Northampton is a large market town and Non-metropolitan district in the East Midlands region of England. It is about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, and lies on the River Nene. It is the county town of Northamptonshire.
The district's population is List of English districts by population and the town population is List of urban areas in England by population, making Northampton the 22nd-largest settlement in England, and the UK's 4th-largest town without official City status in the United Kingdom, after Reading, Berkshire, Dudley and Milton Keynes. Northampton is the most populous Districts of England in England that is not a unitary authority, a status it failed to obtain in the 1990s UK local government reform. Northampton's population has increased greatly since the 1960s, largely due to planned expansion under the New townUnited Kingdom in the early 1970s.
