Huntingdonshire is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire, as well as a historic county of England. Its council is based in Huntingdon. Other towns in the district are St Ives, Godmanchester, St Neots and Ramsey.
The area corresponding to modern Huntingdonshire was first delimited in Anglo-Saxon times, and the modern boundaries have remained largely unchanged since the 10th century, although it lost its county status in 1974.The population was 169,508 at the 2011 Census. Henry II, on his accession in 1154, declared all of Huntingdonshire a royal forest (i. e., reserved for hunting), but its favourable arable soil, with loam, light clay and gravel, hence good drainage, meant it was largely farmland by the 18th century.