Administrative (pop., 2001: 748,503), geographic, and historic county, East Midlands, north-central England.
It has coalfields and railway lines in the west, and in its centre it contains a broad belt of infertile sandstone. It is the location of the medieval forest of Sherwood, the haunt of Robin Hood , which stretched north from the city of Nottingham . Farmland is found in the Vales of Trent and Belvoir, where agriculture includes dairy farming. The chief river is the Trent , along which there are numerous thermal electric power stations. The southwestern part of the county is densely populated and heavily industrialized.