linguistic:voice_change, structural:expansion
Huntingdonshire is a local government district in Cambridgeshire, England, which was historically a county in its own right. It borders Peterborough to the north, Fenland to the north-east, East Cambridgeshire to the east, South Cambridgeshire to the south-east, Central Bedfordshire and Bedford to the south-west, and North Northamptonshire to the west. The district had a population of 180,800 at the 2021 census, and has an area of 354.3 square miles (918 km⁲). After St Neots (33,410), the largest towns are Huntingdon (25,428), St Ives (16,815), and Yaxley. The district council is based in Huntingdon. Huntingdonshire's boundaries were established in the Anglo-Saxon era. It was divided into four hundreds. The county did not have an independent sheriff, instead being combined with neighbouring Cambridgeshire. Huntingdonshire became an administrative county when they were established in 1889. In 1965 it was merged with the Soke of Peterborough to form Huntingdon and Peterborough, which was in turn merged with Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely in 1974 to form Cambridgeshire, of which Huntingdonshire is now a district.