Welcome to Oxfordshire!
Oxfordshire is a county in South East England, on the southern fringes of the West Midlands, bordered by Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Warwickshire. Straddling the upper reaches of the Thames River valley west of the Chilterns, Oxfordshire is home to the ancient university city of Oxford and vast areas of archetypal English landscape, studded with fascinating towns and villages, many along the River Thames.
Oxfordshire is a landlocked county in the far west of the government statistical region of South East England. The ceremonial county borders Warwickshire to the north-west, Northamptonshire to the north-east, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, Wiltshire to the south-west and Gloucestershire to the west.
The county has major education and tourist industries, and is noted for concentrations of performance motorsport, car manufacturing and technology companies. The University of Oxford is widely considered one of the leading universities in the world, and is linked to a concentration of local technology and science activities at locations such as the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, while Oxford University Press is the largest firm among a concentration of print and publishing firms.
As well as the city of Oxford, other centres of population are Banbury, Bicester, Kidlington and Chipping Norton to the north of Oxford, Carterton and Witney to the west, Thame and Chinnor to the east, and Abingdon-on-Thames, Wantage, Didcot, Wallingford and Henley-on-Thames to the south. All its zones south of the Thames: the Vale of White Horse and parts of South Oxfordshire were within the historic county of Berkshire, including the highest point, the 261-metre (856 ft) White Horse Hill.Oxfordshire's county flower is the snake's-head fritillary.