Essex is a county in the East of England. The county town is Chelmsford, and the highest point of the county is Chrishall Common near the village of Langley, close to the Hertfordshire border, which reaches 482 feet.

The area under the control of the county council, or shire county, is divided into a number of local government districts. They are Harlow, Epping Forest, Brentwood, Basildon, Castle Point, Rochford, Maldon, Chelmsford, Uttlesford, Braintree, Colchester and Tendring. Thurrock and Southend-on-Sea are unitary authorities which form part of the county for various functions such as Lord Lieutenant but do not come under county council control. Essex Police also covers the two unitary authorities.

The ceremonial county, the area including the unitary authorities, has boundaries to the east with the coastline of the North Sea; to the south with the northern bank, or estuary, of the River Thames and Kent; to the south west with Greater London; to the west with Hertfordshire across the River Lee and the Stort; to the north west with Cambridgeshire; and to the north with Suffolk, mostly marked by the River Stour.

The main airport in Essex is London Stansted Airport, serving destinations in Europe and North America; Southend Airport, once one of Britain's busiest airports, is undergoing redevelopment, but still has limited passenger flights to destinations such as the Channel Islands. There are several smaller airfields, some of which owe their origins to air force bases built during World War I or World War II. These are popular for pleasure flights; examples include Clacton Airfield and Stapleford Aerodrome.

The port of Tilbury is one of Britain's three major ports, while the port of Harwich links the county to the Hook of Holland and Esbjerg. A service to Cuxhaven closed in December 2005. Despite the road crossing to Dartford in Kent across the River Thames, a pedestrian ferry to Gravesend, Kent still operates from Tilbury during limited hours, and there are foot ferries operating across some of the county's rivers and estuaries during the summer months.

The M25 motorway and M11 motorway both cross the county, and the A12 and A13 trunk roads are important radial routes from London. There is an extensive public transport network.

The main rail routes include:

* two lines from the City of London to Southend-on-Sea, operated by c2c from Fenchurch Street (including a route via Tilbury) and National Express East Anglia from Liverpool Street,
* the Great Eastern Main Line from Liverpool Street connecting Harwich and onwards into Suffolk and Norfolk
* the West Anglia Main Linefrom Liverpoool Street linking to Stansted and onwards into Cambridgeshire.
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* The Epping Forest district is served by the London Underground Central Line.
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* The routes operated by National Express East Anglia (formerly known as 'one') and c2c, are both owned by National Express.
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Industry and commerce

The Lakeside Shopping Centre at Thurrock was one of England's first out-of-town shopping centres; it remains popular despite congestion on the nearby M25 motorway and direct competition from Bluewater Shopping Centre.

Industry is largely limited to the south of the county, with the majority of the land elsewhere being given over to agriculture. Harlow is a centre for electronics, science and pharmaceutical companies, while Chelmsford is the home of Marconi (now called telent plc and owned by Ericsson of Sweden since 2005), and Brentwood home to the Ford Motor Company's European HQ. Loughton is home to the production facility for British and foreign banknotes. Chelmsford has been an important location for electronics companies since the industry was born, and is also the location for a number of insurance and financial services organisations, and is the home of the soft drinks producer Britvic. Other businesses in the county are dominated by light engineering and the service sector. Colchester is a garrison town, and the local economy is helped by the army's personnel living there.