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
Black Country excluded by this definition because the coal here is too deep down and does not outcrop. The seam outcrop definition excludes areas in North Worcestershire and South Staffordshire. The first recorded use of the term "the Black Country" may be from a toast given by a Mr Simpson, town clerk to Lichfield, addressing a Reformer's meeting on 24 November 1841, published in the "Staffordshire Advertiser". He describes going into the "black country" of Staffordshire - Wolverhampton, Bilston and Tipton. In published literature, the first reference dates from 1846 and occurs in the novel "Colton Green: A Tale of the Black