South Cambridgeshire is a local government district of Cambridgeshire, England, with a population of 162,119 at the 2021 census. It was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of Chesterton Rural District and South Cambridgeshire Rural District. It completely surrounds the city of Cambridge, which is administered separately from the district by Cambridge City Council. Southern Cambridgeshire, including both the district of South Cambridgeshire and the city of Cambridge, has a population of over 281,000 (including students) and an area of 1,017.28 km square. On the abolition of South Herefordshire and Hereford districts to form the unitary Herefordshire in 1998, South Cambridgeshire became the only English district to completely encircle another. The district's coat of arms contains a tangential reference to the coat of arms of the University of Cambridge by way of the coat of arms of Cambridge suburb Chesterton. The motto, Niet Zonder Arbyt, means "Nothing Without Work" (or effort) in pre-standard Dutch; the only Dutch motto in British civic heraldry. It was originally the motto of Cornelius Vermuyden, who drained the Fens in the 17th century. The district council's headquarters moved from Cambridge to Cambourne in 2004. South Cambridgeshire has scored highly on the best places to live, according to Channel 4, which ranked South Cambridgeshire as the fifth-best place to live in 2006.[citation needed] A Halifax survey rated South Cambridgeshire the best place to live in rural Britain, and sixth best overall in 2017. In 2010 South Cambridgeshire had the highest median household income in the county of Cambridgeshire.
