To add to
K9's writeup above, Wiltshire is 'Deep England', magnified to
the nth degree. It's made out of rolling hills, retired
Colonels and is a
Tory Heartland. The Wiltshire accent varies from
rural to
cut-glass. Until recently the primary employers were
farms, the
armed forces (who own large tracts of the county and base their land forces headquarters in
Wilton), and (in the south at least)
Wilton carpet factory; all three have suffered from cutbacks and setbacks in the past decade, with the result that Wiltshire is increasingly becoming an employment black spot.
Thanks to the M4 motorway many of the county's residents commute to London or the IT area around Reading in Berkshire; a major train line runs through the country from Plymouth to Waterloo, with the journey from Salisbury station to Waterloo taking one hour and twenty minutes or so, at a cost of 23 pounds.
Thanks to its inland location, Wiltshire is spared the ravages of much of the English climate; nonetheless, it is very, very cold in the Winter, and only has a fortnight or so of bright sunshine in the middle of the year. Despite this it's very attractive, and at night there are remote places where you can see the stars, although much of it is inaccessible unless you own a car or wellies, or indeed combat boots, and a car that can cope with wobbly roads. Wilshire is one of the few parts of Britain in which it is appropriate to own and drive an off-roader; a proper one. Public transport is restricted to bus routes which serve a multitude of tiny villages, usually arriving and departing only three or four times per day.
Apart from Stonehenge and various other neolothic monuments such as Edward Heath (who lives just outside Salisbury cathedral), Wiltshire is also famous for not quite containing Shaftesbury, a Dorset village famous for providing a steep cobbled street for Ridley Scott's old Hovis commercials, as well as numerous location shots for period dramas. No television cop shows have been set in Wiltshire; despite a village called Compton Chamberlayne and a village called Brixton, no famous hip-hop groups have originated from the area. The crime rate is very low. Old people can indeed walk the street at night. I have no idea whether there is an American equivalent of Wiltshire - the rural bits of Texas, perhaps, or Boston. Salisbury has a large Armed Force careers centre next door to the library and a sporting gunshop opposite the only cinema, two things which would be unheard of in, say, London. XTC come from Swindon; they have never mugged anyone. Swindon itself is a bit rougher than Salisbury and is where the first series of The Office was set; Ricky Gervais' accent is a rough approximately of a Wiltshire burr, although the old country accent is dying off.
Perhaps because of the great number of ancient monuments - particularly Avebury and Stonehenge, as noted above - and also perhaps because there isn't much to do at night, Wiltshire has more crop circles than any other county.
Other vital brushes with fame include the aforementioned Edward Heath, who lives outside the cathedral, Sting, who has a house near Wilton and visits the dentist there every so often (I know this as I walked past him once), and Madonna, who has a large house there. Bryan Ferry used to live in Wiltshire; now he does not. Brian May of Queen and his wife Anita Dobson used to live in Tisbury; they may still, I don't know.
The name itself derives from that of Wilton; the name of Wilton derives from the fact that the river Wylye runs through it, and thus Wiltshire is 'the shire with the town that has the River Wylye going through it'.
Ethnically, there are most certainly non-white anglo-saxon people about, although I can't remember seeing many when I lived there.