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Somerset ( or ) is a county in South West England which borders Gloucestershire and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east and Devon to the south-west. It is bounded to the north and west by the Severn Estuary and the Bristol Channel, its coastline facing southeastern Wales. Its traditional border with Gloucestershire is the River Avon.〔 Somerset's county town is Taunton. Somerset is a rural county of rolling hills such as the Blackdown Hills, Mendip Hills, Quantock Hills and Exmoor National Park, and large flat expanses of land including the Somerset Levels. There is evidence of human occupation from Paleolithic times, and of subsequent settlement in the Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods. The county played a significant part in the consolidation of power and rise of King Alfred the Great, and later in the English Civil War and the Monmouth Rebellion. The city of Bath is famous for its substantial Georgian architecture and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. ==Toponymy== The name derives from Old English ''Sumorsǣte'', which is short for ''Sumortūnsǣte'', meaning "the people living at or dependent upon Sumortūn" (Somerton). The first known use of the name ''Somersæte'' is in the law code of King Ine, Saxon King of Wessex from 688 to 726, making Somerset along with Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset one of the oldest still extant units of local government in the world. An alternative suggestion is that the name derives from ''Seo-mere-saetan'' meaning "settlers by the sea lakes." The people of Somerset are first mentioned in the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's'' entry for AD 845, in the inflected form "Sumursætum," but the county is first mentioned in the entry for 1015 using the same name. The archaic county name ''Somersetshire'' is first mentioned in the ''Chronicles entry for 878. Although "Somersetshire" had been in common use as an alternative name for the county, it went out of fashion in the late 19th century, and is no longer used. This is possibly due to the adoption of "Somerset" as the official name for the county through the establishment of the County Council in 1889. However, as with other counties not ending in "shire," this suffix was superfluous, as there was no need to differentiate between the county and a town within it. The Old English name continues to be used in the motto of the county, ''Sumorsǣte ealle'', meaning "all the people of Somerset." Adopted as the motto in 1911, the phrase is taken from the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle''. Somerset was a part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, and the phrase refers to the wholehearted support the people of Somerset gave to King Alfred in his struggle to save Wessex from the Viking invaders.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Manuscript E: Bodleian MS Laud 636. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: An Electronic Edition (Vol 5) literary edition )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle )〕 Somerset is ''Gwlad yr Haf'' in Welsh, ''Gwlas an Hav'' in Cornish and ''Bro an Hañv'' in Breton, which all mean "Country of the Summer". Somerset settlement names are mostly Anglo-Saxon in origin, but a few hill names include Brittonic Celtic elements. For example, an Anglo-Saxon charter of 682 refers to Creechborough Hill as "the hill the British call ''Cructan'' and we call ''Crychbeorh''" ("we" being the Anglo-Saxons). Some modern names are Brythonic in origin, such as Tarnock, while others have both Saxon and Brythonic elements, such as Pen Hill.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=A word to the wise )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Somerset」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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