County Tipperary is a county in Ireland. Tipperary County Council is the local government authority for the county. Between 1838 and 2014 county Tipperary was divided into two counties, North Tipperary and South Tipperary, which were unified under the Local Government Reform Act 2014, which came into effect following the 2014 local elections on 3 June 2014. It is located in the province of Munster. The county is named after the town of Tipperary, and was established in the early thirteenth century, shortly after the Norman invasion of Ireland. The population of the entire county was 158,754 at the 2011 census. The largest towns are Clonmel, Nenagh and Thurles.