County Durham (district)

County Durham
County Durham
Unitary authority area
	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 ceremonial County Durham
	Coordinates: 54°42′51″N 1°47′51″W / 54.7143°N 1.7976°W
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Country	England
Region	North East
Ceremonial county	County Durham
City region	North East
Historic counties	County Durham; Yorkshire (North Riding);
Created	1 April 2009
Named after	County Durham
Administrative HQ	County Hall, Durham
Government
• Type	Unitary authority
• Body	Durham County Council
• Executive	Leader and cabinet
• Control	Reform UK
• Leader	Andrew Husband (R)
• Chair	Joan Nicholson
• MPs	6 MPs Luke Akehurst (L) ; Mary Kelly Foy (L) ; Grahame Morris (L) ; Sam Rushworth (L) ; Alan Strickland (L) ; Liz Twist (L) ;
Area
• Total	859 sq mi (2,226 km2)
• Rank	11th
Population (2024)
• Total	538,011
• Rank	10th
• Density	630/sq mi (242/km2)
Ethnicity (2021)
• Ethnic groups	List 96.8% White ; 1.5% Asian ; 0.9% Mixed ; 0.4% other ; 0.3% Black ;
Religion (2021)
• Religion	List 54.6% Christianity ; 38.6% no religion ; 0.6% Islam ; 0.2% Buddhism ; 0.2% Hinduism ; 0.2% Sikhism ; 0.1% Judaism ; 0.4% other ; 5.1% not stated ;
Time zone	UTC+0 (GMT)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+1 (BST)
Postcode areas	DH1–99
Dialling codes	0191
ISO 3166 code	GB-DUR
GSS code	E06000047
Website	durham.gov.uk

County Durham is a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of County Durham, England. It is governed by Durham County Council. The district has an area of 2,226 square kilometres (859 sq mi), and contains 135 civil parishes. 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.