The Black Country is an area of England – in the West Midlands, you can’t really pin point it on map and it’s difficult to explain to people that aren’t from the area just what is The Black Country and – where is it?

With more and more people now becoming interested in the area and folk being proud to say they are from The Black Country we can try and answer a few questions from looking around the web. Also with researchers delving into their family history and from people wanting to find out more about the history of their local area the quest to find out more about The Black Country is now more important as it ever was.

With the ever growing use of the world wide web many useful and interesting websites have sprung up with all sorts of information relating to The Black Country, to help find out more about what, where and why we’ve browsed, clicked, scrolled, surfed, tweeted and poked around the virtual Black Country to find some nice tidbits of information which will help us on our little quest.

An answer to the good old question of “What is the Black Country?” can be found at the Black Country Museum website. Hopefully the folk there know what they’re talking about as it is there job to know these sorts of things. If you’ve never visited the BCM (the place, not the website – that doesn’t count) why not? It’s a great place to travel back in time and you don’t need a Tardis to get there.

The Black Country Society has been around since 1967 and they’ve been publishing books and magazines ever since. They certainly have some good inside knowledge of The Black Country and were among the original supporters of The Black Country Museum. If you have a look on their “About us” page on their website you can read what they have to say about what they believe the original Black Country to be.

The BBC have been broadcasting quality television programmes for many years and now have a vast collection of websites – one that you’ll be interested in is www.bbc.co.uk/blackcountry. Have a look at the section entitled “What and where is the Black Country?” to see what they have to say on the subject. There’s also some other interesting bits and pieces on the BBC site such as video clips of the Black Country Museum, sound files of the Black Country accent and a selection of Black Country Jokes featuring the fictional Black Country comedy duo of Aynuk and Ayli.

Dave Ogden defines the area well on the “History” page on his Black Country Pages. Dave is the list owner for the “Black Country Mailing List” which provides email communications with researchers interested in local and family history with a Black Country connection.

Black Country Tourism Website gives the definition of what the modern day Black Country consist as “The four Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton”.

So there you go, I hope you’ve found your way around the Virtual Black Country. If you’re interested in The Black Country and the towns that make up it you want to have a browse around our shop and check out the books that you can purchase through Amazon.