heshire in the late Anglo-Saxon period was a sparsely populated, predominately rural land on the northern border of the Old English kingdom of Mercia.
The largest town in the Shire, Chester, is recorded as having a population of around only 450 - although this maybe the number of houses rather than inhabitants - it is currently unknown which. The remainder of the Shire, excluding the Wirral peninsular, seems to have had a population density of fewer than two and a half people per square mile on average.
Cheshire was important for the salt production of the three 'Wich' towns - Northwich, Nantwhich and Middlewhich, and the city of Chester contained one of England's eight major mints. The Shire would no doubt have benefited from its close proximity to the great markets of Dublin and the Irish Sea trade routes.
Ethnically, Cheshire as a whole seems to have retained an Anglian majority (based on place names and the personal names of Domesday landowners) but with a strong Norse colony on the Wirral.
In addition, a more sparse, but still significant Danish settlement was situated in the east. This was most pronounced in the north-east of the Shire and north into modern Lancashire.
