Last Updated : 2 Nov 2010

England does not officially have a Greater Liverpool. The closest modern entity is the county of Merseyside (249 square miles) which comprises the five boroughs - Liverpool, Knowsley, Saint Helens, Sefton and Wirral.

The Liverpool Diocese of the Church of England comprises 15 "deaneries", all on the north bank of the Mersey and including Southport in the north and Wigan, Winwick and Warrington in the east.

The Liverpool Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church is similar but larger and extends to the Chorley area in the north-east and to beyond Leigh in the east. Again, there is nothing on the south side of the Mersey but the Isle of Man (80 miles north-west of liverpool in the Irish Sea) is included.

The area covered by the old West Derby Hundred has similarities to both the diocese & archdiocese and extends east to the border with Salford.

If Greater Liverpool covered a similar area to "Outer London" of 484 square miles (Greater London is 607 square miles), it would encompass the City of Chester and some towns of north Cheshire as well as the towns of south Lancashire which are included in the Liverpool diocese / archdiocese and West Derby Hundred.