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The capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, in the eastern part of the country on Belfast Lough, an inlet of the North Channel of the Irish Sea. Conflict between Protestants and Catholics has divided the city since the 19th century. Population: 277,000.
For more information on Belfast, visit Britannica.com.
Belfast is the second largest city in Ireland, and the economic and political capital of Northern Ireland. Although the Normans established a fort at Belfast in the 12th cent., a substantial town only developed at the beginning of the 17th cent., and was incorporated by royal charter in 1613. The most remarkable years of expansion were from 1860 to the First World War, coinciding with the development of the shipbuilding and engineering industries, and the consolidation of linen manufacturing: the population of Belfast grew from 87, 000 in 1851 to 349, 000 by 1901. With the Government of *Ireland Act (1920), and the partition of the island, Belfast became the administrative capital of the newly created Northern Ireland.
The swift expansion of Belfast partly determined its politics. The proportion of catholic citizens grew from virtually nothing at the beginning of the 18th cent. to one-third by the late 19th and 20th cents. The industrial growth of the city brought closer links with the British economy: this, in combination with a protestant domination of capital, helped to determine the predominantly unionist character of the city's politics.
Belfast was founded in 1177 when a castle in defense of a ford over the Lagan was built, but the present city is a product of the Industrial Revolution. French Huguenots, coming there after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), stimulated the growth of the town's linen industry. Serious rioting between Catholics and Protestants, who live in distinct sections of the city, has scarred Belfast many times since the 19th cent.; sectarian terrorist violence was a significant problem in the late 20th cent. The city and the surrounding country were subjected to heavy air raids in 1941. Belfast suffers from high unemployment, and its population has decreased markedly due to the violence and the planned economic development of outlying areas.
Capital, largest city, and major port of Northern Ireland.
The country code is: 44
The city code is: 28
Local Time: Jul 21, 1:26 AM
| Belfast Irish - Béal Feirste |
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| Area | sq mi ({{formatnum:115 km²}}) |
|---|---|
| Population | City Proper: 276,459 Belfast Metropolitan Area: 579,554 (2001 Census) |
| Irish grid reference | |
| - London | 322 mi (520 km) SE |
| District | City of Belfast |
| County | County Antrim County Down |
| Constituent country | Northern Ireland |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | BELFAST |
| Postcode district | BT1-BT17, BT29 (part of), BT58 |
| Dialling code | 028 |
| Police | Northern Ireland |
| Fire | Northern Ireland |
| Ambulance | Northern Ireland |
| UK Parliament | Belfast North Belfast South Belfast East Belfast West |
| Northern Ireland Assembly | Belfast North Belfast South Belfast East Belfast West |
| European Parliament | Northern Ireland |
| Website: www.belfastcity.gov.uk | |
| List of places: UK • Northern Ireland | |
Belfast (from the Irish: Béal Feirste meaning "The mouth of the Farset"[1]) is the capital of Northern Ireland. It is the largest city in Northern Ireland and the province of Ulster, and the second-largest city on the island of Ireland (after Dublin). In the 2001 census the population within the city limits (the Belfast Urban Area) was 276,459,[2] while 579,554 people lived in the wider Belfast Metropolitan Area.[3] This made it the fifteenth-largest city in the United Kingdom, but the eleventh-largest conurbation.[4]
Belfast is situated on Northern Ireland's eastern coast. The city is flanked to the northwest by a series of hills, including
Cavehill, which is thought to be the inspiration for Jonathan
Swift's novel, Gulliver's Travels. He imagined that it resembled the
shape of a sleeping giant safeguarding the city.[5] Belfast is also located at the western end of Belfast
Lough and at the mouth of the River Lagan making it an ideal location for the
shipbuilding industry that once made it famous. When the Titanic was built in Belfast
in 1912, Harland and Wolff had the largest shipyard in the world.[6] Originally a town in
County Antrim, the County borough of Belfast was
created when it was granted city status by
Belfast saw the worst of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, with nearly half of the total
deaths in the conflict occurring in the city. However, since the Good Friday Agreement
in 1998, there has been significant urban regeneration in the city centre including Victoria Square, Queen's
Island and Laganside as well as the Odyssey complex and the landmark Waterfront Hall. The city is
served by two airports: The
Belfast is the anglicized version of the area's Irish name, meaning "mouth of the
Farset River".[1] This refers to
the
The site of Belfast has been occupied since the Bronze Age. The Giant's Ring, a 5000 year old henge, is located near the city, and the remains of Iron Age hill forts can still be seen in the surrounding hills. Belfast remained a small settlement of little importance during the Middle Ages. John de Courcy built a castle on what is now Castle Street in the city centre in the 12th century, but this was on a lesser scale and not as strategically important as Carrickfergus Castle to the north, which was also built by de Courcy in 1177. The O'Neill clan had a presence in the area. In the 14th century the Clan Aedh Buidh, descendants of "Yellow" Hugh O'Neill built Grey Castle at Castlereagh, now in the east of the city.[10] Conn O'Neill also owned lands in the area, one remaining link being the Connswater River flowing thorough east Belfast.[11]
It became a substantial settlement in the 17th century after being settled by English and Scottish settlers during the Plantation of Ulster. In 1791 the Society of United Irishmen was founded in Belfast, after Henry Joy McCracken and other prominent Presbyterians from the city invited Theobald Wolfe Tone and Thomas Russell to a meeting, after having read Tone's "Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland". Belfast blossomed as a commercial and industrial centre in the 18th and 19th centuries and became Ireland's pre-eminent industrial city. Industries thrived, including linen, rope-making, tobacco, heavy engineering and shipbuilding, and at the end of the nineteenth century, Belfast briefly overtook Dublin as the largest and most industrialised city in Ireland. The Harland and Wolff shipyards became one of the largest shipbuilders in the world, employing up to 35,000 workers.[12] Belfast was heavily bombed during World War II. In one raid, in 1941, German bombers killed around one thousand people and left tens of thousands homeless. Outside of London, this was the greatest loss of life in a night raid during the Battle of Britain.[13]
Belfast has been the capital of Northern Ireland since its creation in 1920 by the Government of Ireland Act. Since it began to emerge as a major city, it has been the scene of much sectarian conflict between its Roman Catholic and Protestant populations. These opposing groups in this conflict are now often termed 'republican' and 'loyalist' respectively, although are also referred to as 'nationalist' and 'unionist'. The most recent example of this is known as the Troubles - a civil conflict that raged from c.1969 to the late 1990s. Belfast saw the worst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, particularly in the 1970s, with rival paramilitary groups forming on both sides. Bombing, assassination and street violence formed a backdrop to life throughout The Troubles. The IRA detonated 22 bombs, all in a confined area in the city centre in 1972, on what is known as "Bloody Friday", killing nine people. Loyalists paramilitaries, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA) retaliated to the PIRA campaign by a series of killings. A particularly notorious group, based on the Shankill Road in the mid 1970s became known as the Shankill Butchers. In all, over 1,500 people were killed in political violence in the city from 1969 until 2001.[14]
One legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland is that both republican and loyalist paramilitary groups have been involved in organised crime and racketeering in Belfast. On 20 December, 2004, UK£26.4 million was stolen from the headquarters of the Northern Bank in Belfast City Centre, the largest cash robbery at the time in the United Kingdom. The police investigation linked the robbery to the Provisional Irish Republican Army.[15] Policing in Belfast is provided by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. They reported annual decreases in recorded crime in East, North, and South Belfast between 2002 and 2006.[16] West Belfast showed an increase in recorded crime during the same period.[16]
Belfast was granted borough status by James I in 1613 and official city status
by
The city of Belfast has a mayoral form of municipal government. The City's officials are the Lord Mayor, Deputy Lord Mayor and High Sheriff who are elected from fifty-one councillors. The first Lord Mayor of Belfast was Daniel Dixon, who was elected in 1892.[19] As of June 2007, the Lord Mayor of Belfast is Ulster Unionist Party politician, Jim Rodgers, who previously served in the same office in 2001. His duties, as mayor of Belfast, include presiding over meetings of the council, receiving distinguished visitors to the city, and representing and promoting the city on the national and international stage.[19]
In 1997, Unionists lost overall control of Belfast City Council for the first time in its history, with the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland gaining the balance of power between Nationalists and Unionists. This position was confirmed in the council elections of 2001 and 2005. Since then it has had three Nationalist mayors, two from the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and one from Sinn Féin.
In the 2005 local government elections, the voters of Belfast elected fifty-one councillors to Belfast City Council from the following political parties: 15 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 14 Sinn Féin, 8 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), 7 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), 4 Alliance Party, 2 Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), and 1 Independent.[20]
As Northern Ireland's capital city, Belfast is host to the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, the site of home rule legislature in Northern Ireland. Belfast is divided into four Northern Ireland Assembly and UK parliamentary constituencies: North Belfast, West Belfast, South Belfast and East Belfast. All four extend beyond the city boundaries including into parts of Castlereagh, Lisburn and Newtownabbey districts. In the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections in 2007, Belfast elected 24 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), 6 from each constituency. The MLA breakdown consisted of 8 Sinn Féin, 6 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 4 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), 3 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), 2 Alliance Party, and 1 Progressive Unionist Party (PUP).[21] In the 2005 UK general election, Belfast elected one MP from each constituency to the House of Commons at Westminster, London. This was comprised of 2 DUP, 1 SDLP, and 1 Sinn Féin.[22]
The city of Belfast has the Latin motto "Pro tanto quid retribuamus". This can be translated as "What shall we give in return for so much" (literally "Having received so much, what return shall we make") and is taken from Psalm 116 Verse 12 in the Latin Vulgate Bible. The Queens University Students' Union Rag Week publication PTQ derives its name from the first three words of the motto.
The city's coat of arms shows a central shield, bearing a ship and a bell, flanked by a chained wolf (or wolfhound) on the left and a seahorse on the right. A smaller seahorse sits at the top. This crest dates back to 1613, when King James I granted Belfast town status. The seal was used by Belfast merchants throughout the seventeenth century on their signs and trade-coins.[23] A large stained glass window in the City Hall displays the seal, where an explanation suggests that the seahorse and the ship refer to Belfast's significant maritime history. The wolf may be a tribute to the city's founder, Sir Arthur Chichester, and refer to his own coat of arms.[23]
Belfast is situated on Northern Ireland's eastern coast at . A consequence of this northern latitude is that it both endures short winter days and enjoys long summer evenings. During the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, local sunset is before 16:00 while sunrise is around 08:45. This is balanced by the summer solstice in June, when the sun sets after 22:00 and rises before 05:00.[24]
Belfast is also located at the eastern end of Belfast Lough and at the mouth of the River Lagan. In 1994, a weir was built across the river by the Laganside Corporation to raise the average water level so that it would cover the unseemly mud flats which gave Belfast its name[25](from the Irish: Béal Feirste meaning "The sandy ford at the river mouth"[1]). The area of Belfast Local Government District is square miles ( km²).[26]
The city is flanked on the north and northwest by a series of hills, including Divis Mountain, Black Mountain and Cavehill thought to be the inspiration for Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. When Swift was living at Lilliput Cottage near the bottom of the Limestone Road in Belfast, he imagined that the Cavehill resembled the shape of a sleeping giant.[5] The shape of the giant's nose, known locally as Napoleon's Nose, is officially called McArt's Fort probably named after Art O'Neill, a sixteenth century chieftain who controlled the area at that time.[27] The Castlereagh Hills overlook the city on the southeast.
A former Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr William Philbin, who was also a noted poet, wrote this of Belfast: "Belfast is a city walled in by mountains, moated by sees, and undermined by deposits of history".
Belfast has a temperate climate. Average daily temperatures are 18 °C (64 °F) in July, 6 °C (43 °F) in January. The highest temperature recorded in Belfast was 30.8 °C (87.4 °F) on 12 July 1983.[28] The city gets significant precipitation (greater than 0.25 mm/0.01 in) on 213 days in an average year with an average annual rainfall of millimetres ( in),[29] less than the Lake District or the Scottish Highlands,[28] but higher than Dublin or the south-east coast of Ireland.[30] As an urban and coastal area, Belfast typically gets snow on fewer than 10 days per year.[28] Climate change is also affecting Belfast, with July,[31] September 2006[32] and April 2007[33] breaking records for the warmest such months on record, and June 2007 being one of the wettest months ever.
| Weather averages for Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Average high °F (°C) | 43 (6) | 45 (7) | 48 (9) | 54 (12) | 59 (15) | 64 (18) | 64 (18) | 64 (18) | 61 (16) | 55 (13) | 48 (9) | 45 (7) | () |
| Average low °F (°C) | 36 (2) | 36 (2) | 37 (3) | 39 (4) | 43 (6) | 48 (9) | 52 (11) | 52 (11) | 48 (9) | 45 (7) | 39 (4) | 37 (3) | () |
| Precipitation inch (mm) | 3.1 (80) | 2 (52) | 2 (50) | 1.9 (48) | 2 (52) | 2.7 (68) | 3.7 (94) | 3 (77) | 3.1 (80) | 3.3 (83) | 2.8 (72) | 3.5 (90) | () |
| Source: [29] 4 August 2007 | |||||||||||||
Much of what is now known as Greater Belfast existed as separate towns and villages before the city's expansion. Including the City Centre, the city can be divided into five areas with North Belfast, East Belfast, South Belfast, and West Belfast. Each of these is also a parliamentary constituency. Belfast remains segregated by walls (known as “peace lines”) erected by the British Army after August 1969, which still divide fourteen neighbourhoods in the inner-city.[34] In June 2007, a UK£16 million programme was announced which will transform and redevelop streets and public spaces in the city centre.[35] Major arterial roads (quality bus corridors) into the city include the Antrim Road, Shore Road, Holywood Road, Newtownards Road, Castlereagh Road, Cregagh Road, Ormeau Road, Malone Road, Lisburn Road, Falls Road, Springfield Road, Shankill Road, and Crumlin Road.[36]
Belfast City Centre is divided by two postcodes, BT1 for the area lying north of the City Hall, and BT2 for the area to its south. The industrial estate and docklands share BT3. The rest of the Greater Belfast postcodes are set out in a clockwise system. Although BT stands for Belfast, it is used across the whole of Northern Ireland.[37]
Since 2001, boosted by increasing numbers of tourists, the city has also developed a number of cultural "quarters":
Belfast has over forty public parks. The Forest of Belfast is a partnership between government and local groups, set up in 1992 to manage and conserve the city's parks and open spaces. They have also commissioned more than 30 public sculptures since 1993.[45] In 2006, the City Council also set aside UK£8 million to continue this work.[46] The Belfast Naturalists' Field Club was founded in 1863 and is administered by National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland.[47]
With 700,000 visitors in 2005,[48] one of the most
popular parks[49] is
Botanic Gardens in the Queen's
Quarter. Built in the 1830s and designed by Sir Charles Lanyon, Botanic Gardens
Palm House is one of the earliest examples of a curvilinear and cast iron glasshouse.[50] Attractions in the park also include the Tropical Ravine, a
humid jungle glen built in 1889,[49] rose gardens and public events ranging from live opera broadcasts to pop concerts.
Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon Park, to the south of the city centre, attracts thousands of visitors each year to its International Rose Garden.[51] Rose Week in July each year features over 20,000 blooms.[52] It has an area of 128 acres of meadows, woodland and gardens and also features a Princess Diana Memorial Garden, a Japanese Garden, a walled garden, and the Golden Crown Fountain commissioned in 2002 as part of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations.[51]
| Northern Ireland 2001 Census[2] | ||
| Belfast | Northern Ireland | |
| Protestant | 49% | 53% |
| Roman Catholic | 47% | 44% |
| Male | 47% | 49% |
| Under 16 years old | 22% | 24% |
| Between 20 and 44 years old | 37% | 37% |
| Over 65 years old | 15% | 13% |
| Ethnically white | 99% | 99% |
Belfast experienced a huge growth in population around the first half of the twentieth century. This rise slowed and peaked around the start of the Troubles with the 1971 census showing almost 600,000 people in the Belfast Urban Area.[53] Since then, the inner city numbers have dropped dramatically as people have moved to swell the Greater Belfast suburb population. The 2001 census population within the same Urban Area, had fallen to 277,391[2] people, with 579,554 people living in the wider Belfast Metropolitan Area.[3] The population density in the same year was 24.15 persons per hectare (compared to 1.19 for the rest of Northern Ireland).[54]
As with many cities, Belfast's inner city is currently characterised by the elderly, students and single young people, while families tend to live on the periphery. Socio-economic areas radiate out from the Central Business District, with a pronounced wedge of affluence extending out the Malone Road to the south.[53] An area of greater deprivation extends to the west of the city. In fact, the areas around the Falls and Shankill Roads are the most deprived wards in Northern Ireland.[55]
Despite a period of relative peace, most areas and districts of Belfast still reflect the divided nature of Northern Ireland as a whole. Many areas are still highly segregated along ethnic, political and religious lines, especially in working class neighbourhoods.[56] These zones, ‘Catholic’ or ‘Protestant’, ‘Republican’ or ‘Loyalist’ are invariably marked by flags, graffiti and murals. Segregation has been present throughout the history of Belfast, but has been maintained and increased by each new outbreak of violence in the city. This escalation in segregation, described as a "rachet effect", has shown little sign of decreasing during times of peace.[57] When violence flares, it tends to be in interface areas. The highest levels of segregation in the city are in West Belfast with many areas greater than 90% Catholic. Opposite but comparatively high levels are seen in the predominantly Protestant East Belfast.[58]
Ethnic minority communities have been living in Belfast since the 1930s.[59] The largest groups are Chinese and Irish travellers. Since the expansion of the European Union, numbers have been boosted by a large influx of Eastern European immigrants. Census figures (2001) showed that Belfast has a total ethnic minority population of 4,584 or 1.3% of the population. Over half of these live in South Belfast with numbers reaching 2.63% of the population.[59] The majority of the estimated 5000 Muslims[60] and 200 Hindu families[61] living and working in Northern Ireland live in the Greater Belfast area.
When the population of Belfast town began to grow in the seventeenth century, its economy was built on commerce.[62] It provided a market for the surrounding countryside and the natural inlet of Belfast Lough gave the city its own port. The port supplied an avenue for trade with Great Britain and later Europe and North America. In the mid-seventeenth century, Belfast exported beef, butter, hides, tallow and corn and it imported coal, cloth, wine, brandy, paper, timber and tobacco.[62] Around this time, the linen trade in Northern Ireland blossomed and by the middle of the eighteenth century, one fifth of all the linen exported from Ireland was shipped from Belfast.[62] The present city however is a product of the Industrial Revolution.[63] It was not until industry transformed the linen and shipbuilding trades that the economy and the population boomed. By the turn of the nineteenth century, Belfast had transformed into the largest linen producing centre in the world,[64] earning the nickname "Linenopolis".
Belfast harbour was dredged in 1845 to provide deeper berths for larger ships. Donegall Quay was built out into the river as the harbour was developed further and trade flourished."#wp-_note-Belfast.2C_The_Making_of_the_City_4">[65] The Harland and Wolff shipbuilding firm was created in 1861, and by the time the Titanic was built in Belfast in 1912 it had become the largest shipyard in the world.[6]
Short Brothers plc is a British aerospace company based in Belfast. It was the first aircraft manufacturing company in the world. The company began its association with Belfast in 1936, with Short & Harland Ltd, a venture jointly owned by Shorts and Harland and Wolff. Now known as Shorts Bombardier it works as an international aircraft manufacturer located near the Port of Belfast.[66] The rise of mass-produced and cotton clothing following World War I were some of the factors which led to the decline of Belfast's international linen trade.[64] Like many British cities dependent on traditional heavy industry, Belfast suffered serious decline since the 1960s, exacerbated greatly in the 1970s and 1980s by The Troubles. More than 100,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since the 1970s.[67] For several decades, Northern Ireland's fragile economy required significant public support from the British exchequer of up to UK£4 billion per year.[67] Ongoing sectarian violence has made it difficult for Belfast to compete with Dublin's Celtic Tiger economy.[67]
However, the IRA Ceasefire in 1994 and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 have given investors increased confidence to invest in Belfast.[68][69] This has led to a period of sustained economic growth and large-scale redevelopment of the city centre. New developments include Victoria Square, the Cathedral Quarter, and the Laganside with the new Odyssey complex and the landmark Waterfront Hall.
Other major developments include the regeneration of the Titanic Quarter, and the erection the Obel Tower, a skyscraper set to be the tallest tower on the island until eclipsed by the U2 Tower in Dublin.[70] In 2007, Belfast's launched its vision for a World Trade Centre (currently a 'virtual' centre but with plans to become a physical building) which aims to promote the city to the international business market.[71]
Today, Belfast is Northern Ireland's educational and commercial hub. In February 2006, Belfast's unemployment rate stood at 4.2%, lower than both the Northern Ireland[72] and the UK average of 5.5%.[73] Over the past 10 years employment has grown by 16.4 per cent, compared with 9.2 per cent for the UK as a whole.[74]
Northern Ireland's peace dividend has also led to soaring property prices in the city. In 2006, Belfast saw house prices grow by 43%, the fastest rate of growth in the UK.[75] In March 2007, the average house in Belfast cost £191,819, with the average in South Belfast being £241,000.[76] In 2004, Belfast had the lowest owner occupation rate in Northern Ireland at 54%.[77]
