Black Country Country". Today the term commonly refers to the majority or all of the four metropolitan boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton although it is said that "no two Black Country men or women will agree on where it starts or ends". Official use of the name came in 1987 with the Black Country Development Corporation, an urban development corporation covering the metropolitan boroughs of Sandwell and Walsall, which was disbanded in 1998. The Black Country Consortium (founded in 1999) and the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership (founded in 2011) both define the Black Country as the four metropolitan boroughs
Coal mining in the Black Country Coal mining in the Black Country Coal mining played an important part in the history of the Black Country, an area of the United Kingdom. It was the basis for the area's industrial development. Without coal there was no power for its industries. In the nineteenth century commentators spoke of this region as a great coalfield, and of the "earth turned inside out" by all the mining activity. However, the mines were not the large scale operations that we know of today. They were small rough and ready pits similar to the Racecourse Colliery at Black Country Living Museum. There