Redcar & Cleveland occurs as unitary authority in the former county of Cleveland, consisting of Redcar, Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Guisborough, & settlement like Brotton, Skelton, and Loftus. A metropolitan area is historically a portion of Yorkshire, and is currently section of the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire. It experienced the resident people of 139,132 around 2001. These are represented inside Parliament per barrister Vera Baird (Labour) for the Redcar constituency and by Ashok Kumar (Labour) for the Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituency.

A territorial dominion was created inside 1974 as Langbaurgh, after a ancient wapentake of Yorkshire. It wafter renamed as Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council when it became the one authority in April 1, 1996.