Essex is a county on the South East coast of England near London with a population of over 1,600,000 making it one of the largest in the UK. The name is derived from ‘East Saxons’ in old English. Many people in Essex commute to London to work and some new towns such as Basildon and Harlow were created specifically to fill the need for new housing. Major towns in the region include: administrative centre Chelmsford, Barking, Ilford, Romford, Dagenham and Epping,

Chelmsford is the main county town of Essex and has 150,000 residents. Factories for Marconi, Hoffman Ball Bearings and Crompton Electrical Engineering have all closed in recent times but have been more than adequately replaced with more people commuting into Chelmsford to work that commute to London to work.

London Stansted Airport is in Essex and is the third largest in England after Heathrow and Gatwick, having over 23 million customers use it to travel to destination across the world every year.

Major employers include: agriculture, science, shopping, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications (Sony Ericsson) and manufacturing (M & G, Ford Motor Corporation and Britvic).