Kent, a maritime county in the SE. of England, is bounded by the Thames estuary, the Strait of Dover, Sussex and the English Channel, Surrey, and the county of London, whose creation in 1888 has reduced the area of the administrative county from 995,344 acres to 971,849 acres. Greatest length, 64 miles; breadth, 38 miles. The surface is for the most part hilly, except in the south-east, where lies a marshy tract, some 14 miles long by 8 broad, and in the north, where a line of marshes skirts the banks of the Thames and Medway; these last are backed by a succession of wooded hills, stretching inland and gradually increasing in height until they culminate in the North Downs (see DOWNS), a chalk range which traverses the middle of the county from west to east, attaining at Knocksholt Beeches, near Sevenoaks, a height of 782 feet above the sea-level. Below these downs lies the Weald of Kent, a district abounding in beautiful scenery, and occupying nearly the whole southern side of the county. Of rivers in Kent, besides that which forms its northern boundary, the principal are the Medway, Stour, and Darent. The climate is in general mild and healthy, and the soil, which consists principally of chalk, gravel, and clay, is fertile, particularly in the south-east, where the rich meadows of the Romney Marsh afford excellent pasturage for vast flocks of sheep. All branches of agriculture are extensively carried on, especially market-gardening and the growth of Hops (q.v.) and fruit of various kinds. In 1889 the extent of land under cultivation as hop-gardens was 35,487 acres, or a hop-field almost five times larger than that of any other hop-growing county in England, and orchards and market-gardens covered 27,495 acres. Of other industries the principal are the manufacture of paper, bricks, and gunpowder. In 1890 coal of good quality was found in a heading adjoining the Channel Tunnel (q.v.) at a depth of 1180 feet. Large numbers of hands are employed in the government establishments at the Woolwich arsenal and the dockyards of Chatham and Sheerness; whilst at Ashford are the locomotive and carriage works of the South-Eastern Railway, and at Whitstable and Faversham are important oyster-fisheries. Kent is divided into five lathes, and comprises 73 hundreds, the Cinque Ports (q.v.) of Dover, Hythe, Romney, and Sandwich, the cities of Canterbury and Rochester, and 18 municipal boroughs—in all 435 civil parishes, almost wholly in the dioceses of Canterbury and Rochester. Pop. (1801) 307,624; (1841) 549,353; (1881) 977,706; (1891) 1,142,324 (in administrative county, 785,674). The county includes eight parliamentary divisions, and the parliamentary boroughs of Canterbury, Chatham, Dover, Gravesend, Greenwich, Hythe, Lewisham, Maidstone, Rochester, and Woolwich, with part of the borough of Deptford, each returning one member. The county council numbers 96. The chief towns, in addition to those mentioned above, are Ramsgate, Margate, Folkestone, and Tunbridge Wells, all popular watering-places. A peculiarity in the tenure of land in Kent is that of Gavelkind (q.v.).
In historical associations the county is unusually rich. The earlier incidents down to the Heptarchy are noticed at ENGLAND, Vol. III. pp. 348–49; subsequent to the successive occupations of the Danes and Normans, during which the county was the scene of many a battle, the principal events in its history are—the murder of Archbishop Becket at Canterbury (1170); the submission of King John to the Pope's Legate at Dover (1215); the invasions by Louis, Dauphin of France (1216); the insurrections of Wat Tyler (1381), Jack Cade (1450), and Sir Thomas Wyatt (1554); the encampment at Blackheath of the Cornish insurgents under Lord Audley (1497); the rising of royalists at Maidstone (1648), and its subsequent suppression by Fairfax; and the destruction of shipping in the Medway by the Dutch fleet under De Ruyter (1667). Dover was the scene of the death of King Stephen, and Faversham of his burial; at Greenwich Henry VIII. and Queens Mary and Elizabeth were born, and Edward VI. died; Eltham Palace (now in ruins) was for a long time a royal residence; at Sayes Court, Deptford, which occupied a portion of the site of the royal victualling yard, lived Peter the Great whilst learning the trade of a shipwright; and at Chislehurst Napoleon III. died. Of its early inhabitants Kent has numerous traces in the shape of Roman roads, and many camps and barrows; at Aylesford and Hartlip Roman villas and baths have been discovered, and near the former place is a curious dolmen known as Kits Coity House. Of edifices of a historical or antiquarian interest it will suffice to specify here the cathedrals of Canterbury and Rochester, the Norman fortress of the latter place, with those of Chilham and Dover, and the moated mansions of Hever (the home of Anne Boleyn), Ightham Mote (dating back to the 14th century), and Leeds Castle (where Richard II. and Joan of Navarre were imprisoned). Amongst Kentish worthies are included Caxton the printer, Elizabeth Barton the 'nun of Kent,' Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Francis Walsingham, Camden the antiquary, Sir Philip Sidney, Harvey the discoverer of the circulation of blood, the 'judicious' Hooker, the Earl of Chatham and his son William Pitt, General Wolfe, Richard Barham, author of the Ingoldsby Legends, the historians Hallam and Grote, Charles Dickens, Gordon Pasha, and Cameron the African explorer.
See the county histories of Hasted (4 vols. 1778-99; new and enlarged ed. 1886, &c.) and Dunkin (3 vols. 1856-58); also T. Frost's In Kent with Charles Dickens (1880); Abell's History of Kent for the Young (1895); and Bosworth's Kent, Past and Present (1900).