Dudley is a large town in the West Midlands, England. At the 2001 census (according to the Office of National Statistics), the Dudley 'Urban Sub Area' (of the West Midlands) had a population of 194,919, making it the 26th largest settlement in England and measured by Urban Sub-Area, the second largest town in the United Kingdom, behind Reading and the largest settlement in the UK without its own university. (There are some who question this figure since it can only be attained by including localities such as Brierley Hill, Kingswinford, Netherton, Sedgley, and Coseley, which are sometimes considered to be outside of the town by local newspapers such as the Dudley News, local historians and Dudley Council itself). Another estimate of the population of Dudley Town may be taken from adding together the populations of the three electoral wards that indisputably belong to the town, namely: Castle and Priory, St James's and St Thomas's. This would yield a population of 39,686. Since 1974 Dudley Town has been the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Dudley; the original County Borough had undergone a lesser expansion in 1966.Dudley is part of the West Midlands conurbation, and is located south of Wolverhampton. It is the largest town in the Black Country. For many years the town (but not the castle) formed part of an exclave of Worcestershire entirely surrounded by Staffordshire - which has determined the fact that, in ecclesiastical terms, it has remained part of the Anglican Diocese of Worcester.

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