Hartlepool is a port town in County Durham, North East England. It is the largest settlement and administrative headquarters of the larger Borough of Hartlepool. The town is located 32 miles south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne, 17 miles south-east of the City of Durham, 20 miles south-east of Sunderland, and 12 miles north-east of Stockton-on-Tees.
Hartlepool is locally administrated by Hartlepool Borough Council, a unitary authority which also administrates outlying villages of Seaton Carew, Greatham, Hart Village, Dalton Piercy and Elwick.
Hartlepool was founded in the 7th century, around the monastery of Hartlepool Abbey. The village grew in the Middle Ages and its harbour served as the official port of the County Palatine of Durham. After a railway link from the north was established from the South Durham coal fields, an additional link from the south, in 1835, together with a new port, resulted in further expansion, with the new town of West Hartlepool. England's Industrialisation and the start of a shipbuilding industry in the later part of the 19th century caused Hartlepool to be a target for the Imperial German Navy at the beginning of the First World War.