The shire system did not emerge overnight. It began with the kingdom of Wessex in the 9th and 10th centuries. To manage and defend their expanding realm against Viking incursions, Anglo-Saxon kings like Alfred the Great and his son Edward the Elder established fortified towns ( burhs ) and assigned each a surrounding territory for administration, taxation, and military recruitment. These territories became the first shires, such as (the shire of Hamtun , modern Southampton) and Wiltshire (the shire of Wilton ).
While the old administrative shire councils were largely replaced by larger unitary authorities in 1974 and 1996, the shires have never truly disappeared. They live on in: