Every location in the United Kingdom has a designated territorial police force with statutory responsibility for providing policing services and enforcing criminal law, which is set out in the various police areas below.
Special police forces and other non-territorial constabularies do not have police areas and their respective specialist areas of responsibility are shared with the relevant geographic territorial police force.
The current system of police areas in England and Wales is set out by Section 1 of the Police Act 1996.
There are 43 police areas in England and Wales, most of which are defined by Schedule 1 of the 1996 act.
[3] The two other areas, the Metropolitan Police District and the City of London police area, are defined by Section 76 of the London Government Act 1963 and the City of London Police Act 1839 respectively.