East of England is one of the official regions of England. Its population as of the 2001 census was 5,388,140. It was created in the late 1990s by combining the counties of Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, which had previously been included in the official South East region, with the traditional region of East Anglia. The new regions are not yet widely understood or used by the general public. The Labour government planned to introduce regional assemblies in England, but it was forced to abandon this plan in 2004 after losing a referendum on the proposal in the North East region by a margin of 78% to 22%. Therefore the "East of England" as an administrative concept is not widely familiar to the public, which is more likely to understand the traditional designations of East Anglia and the South East.
It was originally defined as consisting of counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. The above list includes the unitary authorities carved out of those counties in the local government reorganisation of the 1990s.
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de:East of England
eo:Oriento de Anglio
fr:Région de l'Angleterre de l'Est
no:Řst-England
