The Association of British Counties (ABC), with its regional affiliates, such as the Friends of Real Lancashire and the Yorkshire Ridings Society, promotes the historic counties. It states that the ""...ABC contends that Britain needs a fixed popular geography, one divorced from the ever changing names and areas of local government...The ABC, therefore, seeks to fully re-establish the use of the historic counties as the standard popular geographical reference frame of Britain and to further encourage their use as a basis for social, sporting and cultural activities."