The West Midlands region straddles the historic borders between the counties of Warwickshire (Birmingham and Coventry), Staffordshire in the north, and Worcestershire in the south.
The Austin car plant was built in 1905 at Longbridge, to the south of Birmingham, and gradually expanded over the next 75 years, but closed down in 2005 on the bankruptcy of MG Rover.
Castle Bromwich Assembly was built in the late 1930s for the manufacture of Spitfire aircraft, which continued throughout World War II.
Heavy industry began to decline in the 1970s and 1980s, with towns including Bilston, Darlaston, Wednesbury, Tipton and Brierley Hill being hit particularly hard by factory closures.
The Rootes Group, whose brands including Hillman, Singer and Sunbeam, opened a factory at Ryton to the east of the city at the start of World War II, and in peacetime it was converted for car production.
The growth of the area in the 19th century, which attracted thousands of families from rural communities, led to extensive building of houses across the region.
Notable developments in the region during this era include Weoley Castle in Birmingham, Low Hill in Wolverhampton, the Priory Estate in Dudley, Friar Park in West Bromwich and Blakenall Heath in Walsall.
The largest housing development in the Midlands during the postwar era was the Castle Vale estate in Birmingham, which was dominated by multi-storey flats, with 34 blocks being built.
Aston Villa, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers were all founder members of the Football League in 1888, and were joined within a few years by Birmingham City and later a fifth team, Walsall.
The Local Government Commission for England established by the Act was charged with: The West Midlands Special Review Area was almost identical to the metropolitan county as created in 1974 (with the exception of the Meriden Gap and Coventry).
The Redcliffe-Maud Report commissioned by Harold Wilson's Labour Party government recommended that a large "metropolitan area" be created around the Birmingham/Black Country conurbation, also including its rural hinterland.
This was to have been divided into seven districts: Mid-Staffordshire (Tamworth, Rugeley, Lichfield, Cannock, Stafford), Wolverhampton, Walsall, Dudley, West Bromwich-Warley (later Sandwell), Birmingham/Solihull, North Worcestershire (Bewdley, Kidderminster, Bromsgrove, Redditch).
The area was divided into seven new metropolitan boroughs – Aldridge-Brownhills was added to Walsall; Halesowen and Stourbridge to Dudley and Sutton Coldfield to Birmingham.
This led to (apart from in the east, with Coventry and the Meriden Gap) quite a tightly defined metropolitan border, excluding such places as Burntwood, Bromsgrove, Cannock, Kidderminster, Lichfield and Wombourne which had been considered for inclusion in the West Midlands metropolitan area by the Redcliffe-Maud Report, but excluding only a small amount that was considered part of the contiguous built-up area of the West Midlands conurbation in 2001.
The 1974 reform created a West Midlands County Council that covered the entire area and dealt with strategic issues.