Newport, Isle of Wight Newport, Isle of Wight Newport is a civil parish and the county town of the Isle of Wight, an island off the south coast of England. The civil parish had a population of 23,957 at the time of the 2001 census, which rose to 25,496 at the 2011 census. The town lies slightly to the north of the centre of the Island. It has a quay at the head of the navigable section of the River Medina, which flows northward to Cowes and the Solent. Mousterian remains, featuring tools made by Neanderthals at least 40,000 years ago, were found at
Politics of the Isle of Wight of Wight, to what could be described as the opposite extreme of merging the county back into Hampshire. The pro-independence lobby had a formal voice in the early 1970s with the Vectis National Party. Their main claim was that the sale of the island to the crown in 1293 was unconstitutional (see History of the Isle of Wight). However, this movement now has little serious support. Since the 1990s the debate has largely taken the form of a campaign to have the Isle of Wight recognized as a distinct region by organizations such as the EU, due to its relative