How is England divided (accent wise?)

I'm interested in the different accents of England. Since I've been told that England has so many dialects, that pronunciation of different words differ. I.e the word "water" is pronounced several different ways.

In nothern England words like "Dance, Aunt", are pronounced similar to Americans. Whereas in South west England words like "water, battery" are simiilar pronunciation to Americans than other parts of England.

Even a simple word like "hut" can be prnounced totally different. The "u" changes, the "t" changes, and even the "t" is missed out sometimes.

So what percentage of England speaks Cockney for example? and Scouse, Geordie, Mackem, Mancunian, Brummie, Cornish, etc and how many actually speak in received pronunciation (Standard British English)

For the most part "water" would be pronounced in much the same way throughout the UK. However, some people (especially) in the SE may employ a glottal stop, so water is pronounced as wa'er. Some accents such as many SW accents are rhotic so the final "r" is stressed.

Dance and aunt both have short "a"s in the Midlands and North of England, but have an "ah" sound in the South.

In the south there is a vowel split in "u" sounds so "hut" is commonly pronounced h^t which is close in sound to hat. The north maintains the same sound that the south use in words like butcher, sugar and full.

In terms of general regions I would split Britain in the following way:

SE inc Cockney, SW, E Midlands, W Midlands, N Wales, South Wales, NW, Scouse, Yorkshire, NE inc Geordie, E Coast Scots, West Coast Scots inc Glasgow, Highlands.

The hardest accents to imitate tend to be East Midlands (Derby, Nottingham etc) and North Wales.

I rekon Rik's idea of splitting the country is pretty much right but percentage is basicaly impossible to answer.

Very few peoples accents are deffinately one. Take me for example. I come from Yorkshire but come from an afluent well educated place and my father is what you might call "posh" so i, like most in my area dont have a yokshire accent . But my pronounciation of "dance" or "grass" are the northern ways which is always noted as being different by southerners. My boyf for another example is from liverpool. He speaks with a slight liverpool lilt that i notice but it isnt what you would call scouse and very few people would realise where he was from if he didnt tell you.

Peoples accents mix, their stresses and idioms change and it depends on so many things. My mother is irish so when my brother was little he said everything with an irish accent until he went to school and even after adopting a yokshire accent at school he still said eight in an irish accent. Without an actual nationwide test and strict rules on accent you cant really answer that question