Essex (pop. 1,310,922) is a county in southeastern England. Its name comes from the name of an early Anglo-Saxon group called the East Saxons. The kingdom of the East Saxons was established in the area in the A.D. 400's. Several Saxon churches, dating from the 600's onwards, still survive in Essex. There are several towns in the county, but much of it retains a rural character.
Until April 1965, a densely populated area of northeastern London lay within the boundaries of Essex. But this area was transferred from Essex to Greater London. As a result, Essex lost a small fraction of its area and more than half of its population. The area that was transferred became the London boroughs of Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Newham, Redbridge, and Waltham Forest.
The University of Essex is in Wivenhoe Park, at Colchester. It admitted its first students in 1964. Anglia Polytechnic University, in Chelmsford, became a university in 1992. There are colleges of further education at Basildon, Braintree, and Loughton, and technical colleges at Harlow and Thurrock. Other technical colleges are located at Southend-on-Sea, Chelmsford, and Colchester, and they have schools of art attached to them. Loughton has a school for actors, and an agricultural college is located at Writtle, near Chelmsford.
