottinghamshire, including Nottingham
- Oxfordshire
- Rutland
- Shropshire, including Telford and Wrekin
- Somerset
- South Yorkshire
- Staffordshire, including Stoke-on-Trent
- Suffolk
- Surrey
- Tyne and Wear
- Warwickshire
- West Midlands
- West Sussex
- West Yorkshire, including Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield
- Wiltshire, including Swindon
- Worcestershire, including Herefordshire and Worcestershire
Ceremonial counties do not generally have direct administrative functions, but they are used for ceremonial purposes and have an appointed Lord-Lieutenant, similar to a traditional county.
