County Durham
Unitary authority area and district
Durham
From left to right Top: Durham Cathedral Middle: Seaham Beach and Chester-le-Street aerial Bottom: Barnard Castle and Shildon Locomotion Museum
Flag Coat of arms
Shown within Durham ceremonial county
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Country	England
Region	North East England
County	Durham
Unitary Authority	1 April 2009
Seat	Durham
Government
• Type	Non-metropolitan Unitary authority
• Local Authority	Durham County Council
• MPs	Mary Foy (L) Dehenna Davison (C) Paul Howell (C) Grahame Morris (L) Kevan Jones (L) Richard Holden (C)
Population  (2022)
• Total	528,127 (Ranked 10th)
Ethnicity (2021) [1]
• Ethnic groups	List 96.8% White 1.5% Asian 0.9% Mixed 0.4% other 0.3% Black
Religion (2021) [1]
• Religion	List 54.6% Christianity 38.6% no religion 5.1% not stated 0.6% Islam 0.4% other 0.2% Buddhism 0.2% Hinduism 0.2% Sikhism 0.1% Judaism
Time zone	UTC+0 (Greenwich Mean Time)
Postcode	DH1-DH99
Dialling code	0191
ISO 3166-2	GB-DUR
ONS code	00EJ (ONS) E06000047 (GSS)
Website	durham.gov.uk

County Durham is a local government district in the ceremonial county of County Durham, England. It is governed by Durham County Council, a unitary authority.^[2] The district has an area of 2,232.6 km² (862 sq m), and contains 135 civil parishes.^[3] It forms part of the larger ceremonial county of Durham, together with boroughs of Darlington, Hartlepool, and the part of Stockton-on-Tees north of the River Tees.

History

Between 1974 and 1 April 2009, County Durham was governed as a two-tier non-metropolitan county, with a county council and district councils. The original eight districts were Chester-le-Street, Darlington, Derwentside, Durham (city), Easington, Sedgefield, Teesdale, and Wear Valley.^[4] In 1997 Darlington was removed from the non-metropolitan county and became a separate unitary authority.^[5] In 2009 the remaining districts were abolished and replaced by a single district covering the non-metropolitan county, with Durham County Council as the sole local authority.^[6]

Geography

The district has multiple hamlets and villages. Settlements with town status include Consett, Barnard Castle, Peterlee, Seaham, Bishop Auckland, Newton Aycliffe, Middleton-in-Teesdale, Shildon, Chester-le-Street, Crook, Stanley, Willington, Stanhope, Spennymoor, Ferryhill and Sedgefield while Durham is the only city in the district.^{[citation needed]}

Governance

Following the 2021 United Kingdom local elections, the council is now^[when?] under control of a coalition of the Liberal Democrats, Conservative Party, Independents and North East Party.^{[citation needed]}

Education

Durham LEA has a comprehensive school system with 36 state secondary schools (not including sixth form colleges) and five independent schools (four in Durham and one in Barnard Castle). Easington district has the largest school population by year, and Teesdale has the smallest with two schools. Only one school in Easington and Derwentside districts have sixth forms, with about half the schools in the other districts having sixth forms.^{[citation needed]}