Bedfordshire Towns
Bedfordshire is the smallest of the 'shire counties' and has no cities. The busiest towns in the county are the market towns of Bedford, Luton, Leighton Buzzard and Dunstable. The name Bedfordshire is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Bedas Ford or the river crossing of Beda.
The county covers just 480 square miles of central to southern England gently undulating in a series of hills and valleys across the plain of the Ouse to the Chiltern Hills where most of the land is rich clay through a belt of sandy hills stretching from Woburn to Sandy to a higher ridge of chalk downs in the south of the county, where the highest point of 801 feet is reached.
The north of Bedfordshire is mainly agricultural and the south around the town of Luton mostly industrial. Bedfordshires main attractions are Whipsnade Wild Animal Park near Dunstable and Woburn Abbey - the home of the Duke of Bedford.
