County Championship Winners List: 1890 to 2025

Nottinghamshire are the latest County Championship winners. They secured the 2025 title, their seventh overall and first since 2010. Yorkshire remain the competition’s most successful county with 33 official championships.

The official record starts in 1890. That boundary matters because historians also recognize earlier “Champion County” claims decided under less consistent arrangements. This list sticks to the organized County Championship and marks joint winners and seasons when no title was awarded.

County Championship winners from 1890 to 2025

1890–1919

Year	Champion	Year	Champion
1890	Surrey	1905	Yorkshire
1891	Surrey	1906	Kent
1892	Surrey	1907	Nottinghamshire
1893	Yorkshire	1908	Yorkshire
1894	Surrey	1909	Kent
1895	Surrey	1910	Kent
1896	Yorkshire	1911	Warwickshire
1897	Lancashire	1912	Yorkshire
1898	Yorkshire	1913	Kent
1899	Surrey	1914	Surrey
1900	Yorkshire	1915–1918	Not held — First World War
1901	Yorkshire	1919	Yorkshire
1902	Yorkshire
1903	Middlesex
1904	Lancashire

Surrey won six of the first ten official championships. Yorkshire then became the dominant pre-war county, reaching ten titles with the shortened 1919 season.

1920–1949

Year	Champion	Year	Champion
1920	Middlesex	1935	Yorkshire
1921	Middlesex	1936	Derbyshire
1922	Yorkshire	1937	Yorkshire
1923	Yorkshire	1938	Yorkshire
1924	Yorkshire	1939	Yorkshire
1925	Yorkshire	1940–1945	Not held — Second World War
1926	Lancashire	1946	Yorkshire
1927	Lancashire	1947	Middlesex
1928	Lancashire	1948	Glamorgan
1929	Nottinghamshire	1949	Middlesex and Yorkshire (shared)
1930	Lancashire
1931	Yorkshire
1932	Yorkshire
1933	Yorkshire
1934	Lancashire

Yorkshire won four consecutive titles from 1922 through 1925, then another three immediately before the Second World War. Derbyshire’s 1936 championship remains the club’s only title.

1950–1979

Year	Champion	Year	Champion
1950	Lancashire and Surrey (shared)	1965	Worcestershire
1951	Warwickshire	1966	Yorkshire
1952	Surrey	1967	Yorkshire
1953	Surrey	1968	Yorkshire
1954	Surrey	1969	Glamorgan
1955	Surrey	1970	Kent
1956	Surrey	1971	Surrey
1957	Surrey	1972	Warwickshire
1958	Surrey	1973	Hampshire
1959	Yorkshire	1974	Worcestershire
1960	Yorkshire	1975	Leicestershire
1961	Hampshire	1976	Middlesex
1962	Yorkshire	1977	Kent and Middlesex (shared)
1963	Yorkshire	1978	Kent
1964	Worcestershire	1979	Essex

Surrey’s seven outright championships from 1952 to 1958 form the longest continuous winning run in the official competition. Worcestershire’s 1964 success was its first; one frequently copied web table mistakenly repeats 1963 at this point, but season records confirm 1964.

1980–2009

Year	Champion	Year	Champion
1980	Middlesex	1995	Warwickshire
1981	Nottinghamshire	1996	Leicestershire
1982	Middlesex	1997	Glamorgan
1983	Essex	1998	Leicestershire
1984	Essex	1999	Surrey
1985	Middlesex	2000	Surrey
1986	Essex	2001	Yorkshire
1987	Nottinghamshire	2002	Surrey
1988	Worcestershire	2003	Sussex
1989	Worcestershire	2004	Warwickshire
1990	Middlesex	2005	Nottinghamshire
1991	Essex	2006	Sussex
1992	Essex	2007	Sussex
1993	Middlesex	2008	Durham
1994	Warwickshire	2009	Durham

Two divisions arrived in 2000, changing the structure but not the continuity of the championship record. Sussex’s first title did not come until 2003; the county then won three times in five seasons. Durham were even quicker after gaining first-class status, winning in 2008 and 2009.

2010–2025

Year	Champion	Year	Champion
2010	Nottinghamshire	2018	Surrey
2011	Lancashire	2019	Essex
2012	Warwickshire	2020	Not held — COVID-19 pandemic
2013	Durham	2021	Warwickshire
2014	Yorkshire	2022	Surrey
2015	Yorkshire	2023	Surrey
2016	Middlesex	2024	Surrey
2017	Essex	2025	Nottinghamshire

Surrey’s 2022–24 run was the first three-peat since Yorkshire won from 1966 through 1968. Nottinghamshire stopped a fourth consecutive Surrey title in 2025.

Most County Championship titles by team

Rank	County	Titles	First title	Most recent
1	Yorkshire	33	1893	2015
2	Surrey	23	1890	2024
3	Middlesex	13	1903	2016
4	Lancashire	9	1897	2011
5=	Essex	8	1979	2019
5=	Warwickshire	8	1911	2021
7=	Kent	7	1906	1978
7=	Nottinghamshire	7	1907	2025
9	Worcestershire	5	1964	1989
10=	Durham	3	2008	2013
10=	Glamorgan	3	1948	1997
10=	Leicestershire	3	1975	1998
10=	Sussex	3	2003	2007
14	Hampshire	2	1961	1973
15	Derbyshire	1	1936	1936

Shared championships count for both counties. That gives Yorkshire credit for 1949, Surrey and Lancashire for 1950, and Middlesex and Kent for 1977.

Which counties have never won?

Three of the 18 current first-class counties have not won the official County Championship through 2025:

• Gloucestershire
• Northamptonshire
• Somerset

That does not mean they lack domestic trophies. All three have succeeded in limited-overs cricket, which has separate competitions and records. The County Championship is the long-form first-class title, played across matches of multiple innings rather than a one-day or T20 schedule.

When was the championship not held?

No official title was awarded in three periods:

• 1915–1918: competition suspended during the First World War.
• 1940–1945: competition suspended during the Second World War.
• 2020: the regular championship was cancelled during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2020 replacement often causes confusion. Essex won the Bob Willis Trophy, a shortened first-class tournament created for that disrupted season. It was a real major trophy, but the ECB does not turn it into a County Championship title retroactively.

How is the County Championship winner decided?

The champion is decided by league performance, not a conventional knockout final. Teams earn points for wins and draws, with bonus points available for batting and bowling achievements in the first innings. The exact competition structure and points rules have changed many times since 1890.

Modern seasons use divisions, so the Division One leader is the county champion. A team may enforce the follow-on during a match, and the fundamentals resemble Test cricket, but County Championship games are normally scheduled for four days rather than five.

County Championship records in context

Yorkshire’s 33 titles owe much to extraordinary dominance before 1970: only four came later. Surrey’s total spans the first official championship, its seven-title streak in the 1950s and a modern three-peat from 2022 to 2024.

The distribution also shows how difficult sustained success became. Eleven different counties won between 2001 and 2025. Nottinghamshire’s 2025 victory came 15 seasons after its previous championship, while long-established counties such as Somerset are still chasing a first.

For other complete champions lists, see the Cricket World Cup winners by year, Asia Cup winners and Champions Trophy winners.