Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gloucester and other principal towns and villages include Cheltenham, Cirencester, Kingswood, Bradley Stoke, Stroud, Thornbury, Yate, Tewkesbury, Bishop's Cleeve, Churchdown, Brockworth, Winchcombe, Dursley, Cam, Berkeley, Wotton-under-Edge, Tetbury, Moreton-in-Marsh, Fairford, Lechlade, Northleach, Stow-on-the-Wold, Chipping Campden, Bourton-on-the-Water, Stonehouse, Nailsworth, Minchinhampton, Painswick, Winterbourne, Frampton Cotterell, Coleford, Cinderford, Lydney and Rodborough and Cainscross that are within Stroud's urban area. Gloucestershire borders Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire to the east, Wiltshire to the south, Bristol and Somerset to the south-west, and the Welsh county of Monmouthshire to the west. The current Gloucestershire County Council area does not have the same geographical boundaries as the historic county. Some northern parts of the county, including Long Marston and Welford-on-Avon, were transferred to Warwickshire in 1931. Following the Local Government Act 1972, some southern parts of the county were transferred for administrative purposes to the new county of Avon, which ceased to exist on 1 April 1996. After 1996, the city of Bristol and South Gloucestershire became separate unitary authorities. History Gloucestershire is a historic county mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 10th century, though the areas of Winchcombe and the Forest of Dean were not added until the late 11th century. Gloucestershire originally included Bristol, then a small town. The local rural community moved to the port city (as Bristol was to become), and Bristol's population growth accelerated during the industrial revolution. Bristol became a county in its own right, separate from Gloucestershire and Somerset in 1373. It later became part of the administrative County of Avon from 1974 to 1996. Upon the abolition of Avon in 1996, the region north of Bristol became a unitary authority area of South Gloucestershire and is now part of the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire. In July 2007, Gloucestershire was subject to some of the worst flooding in recorded British history, with tens of thousands of residents affected. The RAF conducted the largest peacetime domestic operation in its history to rescue over 120 residents from flood-affected areas. The damage was estimated at over £2 billion. Geography and environment Gloucestershire has three main landscape areas, a large part of the Cotswolds,