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Rutland is a landlocked county in the East Midlands of England, bounded to the west and north by Leicestershire, to the northeast by Lincolnshire and the southeast by Northamptonshire. Its greatest length north to south is only and its greatest breadth east to west is . It has the smallest population of any normal unitary authority in mainland England and only the City of London is smaller in terms of area. It is 348th of the 354 districts in population. It is the smallest historic county in England and the fourth smallest in the UK as a whole. Because of this, the Latin motto ''Multum in Parvo'' or "much in little" was adopted by the county council in 1950. Among modern ceremonial counties the Isle of Wight, City of London and City of Bristol are smaller. The former County of London, in existence 1889 to 1965, also had a smaller area. The only towns in Rutland are Oakham, the county town, and Uppingham. At the centre of the county is the large artificial reservoir, Rutland Water, which is an important nature reserve serving as an overwintering site for wildfowl and a breeding site for ospreys. Rutland's older cottages are built from limestone or ironstone and many have roofs of Collyweston stone slate or thatch. == Etymology == The origin of the name of the county is unclear. In a 1909 edition of ''Notes and Queries'' Harriot Tabor suggested "that the name should be Ruthland, and that there is a part of Essex called the Ruth, and that the ancient holders of it were called Ruthlanders, since altered to Rutland"; however, responses suggest "that Rutland, as a name, was earlier than the Norman Conquest. Its first mention, as "Roteland", occurs in the will of Edward the Confessor; in Domesday it is "the King's soc of Roteland", not being then a shire; and in the reign of John it was assigned as a dowry to Queen Isabella. The northwestern part of the county was recorded as Rutland, a detached part of Nottinghamshire, in Domesday Book; the south-eastern part as the wapentake of ''Wicelsea'' in Northamptonshire. It was first mentioned as a separate county in 1159, but as late as the 14th century it was referred to as the 'Soke of Rutland'. Historically it was also known as Rutlandshire, but in recent times only the shorter name is common. Rutland may be from Old English ' or ' "cattle" and ' "land", as a record from 1128 as ''Ritelanede'' shows. However, ''A Dictionary of British Place-Names'' by A D Mills gives an alternative etymology, "Rota's land", from the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) personal name and ''land'' land. It is from the alternative interpretation of ''red land'' that the traditional nickname for a male person from Rutland, a "Raddle Man", derives. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rutland」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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