Bristol (City of Bristol)
Iron Age hillforts and Roman villas were built near the confluence of the rivers Frome and Avon. Around the beginning of the 11th century, the settlement was known as Brycgstow (Old English: 'the place at the bridge'). Bristol received a royal charter in 1155 and was historically divided between Gloucestershire and Somerset until 1373 when it became a county corporate. From the 13th to the 18th century, Bristol was among the top three English cities, after London, in tax receipts.
A major port, Bristol was a starting place for early voyages of exploration to the New World. On a ship out of Bristol in 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian, became the first European to land on mainland North America. In 1499, William Weston, a Bristol merchant, was the first Englishman to lead an exploration to North America. At the height of the Bristol slave trade, from 1700 to 1807, more than 2,000 slave ships carried an estimated 500,000 people from Africa to slavery in the Americas. The Port of Bristol has since moved from Bristol Harbour in the city centre to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Dock.
Bristol's modern economy is built on the creative media, electronics and aerospace industries; the city-centre docks have been redeveloped as centres of heritage and culture. The city has the largest circulating community currency in the UK, the Bristol Pound, which is pegged to the pound sterling. The city has two universities: the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol). There are a variety of artistic and sporting organisations and venues including the Royal West of England Academy, the Arnolfini, Spike Island, Ashton Gate and the Memorial Stadium. It is connected to London and other major UK cities by road and rail, and to the world by sea and air: road, by the M5 and M4 (which connect to the city centre by the Portway and M32); rail, via Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway mainline rail stations; and Bristol Airport.
Bristol was named the best city in Britain in which to live in 2014 and 2017; it won the European Green Capital Award in 2015.
Early recorded place names in the Bristol area include the Roman-era British Celtic Abona (derived from the name of the Avon) and the archaic Welsh Caer Odor ('fort on the chasm'), which may have been calqued as the modern English Clifton.
The current name "Bristol" derives from the Old English form Brycgstow, which is typically etymologised as 'place at the bridge'. It has also been suggested that Brycgstow means "the place called Bridge by the place called Stow", the Stow in question referring to an early religious meeting place at what is now College Green. However, other derivations have been proposed. It appears that the form Bricstow prevailed until 1204, and the Bristolian 'L' (the tendency for the local dialect to add the sound "L" to many words ending in a neutral vowel) is what eventually changed the name to Bristol. The original form of the name survives as the surname Bristow, which is derived from the city.
Map - Bristol (City of Bristol)
Map
Country - United_Kingdom
Flag of the United Kingdom |
The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707 formed the Kingdom of Great Britain. Its union in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Most of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which formally adopted that name in 1927. The nearby Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey are not part of the UK, being Crown Dependencies with the British Government responsible for defence and international representation. There are also 14 British Overseas Territories, the last remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's landmass and a third of the world's population, and was the largest empire in history. British influence can be observed in the language, culture and the legal and political systems of many of its former colonies.
Currency / Language
ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
---|---|---|---|
GBP | Pound sterling | £ | 2 |
ISO | Language |
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EN | English language |
GD | Gaelic language |
CY | Welsh language |