England's Second Largest County (in 1831)

I wondered why anyone might ask what was England's second largest county in 1831. Why not now, or at the last census?

Anyway, I googled "england's largest counties". The first hit was Project Britain, which was basically a list of random facts: Yorkshire is traditionally England's largest county, Rutland is traditionally England's smallest county ... etc., etc. No mention (as far as I could see) of the second largest.

Next on the list was from Wikipedia: List of counties of England by area in 1831. Well ... I don't know why this was second on Wikipedia's list. But at least I know why it's what the question was about.

It's because the setter didn't think to check out the fourth item on the list: English Counties by Population and Area, from CountryDigest.org, which gives the ONS's figures for 2014.

And yes: Lincolnshire is still the second largest by area.

(Third on the list, in case you were wondering, was Counties of England, from Wikipedia again. This doesn't have a ranked list of any sort.)