[9] Decline in the coal mining industry during the late twentieth century has changed the town's largest sector to manufacturing.

This view of the name origin could refer to the area recorded as being extra land granted to the Bishop of Durham by King Canute in around 1020.

[18][19][21][22][17] Another suggestion is that Auckland derives from Old English or Old Norse combination of 'oak' and 'land', a woodland in the area with a majority of oak trees with each settlement built between it and the river Gaunless.

[25] Around 1183 Bishop Pudsey established a manor house in the town, with a great hall being completed in 1195 on the site occupied by St Peter's Chapel today.

[40][41][42] After the restoration of the monarchy, the new bishop of Durham, John Cosin, in turn demolished Hazelrig's mansion and rebuilt the castle converting the banqueting hall into the chapel that stands today.

By the end of the 1920s unemployment had hit 27% and the population too had started to decline, as colliery employment had halved compared with ten years previously.

[69] Equally, the railways that had also supported the area were also scaled back,[33] ultimately culminating in the closure of Shildon's Wagon works in 1984 with the loss of thousands of jobs.

[52] The arrival of the railways transformed the town as it allowed coal to be mined, and then transported to the coast before being put onto ships to London and even abroad.

[10] As one of the county's main population centres with good bus and rail connections, and thriving markets on Thursdays and Saturdays, shoppers were attracted from smaller settlements on the Durham coalfield for miles around.

[73] In response, numerous initiatives to regenerate the town centre have been proposed, including the launch of the Bishop Auckland Town Centre Forum,[74] and the 2006 regeneration master plan drawn up by Red Box Group, which was sponsored by Wear Valley District Council and the regional development agency One NorthEast.

A Durham County Councillor said that the funds would help the partners (including the Auckland Project) to regenerate the town center area for the benefit of all residents of the community.

[46][47][48] By the time of the opening day, a new 35 meter high tower had been erected as a visitor centre; the structure has a lift and a staircase as well as balconies for views of the castle from above.

According to one news item, "each of the 14 restored rooms, recreated from contemporary accounts and personal recollections" features the career of one former bishop.

[87] In future, other attractions were expected to open in or near the town centre: a display of Spanish art (in another former bank building) the Faith Museum (already being built in 2019 as the Castle), a gallery that will feature medieval to later era artworks, a boutique hotel (in former pubs) and two restaurants in addition to the current bishop's Kitchen café.

According to The Guardian,[87] "The aim is to make the town – the heart of the abandoned Durham coalfields – a tourist destination that holds people for a day or two rather than just a couple of hours.

The scheme will create hundreds of entry-level jobs in a county that suffers high unemployment and has some of the most deprived areas in northern Europe".A Financial Times report in early November 2019 stated that "Kynren [theatre] has attracted 250,000 people and the Auckland Project, even with the castle closed, welcomed 35,500 visitors in the past year" to this community.

For a large part of the area's history, the autonomous powers held by the bishop of Durham meant that the county operated as a principality under England's protectorate.

[60][92] At the end of the nineteenth century the Local Government Act 1894 created Bishop Auckland Urban District council.

[12][95] The town is a part of the Bishop Auckland parliamentary constituency, and is currently represented at Westminster by Sam Rushworth MP (Labour).

Prior to Brexit, for the European Parliament its residents voted to elect MEP's for the North East England constituency.

It now houses the town's main public library, a theatre, an art gallery, tourist information centre and a café-bar.

As shown in the graph, the distribution of ages in Bishop Auckland was broadly in-line with that of County Durham and England and Wales, although there is a slightly smaller proportion of people between 20 and 24 years old.

[100] The castle's long dining room is home to 12 of the 13 17th century portraits of Jacob and his 12 sons painted by Francisco de Zurbarán, which were saved by Bishop Trevor in 1756.

[110] Trevor was unable to secure the 13th, Benjamin, so commissioned Arthur Pond to produce a copy, which hangs alongside the 12 other originals.

[114] Today, Bishop Auckland railway station still provides passenger services, and is located at the end of the Tees Valley line.

[140] Although Bishop Auckland General Hospital was built with an Accident and Emergency department, this was closed and replaced with an "Urgent Care Centre" in 2009, when the local NHS trust concentrated acute health care services at Durham and Darlington, and moved more routine surgery to Bishop Auckland General.

All three of these hospitals are run by County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, which provides secondary health care services in the area.

[150] In the Roman Catholic faith, the town is located in the St William Deanery of the Cleveland and South Durham Episcopal Area, Hexham and Newcastle Diocese.

[161] Bishop Auckland Football Club also helped out Manchester United after the Munich air disaster in 1958 by donating three of their players, Derek Lewin, Bob Hardisty and Warren Bradley.

In return in 1996, Manchester United played a friendly against Bishop Auckland to help raise money when the club was threatened with bankruptcy after a member of a rival team sued over an injury.