North Lincolnshire is a unitary authority area with borough status in Lincolnshire, England. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 167,446.[2] The administrative centre and largest settlement is Scunthorpe, and the borough also includes the towns of Brigg, Broughton, Haxey, Crowle, Epworth, Bottesford, Winterton, Kirton in Lindsey and Barton-upon-Humber. North Lincolnshire is part of the Yorkshire and the Humber region. The borough is mostly rural in character aside from near the town of Scunthorpe and near the Port of Immingham where most of the nearby villages and towns form part of the wider urban areas.
North Lincolnshire was formed following the abolition of Humberside County Council in 1996, when four unitary authorities replaced it, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire, on the south bank of the Humber Estuary, and the East Riding of Yorkshire and Kingston upon Hull on the north bank.
It is home to the Haxey Hood, a traditional event which takes place in Haxey on 6 January, a large football scrum where a leather tube (the "hood") is pushed to one of four pubs, where it remains until next year's game.