county championship

The County Championship is a first-class cricket competition in England and Wales. Established in 1890 and organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), it is the world's first domestic cricket tournament. The tournament is contested by 18 clubs, representing 17 of the historic counties of England and one from Wales. The reigning champions are Nottinghamshire.

The earliest known inter-county cricket match was played in 1709. Until 1889, the concept of an unofficial county championship existed, whereby various claims would be made by or on behalf of a particular club as the "Champion County", an archaic term which now has the specific meaning of a claimant for the unofficial title prior to 1890. In contrast, the term "County Champions" applies in common parlance to a team that has won the official title. The most usual means of claiming the unofficial title was by popular or press acclaim. In the majority of cases, the claim or proclamation was retrospective, often by cricket writers using reverse analysis via a study of known results. The unofficial title was not proclaimed in every season up to 1889, because in many cases there were not enough matches or there was simply no clear candidate. Having already been badly hit by the Seven Years' War, county cricket ceased altogether during the Napoleonic Wars and there was a period from 1797 to 1824 during which no inter-county matches took place. The concept of the unofficial title has been utilised ad hoc and relied on sufficient interest being shown.