Penwith

From Free net encyclopedia

Penwith District
Image:CornwallPenwith.png Shown within Cornwall
Geography
Status:	District
Region:	South West England
Admin. County:	Cornwall
Area: - Total	Ranked 155th 303.56 km²
Admin. HQ:	Penzance
ONS code:	15UF
Demographics
Population: - Total (2004 est.) - Density	Ranked 320th 64,200 211 / km²
Ethnicity:	98.9% White
Politics
Penwith District Council http://www.penwith.gov.uk
Leadership:	Alternative - Sec.31
Control:	Conservative + Liberal Democrat
MP:	Andrew George

Penwith (Cornish: Penwyth) is a local government district in Cornwall, UK. It is the westernmost district in England, other than the Isles of Scilly. Its council is based in Penzance.

The district is named after an ancient hundred of Cornwall - see Penwith (hundred). The name derives from the two Cornish words, pen and wyth. Pen means 'Headland' and wyth means 'at the end'. The current district was created on April 1, 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, as a merger of Penzance and St. Ives boroughs, St Just urban district, and West Penwith Rural District.

It is mostly composed of the peninsula that bears the same name. It features a rugged coastline with many fine beaches, which make this area a renowned holiday destination. Tourism plays a major part in Penwith's economy, which was hit by the decline of the mining and fishing industries, which led to Penwith's listing as an Objective 1 area by the European Social Fund.

Inland, the peninsula is a bare plateau, rich in minerals, which were mined for many centuries. The landscape is dotted with ruined mine buildings. Penwith also contains many sites of archaeological interest, with notable Iron Age and Romano-British finds.

West Penwith is an Environmentally Sensitive Area of 90 square kilometres.

In 2001 Penwith had a population of 62, 994, a figure that has remained broadly static for the last one hundred and fifty years [1].

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