Norfolk, an important county on the east coast of England, oval in shape, and in size yielding only to Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Devonshire, is bounded N. and NE. by the North Sea, SE. and S. by Suffolk, and W. by Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, and the Wash. With an extreme length and breadth of 66 miles by 42, it has an area of 2119 sq. m. or 1,356,173 acres. Pop. (1801) 273,371; (1831) 390,000; (1881) 444,637; (1891) 454,516. Its coast-line, upwards of 90 miles in length, is for the most part flat, and skirted by low dunes, except near Cromer, and again at Hunstanton, where cliffs, from time to time undermined by the sea, rise to a height of from 100 to 200 feet. Inland the surface is undulating, well timbered, and well watered, the principal rivers (by which, and by the Great Eastern and Eastern and Midlands Railways communication throughout the county is kept up) being the Ouse, which flows northward to the Wash, and the Bure, Yare, and Waveney, which fall into the sea near Yarmouth, and in their course link together the numerous Broads (q.v.) situate in the north-eastern district. The soil consists chiefly of light loams and sands—in places there are extensive rabbit-warrens, and with so much wood (51,258 acres in 1889) there is naturally an abundance of game. The climate, though in the spring-time cold owing to the prevalence of east winds, is on the whole dry and healthy. Apart from lime, chalk, and excellent brick-earth, no minerals of any importance are worked, but agriculture in all its different branches is here brought to the highest state of perfection: all the usual crops, especially turnips, swedes, and mangold, are extensively cultivated; upwards of 3400 acres are occupied as market-gardens and orchards; whilst great attention is paid to the rearing of turkeys and geese for the London markets, and on the rich marsh-lands in the extreme west of the county, as well as on the pastures bordering the various rivers, great quantities of cattle are grazed. The principal manufactures are noticed under NORWICH, and of other industries the most important is the herring-fishery connected with
Yarmouth and other ports. Norfolk comprises 33 hundreds, the city of Norwich, the municipal boroughs of King's Lynn, Great Yarmouth, and Thetford (parts of the two latter extending into Suffolk), and 736 civil parishes with parts of 9 others, mostly in the diocese of Norwich. Its parliamentary divisions are six in number, each returning one member, and the county council consists of 76 members. Towns other than the foregoing are Dereham, Diss, Downham Market, North Walsham, Swaffham, and Wymondham. In the history of the county the most notable incidents have been the settlements within its borders of the Flemish refugees and Walloons in the reigns of Henry I., Edward III., and Queen Elizabeth; and Ket's rebellion (1549). Many interesting traces of the handiwork of its former occupants are still extant in the ruins of priories at Castle Acre, Thetford, and Walsingham, in the castles of Norwich, Castle Rising (where Queen Isabella was confined a prisoner), and Caistor, in earthworks at Buckenham, Caistor, and Thetford, and in the old halls of Blickling (the home of the Boleyns), Holkham, Houghton, Oxburgh, and East Barsham. Among Norfolk 'worthies' (omitting those noticed under Norwich) are to be found the names of Gonville (founder of the college at Cambridge which bears his name), Sir John Fastolf, the Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Gresham, Skelton and Shadwell (poets-laureate), Sir Edward Coke, his descendant the Earl of Leicester, Spelman (the antiquary), Sir Roger L'Estrange, Sir Cloudesley Shovel, Sir Robert Walpole and his son Horace, Blomfield (the topographer), Tom Paine, Windham (the statesman), William Godwin, Lord Nelson, Professor Porson, Manby (inventor of life-saving apparatus), Sir Astley Cooper, Elizabeth Fry, Fowell Buxton, Lord Cranworth, Captain Marryat (the novelist), Cattermole (the painter), Borrow (the Romany Rye), Bulwer Lytton, and Rider Haggard. For the Dukes of Norfolk, see HOWARD.
See the county histories by Blomfield (11 vols. 1805-10), Chambers (2 vols. 1829), Rye (1885), and White (new ed. 1890); also A. D. Bayne's Eastern England (2 vols. 1873), G. C. Davies' Norfolk Broads and Rivers (1884), and Jessopp's Arcady (1887).