Dudley is a large town in the West Midlands (county), England, with a population of List of English cities by population. Since 1974 it has been the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Dudley; the original County Borough had undergone a lesser expansion in 1966. It is the second largest town in the United Kingdom, behind Reading and the largest settlement in the UK without its own university.
Dudley is part of the West Midlands conurbation, and is located south of Wolverhampton. It is the largest town in the Black Country. For many years the town (but not the castle) formed part of an exclave of Worcestershire entirely surrounded by Staffordshire which has determined the fact that, in ecclesiastical terms, it has remained part of the Anglican Diocese of Worcester.
