Suffolk was part of the kingdom of East Anglia which was settled by the Angles in the 5th century.
In 1974, Suffolk was split into five administrative districts, Suffolk Coastal, West Suffolk, Babergh, Forest Heath and Mid Suffolk with Suffolk Coastal's council based in Woodbridge, Babergh's in Hadleigh, Mid-Suffolk's in Needham Market, Forest Heath's in Mildenhall and West Suffolk's in Bury St Edmunds. There is also Waveney (with its council based in Lowestoft) and
Ipswich Borough which is the administrative council controlling the county town.
The agreed upon number of established communities in Suffolk varies greatly because of the large number of the all but non-existent hamlets which may consist of just a single farm and a deconsecrated church: remnants of wealthy communities, some dating back to the early days of the Christian era. Suffolk encompasses one of the most ancient regions of the UK: A monastery in Bury St. Edmunds founded in 630AD, plotting of the Magna Carta in 1215; the oldest documented structural element of a still inhabited dwelling in Britain found in Clare.
This comparatively recent evidence is but a coda to the widespread settlement in the region shown by earlier archaeological evidence of Mesolithic man as far back as c.7000BC, (Grimes Graves, Norfolk - a 5000 y/o flint mine) with Roman settlements Lakenheath, Long Melford, later Bronze and Saxon settlements. Sutton Hoo: burial ground of the Anglo-Saxon pagan kings of East Anglia.
