I feel that the origins of the peoples who occupy any one county in ENgland, ie Norfolk as opposed to Cornwall or Cumbria is quite different and you get a sense that English people are really not nearly as homogenized as the people here in USA or Canada.

This may or may not be entirely the truth but at least in my mind it accounts for the differences in customs and dialect from one area to the other. So, for the most part, yes, I think the county thing has a greater distinction there than it does here. States, however, are an altogether different issue.