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Gazetteer

Ryedale former district — part of NORTH YORKSHIRE X

Ryedale was one of the seven now-abolished large district authorities which have been merged into a unitary authority of North Yorkshire .

The Ryedale district covered around 582 square miles in and around the Vale of Pickering in the area now run by North Yorkshire Council, the unitary authority the Government has created from the former County Council which covers a massive area of around 3,085 square miles and more than 600 towns and villages.

Part of the North York Moors National Park made up a large northern portion of the Ryedale district while to the east, the majority of the Howardian Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty was within Ryedale district. The south of the district reached to the edges of the Yorkshire Wolds including an area to the south of the River Derwent which was part of the historic East Riding of Yorkshire before local government reorganisation in 1974.

The 2023 local Government change was not the first since 1974 for Ryedale. In 1996 part of the original Ryedale was absorbed into an expanded City of York when it became a unitary authority area. As a result, the area's recent population of around 55,000 was about half the Ryedale population when formed in 1974.

The administrative centre of Ryedale was the market town of Malton . The district also included other market towns and dozens of small villages which are mostly in agricultural areas.

To view our gazetteer of places across all the new North Yorkshire Council unitary authority see