Borough of Darlington

Borough of Darlington
Unitary authority area and borough
Darlington parish church
Coat of arms
Motto(s):  Latin: Optima Petamus, lit. 'let us seek the best'
Darlington shown within County Durham
Coordinates: 54°31′00″N 1°33′00″W / 54.5167°N 1.5500°W / 54.5167; -1.5500
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Country	England
Region	North East
Ceremonial county	County Durham
City region	Tees Valley
Incorporated	1 April 1974
Unitary authority	1 April 1997
Named for	Darlington
Administrative HQ	Darlington Town Hall
Government [1]
• Type	Unitary authority
• Body	Darlington Borough Council
• Executive	Leader and cabinet
• Control	No overall control
• Leader	Stephen Harker (L)
• Mayor	Bob Donoghue
• MPs	2 MPs Lola McEvoy (L) Matt Vickers (C)
Area [2]
• Total	76 sq mi (197 km2)
• Rank	145th
Population  (2022)[3]
• Total	109,469
• Rank	221st
• Density	1,430/sq mi (554/km2)
Ethnicity (2021) [4]
• Ethnic groups	List 94.4% White 2.8% Asian 1.4% Mixed 0.9% other 0.7% Black
Religion (2021) [4]
• Religion	List 52.1% Christianity 39.7% no religion 1.7% Islam 0.4% Hinduism 0.4% Sikhism 0.3% Buddhism 0.0% Judaism 0.4% other 4.9% not stated
Time zone	UTC+0 (GMT)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+1 (BST)
Postcode areas	DL
Dialling codes	01325
ISO 3166 code	GB-DAL
GSS code	E06000005
Website	www.darlington.gov.uk

The Borough of Darlington is a unitary authority area with borough status in County Durham, England. Since 1997 Darlington Borough Council has been a unitary authority; it is independent from Durham County Council. It is named after its largest settlement, the town of Darlington, where the council is based. The borough also includes a rural area surrounding the town which contains several villages. The population of the borough at the 2021 census was 107,800,^[5] of which over 86% (93,015) lived in the built-up area of Darlington itself.^[6]

Since 2016 the council has been a member of the Tees Valley Combined Authority, which has been led by the directly elected Tees Valley Mayor since 2017.

The neighbouring districts are the County Durham district to the north and west, Stockton-on-Tees to the east and North Yorkshire to the south, the River Tees forming the border for the latter.