The ceremonial county of Tyne and Wear was created under the Local Government Act 1972, which came into effect on 1 April 1974, comprising the urban areas around the mouths of the Rivers Tyne and Wear, previously parts of the historic counties of Northumberland and Durham.
The table below shows the number of MPs representing Tyne and Wear at each major redistribution of seats affecting the county.
Prior to the redistribution coming into effect for the 1983 general election, several constituencies were split between Tyne and Wear and the counties of Northumberland or Durham.
The review did not come into effect for a further nine years, at the 1983 general election, and resulted in a reduction of one seat.
The boundaries of Newcastle upon Tyne Central were completely redrawn with only a small part of the existing constituency retained.
The new boundaries comprised about half of the abolished Newcastle upon Tyne West seat, including Newburn, together with areas which had been absorbed into the metropolitan borough, transferred from Wallsend (South Gosforth) and Hexham (part of Castle Ward).
[3][4] For the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, which redrew the constituency map ahead of the 2024 United Kingdom general election, the Boundary Commission for England opted to combine Newcastle upon Tyne and North Tyneside with Northumberland as a sub-region of the North East Region, with the creation of two cross-county boundary constituencies comprising an expanded Hexham seat and a new seat named Cramlington and Killingworth.
Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland were combined with County Durham, resulting in another cross-county boundary constituency, named Blaydon and Consett.