They were the top tier of a two-tier system of counties and metropolitan boroughs, and were created to govern large urban areas.

The local government functions were largely taken over by the metropolitan boroughs, with joint boards created to co-ordinate some county-wide services.

The combined authorities for Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, West Midlands and West Yorkshire cover the same areas as the metropolitan counties; the boroughs of Merseyside are part of the Liverpool City Region, and those of Tyne and Wear are part of the North East Combined Authority.

For the West Midlands conurbation, the commission proposed instead a group of contiguous county boroughs with no overall metropolitan authority.

The Redcliffe-Maud Report of 1969 proposed the creation of three large "metropolitan areas" based upon the conurbations surrounding Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham (Selnec, Merseyside, and West Midlands), which were to have both metropolitan councils covering the entire areas, and district councils covering parts.

The Conservatives' local government white paper was published in February 1971, naming the metropolitan areas "metropolitan counties", and giving them as "Merseyside, south-east Lancashire and north-east Cheshire, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, and the Tyne and Wear area".

The Conservative policy favoured retaining historic boundaries as far as was practicable,[3] and the new white paper proposals generally reduced the metropolitan counties to the continuously built up area.

Many areas on the edges were excluded from the metropolitan counties when the bill was passed: Easington, Harrogate, Knaresborough, Ellesmere Port, Neston, New Mills, Whaley Bridge and Glossop; other areas were excluded during the bill's passage, such as Seaham, Skelmersdale and Holland, Poynton and Wilmslow.

One area, the county borough of Southport, was added to Merseyside in the bill, at the local council's request.

Government policy on the issue was considered throughout 1982, and the Conservative Party put a "promise to scrap the metropolitan county councils", and the GLC, in their manifesto for the 1983 general election.

[citation needed] The government's stated reasons for the abolition of the MCCs were based on efficiency and their overspending.

They are also used in certain government statistics, although they no longer appear on Ordnance Survey maps, which show the individual metropolitan boroughs.