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 for	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 (2025)
• Total	539,146
• 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