The L.N.E. railway serves King's Lynn, Thetford, Norwich, Swaffham and Yarmouth, and has numerous branches. The M. and Gt.N.Jt. railway runs from Lynn to Cromer, Norwich and Yar mouth. The eastern rivers afford water communication with Great Yarmouth, while the Great and Little Ouse and some of the drainage cuts communicate with Lynn.
The area of the administrative county is 1,315,064 ac., with a population (1931) of 504,846. The municipal boroughs are— King's Lynn; Norwich, a city and county borough and the county town; Thetford; and Yarmouth, properly Great Yarmouth, a county borough. The county is in the south-eastern circuit, and assizes are held at Norwich. There are two courts of quarter sessions. Each of the four municipal boroughs has a separate court of quarter sessions. Norfolk is mainly in the diocese of Norwich, with small parts in those of Ely and Lincoln. For parlia mentary purposes the county is divided into five divisions— King's Lynn, South-Western, Northern, Eastern and Southern— and also includes the parliamentary borough of Norwich (two members), and part of the parliamentary borough of Great Yar mouth (one member). Of the three boys' public schools in the county, two are in Norwich, viz., King Edward VI.'s school and the City of Norwich school. The third, Gresham's school, was founded at Holt, near Sheringham, in 1555, by Sir Thomas Gresham (q.v.).
Broads and Rivers.—The rivers and broads (lakes) of Nor folk, together with the few in Suffolk, form over 200 m. of navi gable waterway. They are now, however, chiefly used by pleasure craft, though a diminishing number of trading wherries still carry coal and other goods between the large towns, such as Yarmouth, and the villages. The southern rivers are wider and deeper than the northern, and the Yare can be navigated by sea-going trading vessels as far as Norwich.
The formation of a broad may be due either to the widening of a river or to a sea-estuary becoming completely enclosed by sand-banks. The broads tend to become overgrown with reeds which, if they are not cut (they can be utilized to make a very durable thatch), rot and fall to the ground, and, aided by the general silting up, they may cause the broad to be replaced by dry land. Several of the broads have to be dredged to preserve a navigable channel, some of them (e.g., Hickling broad) being extremely shallow.
Some of the broads are extremely beautiful; notably Wroxham, Salhouse and South Walsham (up the Bure), which are surrounded by wooded country; Barton broad (up the Ant) ; and Horsea mere (up the Thurne, not far from the sand dunes and near to Hickling broad), which is of quite a different character, being surrounded by reedy marshland, the haunt of hundreds of different species of wild birds. The bittern (q.v.) was saved from extinction at an island on Hickling broad, and now flourishes in considerable numbers. The bearded tit (see TITMOUSE) has also been saved from the same fate. The fishing is good, and wild duck are shot from a "Breydon duck-punt" which carries a heavy gun aimed by manoeuvring the boat itself.
See Victoria County History; Norfolk; F. Blomefield, Essay towards a Topographical History of . . . Norfolk (1739-75 and 18o5-1o) ; W. Rye, History of Norfolk (1885) ; P. H. Emerson, Pictures of East Anglian Life (i888) ; and other works; Rev. A. Jessopp, Arcady (1887), and other works; Quarterly Review (1897), where other literature is cited; G. C. Davies, Norfolk Broads and Rivers (Edin burgh, 5884) ; Christopher Marlowe, People and Places in Marshland (1927).