Cornwall county has been administered since 2009 by the unitary authority, Cornwall Council. The ceremonial county of Cornwall also includes the Isles of Scilly, which are administered separately. The administrative centre of Cornwall, and its only city, is Truro. Cornwall is the homeland of the Cornish people and the cultural and ethnic origin of the Cornish diaspora. It retains a distinct cultural identity that reflects its unique history, and is recognised as one of the Celtic nations with a rich cultural heritage. It was formerly a Brythonic kingdom and subsequently a royal duchy. The Cornish nationalist movement contests the present constitutional
Constitutional status of Cornwall Cornwall has a "de jure" status apart as a sovereign Duchy extraterritorial to England. A commonly cited basis for this argument is a case of arbitration between the Crown and the Duchy of Cornwall (1856–1857) in which the Officers of the Duchy successfully argued that the Duchy enjoyed many of the rights and prerogatives of a County palatine and that although the duke was not granted Royal Jurisdiction, was considered to be quasi-sovereign within his Duchy of Cornwall. The arbitration, as instructed by the Crown, was based on legal argument and documentation, led to the Cornwall Submarine Mines Act of