Hampshire Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated Hants) is a county on the southern coast of England. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, the former capital of England. After the metropolitan counties and Greater London, Hampshire is the most populous ceremonial county (1.84 million in 2017) in the United Kingdom. Its two largest settlements, Southampton and Portsmouth, are administered separately as unitary authorities and the rest of the area forms the administrative county, which is governed by Hampshire County Council. First settled about 14,000 years ago, Hampshire's recorded history dates back to Roman times, when its capital was Winchester. When the
Venta Icenorum Venta Icenorum Venta Icenorum, located at modern-day Caistor St Edmund in the English county of Norfolk, was the civitas or capital of the Iceni tribe, who inhabited the flatlands and marshes of that county and are famous for having revolted against Roman rule under their queen Boudica (or Boadicea) in the winter of 61 AD. The town itself was probably laid out, and its first streets metalled, approximately in the first half of the second century. The town, which is mentioned in the "Ravenna Cosmography", and the "Antonine Itinerary", was a settlement near the village of Caistor St. Edmund, some