A disparity between the standards of living applying within a nation. It is difficult to quantify the prosperity or poverty of a region, but there are two basic indicators: unemployment (which has been used in Britain as a symptom since the 1920s), and per capita income, which in England generally falls to the north and west: the North–South divide was ‘produced essentially by the…metropolitan South as a way of differentiating itself from northern “others” ’ (A. Baker and M. Billinge 2004). Some would assert that economic development brings about regional inequality, but Fan and Sun (2008) Euras. Geog. & Econ. 49, 1 reveal that both interregional and intraregional inequalities in China have declined since 2004. See also uneven development. M. Amin, A. Ash, and N. Thrift (2003) write that ‘One of the most persistent characteristics of the geography of the United Kingdom is the wide inequality that exists between its constituent regions. In the present period, in spite of many stated intentions and much government rhetoric to the contrary, it has on many measures grown considerably worse.’