The rules, scoring and hint are on how to play Shires. This guide is about the outlines themselves.
Which areas count as a county in Shires
Shires does not use the historic counties, or the ceremonial counties you might see on a road sign. It uses the Office for National Statistics dataset of Counties and Unitary Authorities, December 2025, in its ultra-generalised version clipped to the coastline. That means the areas are the ones councils actually run today:
- In England: the remaining counties, the unitary authorities, the metropolitan boroughs such as Rotherham and Bolton, the London boroughs and the City of London.
- In Scotland: the 32 council areas, from Highland to Clackmannanshire.
- In Wales: the 22 unitary authorities, with Welsh names accepted as well as English ones.
- In Northern Ireland: the 11 districts, such as Fermanagh and Omagh or Causeway Coast and Glens.
This catches out a lot of players. Several familiar names do not exist as a single area in this data: there is no Cumbria, no Northamptonshire, no Bedfordshire, no Berkshire, no Greater Manchester, no Merseyside, no West Midlands, no West or South Yorkshire and no Tyne and Wear. Cumbria is now Cumberland plus Westmorland and Furness. Northamptonshire is North Northamptonshire plus West Northamptonshire. Berkshire is six unitary authorities, from West Berkshire to Slough. The metropolitan counties are split into their boroughs.
Many cities have also been carved out of the county around them. Kent does not include Medway, Essex does not include Southend-on-Sea or Thurrock, Hampshire does not include Southampton or Portsmouth, and Dorset does not include Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. Somerset no longer includes North Somerset or Bath and North East Somerset. Those missing pieces change the outline, which turns out to be one of the best clues there is.
What the outline tells you, and what it hides
Every outline is drawn north-up, with its proportions kept, and then scaled so that its longer side fills the frame. Size is completely hidden. A London borough of a few square miles and the Highland council area, covering thousands, appear at the same size.
Detail is not hidden, though, and detail gives size away. Every outline comes from the same generalised data, so a small urban area ends up with only a handful of corners and long straight edges. The first Shires answer, Hackney, was drawn with just twelve corners. A large rural county with a coastline is the opposite: hundreds of small wiggles, inlets and offshore specks. If the shape looks like a simple polygon, think city or borough. If it looks like a frayed coastline, think big and coastal.
Islands that belong to an area stay in its outline, and they are often decisive. Shires #9 on 2 November 2026, Argyll and Bute, was drawn in 80 separate pieces: the Kintyre peninsula plus Islay, Jura, Mull, Bute and many smaller islands. Fife, an earlier answer, came with a few tiny offshore islands.
Holes and bites: where a city was taken out
When a city is its own unitary authority, it leaves a mark on the county around it. If the city is completely surrounded, the county outline has a hole. Leicester sits entirely inside Leicestershire, Derby inside Derbyshire and Nottingham inside Nottinghamshire, so each of those county outlines has a city-sized gap in the middle.
If the city is on the coast or the county edge, it leaves a bite instead. Devon has two on its south coast, where Plymouth and Torbay are cut out. Hampshire has bites around Southampton and Portsmouth, Kent loses Medway from its north coast and Essex loses Southend-on-Sea. Lincolnshire's northern end stops short of the Humber because North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire are separate.
Shapes worth knowing by heart
- Cornwall: a long peninsula tapering to the south-west. The Isles of Scilly are a separate area, so they are not in Cornwall's outline.
- Devon: two separate coastlines, north and south, plus the island of Lundy off the north coast.
- Isle of Wight: a single lozenge-shaped island, wider east to west than north to south.
- Kent: a broad eastern headland, the triangle of Dungeness on the south coast and the Isle of Sheppey in the north.
- Norfolk: a wide, rounded northern coast, with the Wash cutting in at the north-west corner.
- Essex: a coast shredded by estuaries, with Mersea and Canvey islands among the inlets.
- Northumberland: a long east coast with Holy Island and the Farne Islands, and a diagonal border with Scotland along the Cheviots.
- Pembrokeshire: the south-west tip of Wales, with St Brides Bay and the long inlet of Milford Haven, and islands such as Skomer and Caldey.
- Gwynedd: a long arm, the Llŷn peninsula, reaching south-west, with Bardsey Island off its tip. Anglesey is a separate area.
- Fife: a peninsula with the Firth of Tay to the north and the Firth of Forth to the south, narrowing to the east.
- Na h-Eileanan Siar, Orkney and Shetland: all island groups. The Western Isles form a long chain running north to south-west, Orkney is a compact cluster, and Shetland is long and thin, running north to south.
The look-alikes
Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness
Cumberland takes the north and west of the old Cumbria, with the Solway coast and the west coast down past Whitehaven. Westmorland and Furness takes the south and east, including the Furness peninsulas, Morecambe Bay and Walney Island off Barrow. Look for those southern peninsulas.
North and West Northamptonshire
Both are inland, so there is no coast to help. West Northamptonshire, which contains Northampton itself, is the larger of the two at about 529 square miles. North Northamptonshire lies to its north-east, towards Corby and Kettering.
East and West Sussex
Both have long south coasts. West Sussex has Selsey Bill, a pointed headland, and the inlets of Chichester Harbour at its western end. East Sussex has Beachy Head and Rye Bay at its eastern end. Brighton and Hove is separate and sits between them.
The two Cheshires
Cheshire West and Chester reaches the estuaries of the Dee and the Mersey on its northern side. Cheshire East is inland and runs up to the edge of the Peak District.
The Ayrshires
North Ayrshire includes the Isle of Arran and the Cumbraes, so its outline comes with a large island. South Ayrshire has a long coast facing the Firth of Clyde, and East Ayrshire is inland.
London boroughs on the Thames
On Sundays, Shires picks from smaller areas, which brings in London boroughs and other urban areas. The river is the best clue. Boroughs with a Thames edge show its curves, and Tower Hamlets carries the deep loop around the Isle of Dogs, with the Greenwich peninsula on the opposite bank in Greenwich.
Using the distance clues well
Each wrong guess gives a distance and a direction between the centres of the two areas. Two details from the code help you read them. Distances are rounded to the nearest 5 miles and never shown as less than 5, so a reading of 5 miles means the centres are within about 7 miles of each other. Directions use only eight compass points, so each arrow covers a 45-degree wedge. Combine the two and the answer's centre sits inside a slice of a ring around your guess.
With small areas, a 5-mile reading is common and several neighbours could fit. At that point, go back to the shape. With large areas, centres can be far apart even when borders touch, so a big number does not always mean you are in the wrong region.
The nation hint is worth knowing about too. It becomes available after three wrong guesses and costs 100 points, while each further wrong guess costs 150. If you are not sure which nation you are in, the hint is the cheaper option.
Quick checklist
- Remember Shires uses today's council areas, not historic or ceremonial counties.
- Simple, straight-edged outline: think city or borough. Frayed coast: think large and coastal.
- Count the islands. They often decide the answer on their own.
- Look for holes and bites where a city has been carved out.
- Check the day: Monday to Wednesday are familiar areas, Sunday is small ones.
- Read the miles as a 5-mile band and the arrow as a 45-degree wedge.
- Unsure of the nation after three misses? The hint costs less than a wrong guess.
The Shires answers archive shows every finished outline with its name, so it is a good place to practise. The map data credit is on our credits page. For more daily puzzles, see all our daily games.