Blaydon-on-Tyne (usually shortened to Blaydon) is a town in the North East of England in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead - historically in County Durham. Together with Winlaton, which is now contiguous with and forms part of the postal town of Blaydon, the resident population in 2011 was 13,896. The former urban district, however, extends much further, its fourteen and a half square miles constituting the largest administrative district, after Newcastle, on Tyneside. Included within this area, which extends inland from the Tyne along the River Derwent for ten miles (16 km), are the mining communities of Chopwell and High Spen as well as the villages of Rowlands Gill, Blackhall Mill, Barlow and Stella and the larger and more urban towns of Blaydon and Winlaton.