Now all the English counties are complete, we thought it would be useful to let you know the number of people found in each county: in decreasing size order. Note the huge comparative size of Lancashire and Yorkshire (West Riding).

1. Lancashire   4,767,832
2. London   4,521,685
3. Yorkshire, West Riding   3,045,377
4. Durham   1,369,860
5. Essex   1,350,881
6. Staffordshire   1,348,259
7. Middlesex   1,126,465
8. Kent   1,045,591
9. Warwickshire   1,040,409
10. Cheshire   954,779
11. Hampshire   950,579
12. Surrey   845,578
13. Gloucestershire   736,097
14. Devonshire   699,703
15. Northumberland   696,893
16. Derbyshire   688,423
17. Sussex   663,378
18. Nottinghamshire   604,098
19. Lincolnshire   563,960
20. Worcestershire   526,087
21. Yorkshire, East Riding (with York)   515,041
22. Norfolk   499,116
23. Leicestershire   476,553
24. Somersetshire   458,025
25. Yorkshire, North Riding   419,546
26. Suffolk   394,060
27. Northamptonshire   348,515
28. Cornwall   328,098
29. Hertfordshire   311,284
30. Wiltshire   286,822
31. Berkshire   271,009
32. Cumberland   265,746
33. Shropshire   246,307
34. Dorsetshire   223,266
35. Buckinghamshire   219,551
36. Oxfordshire   199,269
37. Cambridgeshire   198,074
38. Bedfordshire   194,588
39. Herefordshire   114,269
40. Westmorland   63,575
41. Huntingdonshire 55,577
42. Rutlandshire   20,346

Just to let you know that we have now scanned all English counties and have started on Wales. We anticipate that the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire, and Durham will be available by the end of March. Happy St David’s day!

UPDATE: 3/3/09 To the end of February, we have scanned 15.1million images, 93% of total. This leaves 1million (or 7%) to go. We should finish scanning at Kew In April. Compare the number of images to the 1901 census at 1.5 million images - it is over 10 times larger!