One of Shropshire's claims to fame is that it's the largest landlocked county in England. But I don't think I've ever been asked about the UK's largest county before.
Scotland, of course, doesn't have counties any more. Or does it?
Wikipedia talks about the Shires of Scotland, defining them in the present tense as "historic subdivisions of Scotland established in the Middle Ages". So you could argue that Scotland still has historic counties, and indeed that it still has ceremonial counties. But this is a bit of a red herring, because according to this map which I found on genuki.org.uk, the largest landlocked county in Scotland appears to me to be Roxburghshire, on the border with England. The area of Roxburghshire is an easily–remembered 666 square miles, compared to Shropshire's 1,346; so I think it's safe to say that there's no landlocked county in Scotland that's larger in area than Shropshire.
(Perthshire, which at 2,528 square miles is almost twice the size of Shropshire, comes close to being landlocked; but it has a tiny shoreline on the Firth of Tay – which I think does qualify as sea.)
But what about Wales?
Of the historic counties of Wales, only two or three are landlocked. I say two or three because I'm not sure about Montgomeryshire. It comes very close to the sea in the lower reaches of the River Dyfi (Dovey), but I don't think it quite gets there. (The hamlet of Glandyfi, which is very close to where the Dyfi becomes an estuary, is in Ceredigion – or Cardiganshire, if you prefer.) So I think Montgomeryshire is landlocked. But in the current context this is neither here nor there, because it has an area of 837 square miles – only a little over half that of Shropshire.
If it turns out that Montgomeryshire does reach the sea with the River Dyfi, then Wales's largest historical county is Breconshire (or Brecknockshire, if you prefer) – area 733 square miles. Only a little over half that of Shropshire.
But wait. These are historic counties. Wales still has counties, as well as county boroughs. Only one of the counties is landlocked ... but it's a big one. Powys has an area of 2,000 square miles (exactly, according to Wikipedia) – almost half as big again as Shropshire.
Powys includes Montgomeryshire, as well as Radnorshire and most of Breckonshire. So we still have the same issue of whether it meets the sea with the River Dyfi; but until I'm proved wrong, I'm saying that Powys is landlocked. And it's bigger than Shropshire.
And then there's Northern Ireland, which famously has six counties. As it happens, the largest of them, Tyrone, has no shoreline on the sea; and it has an area of 3,263 – more than twice the size of Shropshire, and also a good deal bigger than Powys.
But again, there is an issue. Tyrone (like every one of Northern Ireland's six counties, except Fermanagh) has a shore on Lough Neagh. Does this mean it's not landlocked?
Wikipedia defines a landlocked country as "a country that does not have territory connected to an ocean or whose coastlines lie on endorheic basins." Lough Neagh is not an endorheic basin; it has an outflow in the River Bann, which flows into the Alantic Ocean. So if we can extend Wikipedia's definition to landlocked counties (which I would suggest we can), Tyrone is a landlocked county.
I think the question setter has got this wrong; the largest landlocked county in the UK is Tyrone, followed by Powys. Shropshire is only the third largest.
Anyone want to dispute this?
P.S. I'm glad I didn't know all this at the time of this quiz. This was my question; I knew that Shropshire was the biggest landlocked county in England, but didn't know about the UK. I answered "Shropshire" (with my fingers crossed), and I got the points.
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