Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of
Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the
River Lagan
The River Lagan (; Ulster Scots: ''Lagan Wattèr'') is a major river in Northern Ireland which runs 53.5 miles (86 km) from the Slieve Croob mountain in County Down to Belfast where it enters Belfast Lough, an inlet of the Irish Sea. The ...
on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the
United Kingdom and the second-largest in
Ireland. It had a population of 345,418 .
By the early 19th century, Belfast was a major
port. It played an important role in the
Industrial Revolution in Ireland, briefly becoming the biggest
linen
Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant.
Linen is very strong, absorbent, and dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. It also ...
-producer in the world, earning it the nickname "
Linenopolis". By the time it was granted
city status in 1888, it was a major centre of Irish linen production,
tobacco-processing and rope-making. Shipbuilding was also a key industry; the
Harland and Wolff shipyard, which built the , was the world's largest shipyard.
Industrialisation
Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
, and the resulting
inward migration, made Belfast one of Ireland's biggest cities. Following the
partition of Ireland in 1921, Belfast became the seat of government for Northern Ireland. There was major
communal violence in the city during partition. Belfast saw further severe violence and numerous bombings during the thirty years of
the Troubles, c.1969–1998, and parts of the city remain
segregated between
Catholics
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and
Protestants
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
.
Belfast is still a port with commercial and industrial docks, including the Harland and Wolff shipyard, dominating the
Belfast Lough shoreline. It also has a major aerospace industry. It is served by two airports:
George Best Belfast City Airport, from the city centre, and
Belfast International Airport
Belfast International Airport is an airport northwest of Belfast in Northern Ireland, is the main airport for the city of Belfast. Until 1983, it was known as ''Aldergrove Airport'', after the nearby village of Aldergrove. In 2018, over 6.2 ...
west of the city. The
Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) listed Belfast as a Gamma +
global city in 2020.
Name
The name Belfast derives from the Irish , later spelt ().
The word means "mouth" or "river-mouth," while is the
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
singular of and refers to a
sandbar or tidal
ford across a river's mouth.
The name therefore translates literally as "(river) mouth of the sandbar" or "(river) mouth of the ford".
The sandbar formed at the confluence (at present-day
Donegall Quay) of two rivers: the
Lagan, which flows into Belfast Lough, and the
Farset, a tributary of the Lagan. "Mouth of the Farset" might be an alternative interpretation. This area became the hub around which the original settlement developed.
The compilers of
Ulster-Scots Ulster Scots, may refer to:
* Ulster Scots people
The Ulster Scots ( Ulster-Scots: ''Ulstèr-Scotch''; ga, Albanaigh Ultach), also called Ulster Scots people (''Ulstèr-Scotch fowk'') or (in North America) Scotch-Irish (''Scotch-Airisch'') ...
use various transcriptions of local pronunciations of "Belfast" (with which they sometimes are also content) including ''Bilfawst'', ''Bilfaust'' or ''Baelfawst.''
History
The
county borough of Belfast was created when it was granted city status by
Queen Victoria in 1888, and the city continues to straddle
County Antrim on the left bank of the Lagan and
County Down
County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...
on the right.
Early settlements
The site of Belfast has been occupied since the
Bronze Age. The
Giant's Ring, a 5,000-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. The
Normans may have built a
castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...
on a site now bounded by Donegall Place, Castle Place, Cornmarket and Castle Lane in the late twelfth century or early thirteenth century, in what is now
Belfast City Centre.
[Raymond Gillespie and Stephen A. Royle, ''Irish Historic Towns Atlas Number 12: Belfast - Part I, to 1840'', p. 1. ]Royal Irish Academy
The Royal Irish Academy (RIA; ga, Acadamh Ríoga na hÉireann), based in Dublin, is an academic body that promotes study in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is Ireland's premier List of Irish learned societies, learned socie ...
, Dublin, 2003. However, this original '
Belfast Castle' was much smaller and of far less strategic importance than nearby
Carrickfergus Castle, which was constructed at
Carrickfergus and was probably built in the late 1170s.
As lords of
Clandeboye, the
O'Neill dynasty
The O'Neill dynasty (Irish: ''Ó Néill'') are a lineage of Irish Gaelic origin, that held prominent positions and titles in Ireland and elsewhere. As kings of Cenél nEógain, they were historically the most prominent family of the Northern ...
were the local Irish power.
In 1616, after the
Nine Years' War, the last of the local line, Conn O'Neill (remembered in Connswater River), was forced to sell their remaining stronghold, the Grey Castle or Castle Reagh (''An Caisleán Riabhach'' in Irish)
in the hills to the east of Belfast, together with surrounding lands, to English and Scottish adventurers.
Plantation town
With the undertaking of
Plantation, Belfast was established as a town in 1613 by
Sir Arthur Chichester. Chichester also had
Belfast Castle rebuilt at this time.
The mainly English and
Manx
Manx (; formerly sometimes spelled Manks) is an adjective (and derived noun) describing things or people related to the Isle of Man:
* Manx people
**Manx surnames
* Isle of Man
It may also refer to:
Languages
* Manx language, also known as Manx ...
settlers took Anglican communion at Corporation Church on the quay-side end of High Street. But it was with Scottish Presbyterians that the town was to grow as an industrial port. Together with French
Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Bez ...
refugees, they introduced the production of
linen
Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant.
Linen is very strong, absorbent, and dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. It also ...
, an industry that carried Belfast trade to the Americas.
Reluctant to let valuable crop go to seed,
flax
Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. Textiles made from flax are known i ...
growers and linen merchants benefited from a three-way exchange. Fortunes were made carrying rough linen clothing and salted provisions to the slave plantations of the West Indies; sugar and rum to Baltimore and New York; and for the return to Belfast of flaxseed from
the colonies where the relative scarcity of labour made unprofitable the processing of the flax into linen fibre. Profits from the trade financed improvements in the town's commercial infrastructure, including the
Lagan Canal, new docks and quays, and the construction of the White Linen Hall which together attracted to Belfast the linen trade that had formerly gone through
Dublin. Public outrage, however, defeated the proposal of the greatest of the merchant houses,
Cunningham and Greg, to commission ships for the
Middle Passage.
As "Dissenters" from the
established Church, Presbyterians were conscious of sharing, if only in part, the
disabilities of Ireland's dispossessed
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
majority; and of being denied representation in the
Irish Parliament. Belfast's two MPs remained nominees of the Chichesters (
Marquesses of Donegall
A marquess (; french: marquis ), es, marqués, pt, marquês. is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman wi ...
). With their American kinsmen, the region's Presbyterians were to share a growing disaffection from
the Crown
The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has differen ...
.
When early in the
American War of Independence,
Belfast Lough was raided by the
privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...
John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones (born John Paul; July 6, 1747 July 18, 1792) was a Scottish-American naval captain who was the United States' first well-known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. He made many friends among U.S political elites ( ...
, the townspeople assembled their own
Volunteer militia. Formed ostensibly for defence of
the Kingdom, the Volunteers were soon pressing their own protest against "taxation without representation". Further emboldened by the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
, a more radical element in the town, the
United Irishmen, called for
Catholic emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restrict ...
and an independent representative government for the country.
In hopes of French assistance, in 1798 the Society organised a republican insurrection. The rebel tradesmen and tenant farmers were defeated north of the town at the
Battle of Antrim and to the south at the
Battle of Ballynahinch.
Among surviving elements of the early pre-Victorian town are the
Belfast Entries, 17th-century alleyways off High Street, including, in Winecellar's Entry, White's Tavern (rebuilt 1790); the First
Presbyterian (Non-Subscribing) Church (1781–83) in Rosemary Street (whose members led the abolitionist charge against Greg and Cunningham);
St George's Church of Ireland (1816) on the High Street site of the old Corporation Church; and the oldest public building in Belfast,
Clifton House (1771–74), the
Belfast Charitable Society
The Belfast Charitable Society, founded in 1752, is Belfast's oldest charitable organisation. It continues its philanthropic work from Clifton House which the Society opened, originally as the town's poor house and infirmary, in 1774.
History
...
poorhouse on North Queen Street.
Industrial expansion
Rapid industrial growth in the nineteenth century drew in landless Catholics from outlying rural and western districts, most settling to the west of the town. The plentiful supply of cheap labour helped attract English and Scottish capital to Belfast, but it was also a cause of insecurity. Protestant workers who organised to secure their access to jobs and housing gave a new lease of life in the town to the once largely rural
Orange Order
The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants, particularly those of Ulster Scots people, Ulster Sco ...
. Sectarian tensions were heightened by movements to
repeal the Acts of Union (which followed the 1798 rebellion) and to
restore a Parliament in
Dublin. Given the progressive enlargement of the British electoral franchise, this would have had an overwhelming Catholic majority and, it was widely believed, interests inimical to the Protestant and industrial north. In 1864 and 1886 the issue had helped trigger deadly sectarian riots.
Sectarian tension was not in itself unique to Belfast: it was shared with Liverpool and Glasgow, cities that following the
Great Famine had also experienced large-scale Irish Catholic immigration. But also common to this "industrial triangle" were traditions of labour militancy. In 1919, workers in all three cities struck for a ten-hour reduction in the working week. In Belfast—notwithstanding the political friction caused by
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur G ...
's
electoral triumph in the south—this involved some 60,000 workers, Protestant and Catholic, in a four-week walk-out.
In a demonstration of their resolve not to submit to a Dublin parliament, in 1912
Belfast City Hall unionists presented the
Ulster Covenant, which, with an associated Declaration for women, was to accumulate over 470,000 signatures. This was followed by the drilling and eventual arming of a 100,000-strong
Ulster Volunteer Force. The crisis was abated by the onset of the
Great War, the sacrifices of the UVF in which continue to be commemorated in the city (
Somme Day) by unionist and loyalist organisations.
Northern capital
In 1921, as the greater part of Ireland seceded as the
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a State (polity), state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independ ...
, Belfast became the capital of the six counties remaining as
Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom. In 1932, the devolved parliament for the region was housed in new buildings at
Stormont on the eastern edge of the city. In 1920–21, as the island of Ireland was
partitioned, up to 500 people were killed in disturbances in Belfast, the bloodiest period of strife in the city until
the Troubles of the late 1960s onwards. This period of
communal violence (1920–22) was commonly referred to as the
Belfast Pogrom.
Second World War
Belfast was heavily bombed during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. Initial raids were a surprise as the city was believed to be outside of the range of German bomber planes. In one raid, in 1941, German bombers killed around one thousand people and left tens of thousands homeless. Apart from London, this was the greatest loss of life in a night raid during the
Blitz.
In the spring of 1942, the German
Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...
appeared twice over Belfast. In addition to the shipyards and the
Shorts Brothers
Short Brothers plc, usually referred to as Shorts or Short, is an aerospace company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Shorts was founded in 1908 in London, and was the first company in the world to make production aeroplanes. It was particu ...
aircraft factory, the Belfast Blitz severely damaged or destroyed more than half the city's housing stock, devastated the old town centre around High Street, and killed over a thousand people.
Post-war redevelopment
At the end of World War II, the Unionist Government undertook programmes of "
slum clearance" (the Blitz had exposed the "uninhabitable" condition of much of the city's housing) which involved decanting populations out of mill and factory, and constructing terraced streets into new peripheral housing estates. Road construction schemes, including the terminus of the M1 and the
Westlink severed the streets linking north and west Belfast to the city centre, for example the dockland community of
Sailortown
A Sailortown is a district in seaports that catered to transient seafarers. These districts frequently contained boarding houses, public houses, brothels, tattoo parlours, print shops, shops selling nautical equipment, and religious institutions ...
.
The cost was borne by the
British Exchequer. In what the
Unionist government understood as its reward for wartime service, London had agreed that parity in taxation between Northern Ireland and Great Britain should be matched by parity in the services delivered. In addition to the public construction, this provided for universal health care, comprehensive social security, and "revolutionised access" to secondary and further education. The new
welfare state contributed, in turn, to rising expectations; in the 1960s, a possible factor in new and growing protest over the Unionist government's record on civil and political rights.
The Troubles
Belfast has been the scene of various episodes of sectarian conflict between its Catholic and Protestant populations. These opposing groups in this conflict are now often termed
republican and
loyalist respectively, although they are also loosely referred to as '
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
' and '
unionist'. The most recent example of this conflict was known as the Troubles – a civil conflict that raged from the late 1960s to 1998.
Belfast saw some of the worst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, particularly in the 1970s, with rival paramilitary groups formed on both sides. Bombing, assassination and street violence formed a backdrop to life throughout the Troubles. In December 1971, 15 people, including two children, were killed when the
Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF)
bombed McGurk's Bar, the greatest loss of life in a single incident in Belfast. Loyalist paramilitaries including the UVF and the
Ulster Defence Association (UDA) said that the killings they carried out were in retaliation for the
IRA campaign. Most of their victims were Catholics with no links to the
Provisional IRA. A particularly notorious group, based on the
Shankill Road in the mid-1970s, became known as the
Shankill Butchers. The Provisional IRA detonated 22 bombs within the confines of Belfast city centre on 21 July 1972, on what is known as
Bloody Friday, killing nine people. The British Army, first deployed on the streets in August 1969, was also responsible for civilian deaths. In the deadliest event, known as the
Ballymurphy massacre, between 9 and 11 August 1971 members of the
Parachute Regiment killed at least nine civilians. A 2021 coroner's report found that all those killed had been innocent and that the killings were "without justification".
During the 1970s and 1980s Belfast was one of the world's most dangerous cities. In all, over 1,600 people were killed in political violence in the city between 1969 and 2001.
During the Troubles the
Europa Hotel suffered 36 bomb attacks becoming known as "the most bombed hotel in the world".
Peace lines
An enduring physical legacy of the conflict are the extensive "
peace lines" (or "peace walls") that continue to separate loyalist from republican districts. Ranging in length from a few hundred metres to over 5 kilometres, the security barriers have increased both in number and in height and number since 1998. They divide communities that account for 14 of the 20 most deprived
wards in Northern Ireland. In May 2013, the Northern Ireland Executive committed to the removal of all peace lines by mutual consent. As the target date of 2023 approaches, only a small number have been dismantled.
Governance
Belfast was granted
borough status by
James VI and I
James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until ...
in 1613 and official
city status by
Queen Victoria in 1888. Since 1973 it has been a
local government district under local administration by
Belfast City Council. Belfast is represented in both the
British House of Commons and in the
Northern Ireland Assembly
sco-ulster, Norlin Airlan Assemblie
, legislature = Seventh Assembly
, coa_pic = File:NI_Assembly.svg
, coa_res = 250px
, house_type = Unicameral
, house1 =
, leader1_type = ...
. For elections to the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adop ...
, Belfast was within the
Northern Ireland constituency.
Local government
Belfast City Council is the
local council with responsibility for the city. The city's elected officials are the
Lord Mayor of Belfast, Deputy Lord Mayor and
High Sheriff who are elected from among 60
councillors
A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries.
Canada
Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...
. The first Lord Mayor of Belfast was
Daniel Dixon, who was elected in 1892.
The current
Lord Mayor is Tina Black of
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur G ...
, while the Deputy Lord Mayor is Michelle Kelly of the
Alliance Party. The Lord Mayor's duties include presiding over meetings of the council, receiving distinguished visitors to the city, representing and promoting the city on the national and international stage.
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 five subsequent council elections, with mayors from Sinn Féin and the
Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), both of whom are nationalist parties, and the cross-community Alliance Party regularly elected since. The first nationalist Lord Mayor of Belfast was
Alban Maginness of the SDLP, in 1997.
Northern Ireland Assembly and Westminster
As Northern Ireland's capital city, Belfast is host to the
Northern Ireland Assembly
sco-ulster, Norlin Airlan Assemblie
, legislature = Seventh Assembly
, coa_pic = File:NI_Assembly.svg
, coa_res = 250px
, house_type = Unicameral
, house1 =
, leader1_type = ...
at
Stormont, the site of the
devolved legislature for Northern Ireland. Belfast is divided into four
Northern Ireland Assembly
sco-ulster, Norlin Airlan Assemblie
, legislature = Seventh Assembly
, coa_pic = File:NI_Assembly.svg
, coa_res = 250px
, house_type = Unicameral
, house1 =
, leader1_type = ...
and
UK parliamentary constituencies:
Belfast North,
Belfast West,
Belfast South and
Belfast East. All four extend beyond the city boundaries to include parts of
Castlereagh,
Lisburn and
Newtownabbey districts. In the
Northern Ireland Assembly Elections in 2022, Belfast elected 20
Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), 5 from each
constituency. Belfast elected 7
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur G ...
, 5
DUP, 5
Alliance Party, 1
SDLP, 1
UUP and 1
PBPA MLAs. In the 2017 UK general election, Belfast elected one
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house ...
(MP) from each constituency to the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
at Westminster, London. This comprised 3 DUP and 1 Sinn Féin. In the
2019 UK general election, the DUP lost two of their seats in Belfast; to Sinn Féin in North Belfast and to the SDLP in South Belfast.
Geography
Belfast is at the western end of Belfast Lough and at the mouth of the River Lagan giving it the ideal location for the shipbuilding industry that once made it famous. When the ''
Titanic'' was built in Belfast in 1911–1912,
Harland and Wolff had the largest shipyard in the world.
Belfast is situated on Northern Ireland's eastern
coast
The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...
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 winter solstice, also called the hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winte ...
, 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.
In 1994, a
weir
A weir or low head dam is a barrier across the width of a river that alters the flow characteristics of water and usually results in a change in the height of the river level. Weirs are also used to control the flow of water for outlets of l ...
was built across the river by the
Laganside Corporation
The Laganside Corporation was a non-departmental public body formed by the Laganside Development (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 with the goal of regenerating large sections of land in Belfast, Northern Ireland adjacent to the River Lagan. Thi ...
to raise the average water level so that it would cover the unseemly mud flats which gave Belfast its name ().
The area of Belfast Local Government District is .
The
River Farset
The River Farset (''An Fhearsaid'' or ''Abhainn na Feirste'' in Irish) is a river in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a late tributary of the River Lagan.
Course
Rising on Squire's Hill on the north-western edge of Belfast, the River Farset ...
is also named after this
silt
Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel wh ...
deposit (from the Irish ''feirste'' meaning "sand spit"). Originally a more significant river than it is today, the Farset formed a dock on High Street until the mid 19th century. Bank Street in the
city centre referred to the river bank and Bridge Street was named for the site of an early Farset bridge. Superseded by the River Lagan as the more important river in the city, the Farset now languishes in obscurity, under High Street. There are no less than twelve other minor rivers in and around Belfast, namely the Blackstaff, the Colin, the Connswater, the Cregagh, the Derriaghy, the Forth, the Knock, the Legoniel, the Loop, the Milewater, the Purdysburn and the Ravernet.
The city is flanked on the north and northwest by a series of hills, including
Divis Mountain
Divis (; ) is a hill and area of sprawling moorland north-west of Belfast in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. With a height of 1,568 ft (478 m), it is the highest of the Belfast Hills. It is joined with the neighbouring Black Mountain, a ...
,
Black Mountain
Black Mountain may refer to:
Places Australia
* Black Mountain (Australian Capital Territory), a mountain in Canberra
* Black Mountain, New South Wales, a village in Armidale Regional Council, New South Wales
* Black Mountain, Queensland, a loca ...
and
Cavehill, thought to be the inspiration for
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, ...
's ''
Gulliver's Travels''. When Swift was living at Lilliput Cottage near the bottom of Belfast's Limestone Road, he imagined that the Cavehill resembled the shape of a sleeping giant safeguarding the city.
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 17th-century chieftain who controlled the area at that time. The
Castlereagh Hills overlook the city on the southeast.
Climate
As with the vast majority of the rest of Ireland, Belfast has a
temperate
In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout t ...
oceanic climate
An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ...
(''Cfb'' in the
Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...
), with a narrow range of temperatures and rainfall throughout the year. The climate of Belfast is significantly milder than most other locations in the world at a similar latitude, due to the warming influence of the
Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida and up the eastern coastline of the Uni ...
. There are currently five weather observing stations in the Belfast area:
Helen's Bay, Stormont, Newforge, Castlereagh, and Ravenhill Road. Slightly further afield is Aldergrove Airport. The highest temperature recorded at any official weather station in the Belfast area was at
Shaw's Bridge on 12 July 1983.
The city gets significant precipitation (greater than 1 mm) on 157 days in an average year with an average annual rainfall of ,
less than areas of northern England or most of
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...
,
but higher than
Dublin or the south-east coast of Ireland. As an urban and coastal area, Belfast typically gets snow on fewer than 10 days per year.
The absolute maximum temperature at the weather station at Stormont is , set during July 1983. In an average year the warmest day will rise to a temperature of with a day of or above occurring roughly once every two in three years. The absolute minimum temperature at Stormont is , during January 1982, although in an average year the coldest night will fall no lower than with air frost being recorded on just 26 nights. The lowest temperature to occur in recent years was on 22 December 2010.
The nearest weather station for which sunshine data and longer term observations are available is
Belfast International Airport
Belfast International Airport is an airport northwest of Belfast in Northern Ireland, is the main airport for the city of Belfast. Until 1983, it was known as ''Aldergrove Airport'', after the nearby village of Aldergrove. In 2018, over 6.2 ...
(
Aldergrove). Temperature extremes here have slightly more variability due to the more inland location. The average warmest day at Aldergrove for example will reach a temperature of , ( higher than Stormont) and 2.1 days should attain a temperature of or above in total. Conversely the coldest night of the year averages (or lower than Stormont) and 39 nights should register an air frost. Some 13 more frosty nights than Stormont. The minimum temperature at Aldergrove was , during December 2010.
Areas and districts
The
townlands of Belfast are its oldest surviving land divisions and most pre-date the city. Belfast expanded very rapidly from being a market town to becoming an industrial city during the course of the 19th century. Because of this, it is less an agglomeration of villages and towns which have expanded into each other, than other comparable cities, such as
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...
or
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...
. The city expanded to the natural barrier of the hills that surround it, overwhelming other settlements. Consequently, the arterial roads along which this expansion took place (such as the
Falls Road or the
Newtownards Road) are more significant in defining the districts of the city than nucleated settlements.
Parts of Belfast are segregated by walls, commonly known as "
peace lines", erected by the
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gur ...
after August 1969, and which still divide 14 districts in the inner city.
In 2008 a process was proposed for the removal of the 'peace walls'. In June 2007, a
£16 million programme was announced which will transform and redevelop streets and public spaces in the city centre. Major arterial roads (
quality bus corridor) into the city include the
Antrim Road,
Shore Road Shore Road may refer to:
* Shore Road, Belfast, the A2 through north Belfast and Newtownabbey in Northern Ireland
* Pelham Road
Pelham Road, known as Shore Road within the Bronx, is a historic east-west road that runs along the Long Island Soun ...
, Holywood Road, Newtownards Road, Castlereagh Road, Cregagh Road,
Ormeau Road,
Malone Road,
Lisburn Road, Falls Road,
Springfield Road,
Shankill Road, and Crumlin Road, Four Winds.
Belfast city centre is divided into two postcode districts, ''BT1'' for the area lying north of the City Hall, and ''BT2'' for the area to its south. The industrial estate and docklands ''BT3''. The rest of the Belfast
post town
A post town is a required part of all postal addresses in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and a basic unit of the postal delivery system.Royal Mail, ''Address Management Guide'', (2004) Including the correct post town in the address increases ...
is divided in a broadly
clockwise
Two-dimensional rotation can occur in two possible directions. Clockwise motion (abbreviated CW) proceeds in the same direction as a clock's hands: from the top to the right, then down and then to the left, and back up to the top. The opposite ...
system from ''BT3'' in the north-east round to ''BT15'', with ''BT16'' and ''BT17'' further out to the east and west respectively. Although ''BT'' derives from ''Belfast'', the
BT postcode area extends across the whole of Northern Ireland.
Since 2001, boosted by increasing numbers of tourists, the city council has developed a number of cultural
quarters. The
Cathedral Quarter takes its name from
St Anne's Cathedral (
Church of Ireland
The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label=Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the second l ...
) and has taken on the mantle of the city's key cultural locality.
It hosts a yearly
visual and performing arts festival.
Custom House Square is one of the city's main outdoor venues for free concerts and street entertainment. The
Gaeltacht Quarter is an area around the Falls Road in west Belfast which promotes and encourages the use of the
Irish language
Irish (an Caighdeán Oifigiúil, Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic languages, Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European lang ...
. The
Queen's Quarter in south Belfast is named after
Queen's University Queen's or Queens University may refer to:
*Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada
*Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
**Queen's University of Belfast (UK Parliament constituency) (1918–1950)
**Queen's University of Belfast ...
. The area has a large student population and hosts the annual
Belfast International Arts Festival each autumn. It is home to
Botanic Gardens and the
Ulster Museum, which was reopened in 2009 after major redevelopment.
The Golden Mile is the name given to the mile between Belfast City Hall and Queen's University. Taking in Dublin Road,
Great Victoria Street
Great Victoria Street in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is a major thoroughfare located in the city centre and is one of the important streets used by pedestrians alighting from Belfast Great Victoria Street railway station and walking into shopping s ...
,
Shaftesbury Square
Shaftesbury Square is in Belfast, Northern Ireland at the southern end of Great Victoria Street and Dublin road, with the adjoining streets of Lisburn Road and the Donegall Road converging at this junction. It is in the area commonly known as ...
and Bradbury Place, it contains some of the best bars and restaurants in the city. Since the
Good Friday Agreement
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in Nor ...
in 1998, the nearby Lisburn Road has developed into the city's most exclusive shopping strip. Finally, the
Titanic Quarter covers of reclaimed land adjacent to
Belfast Harbour, formerly known as ''Queen's Island''. Named after ''
RMS Titanic
RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, Unit ...
'', which was built here in 1912,
work has begun which promises to transform some former shipyard land into "one of the largest waterfront developments in Europe".
Plans include apartments, a riverside entertainment district, and a major Titanic-themed museum.
In its 2018 report on Best Places to Live in Britain, ''The Sunday Times'' named Ballyhackamore, "the brunch capital of Belfast", as the best place in Northern Ireland. The district of Ballyhackamore has even acquired the name "Ballysnackamore" due to the preponderance of dining establishments in the area.
Cityscape
Architecture
The architectural style of Belfast's public buildings range from a small set of
Georgian buildings, many examples of
Victorian
Victorian or Victorians may refer to:
19th century
* Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign
** Victorian architecture
** Victorian house
** Victorian decorative arts
** Victorian fashion
** Victorian literature ...
, including the main ''Lanyon Building'' at
Queen's University Belfast
, mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back?
, top_free_label =
, top_free =
, top_free_label1 =
, top_free1 =
, top_free_label2 =
, top_free2 =
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public research university
, parent = ...
and the
Linenhall Library, (both designed by
Sir Charles Lanyon
Sir Charles Lanyon DL, JP (6 January 1813 – 31 May 1889) was an English architect of the 19th century. His work is most closely associated with Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Biography
Lanyon was born in Eastbourne, Sussex (now East Sussex) in ...
). There are also many examples of
Edwardian
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...
, such as the City Hall, to modern, such as the
Waterfront Hall.
The City Hall was finished in 1906 and was built to reflect Belfast's city status, granted by
Queen Victoria in 1888. The
Edwardian
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...
architectural style of Belfast City Hall influenced the
Victoria Memorial in
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comm ...
, India, and
Durban
Durban ( ) ( zu, eThekwini, from meaning 'the port' also called zu, eZibubulungwini for the mountain range that terminates in the area), nicknamed ''Durbs'',Ishani ChettyCity nicknames in SA and across the worldArticle on ''news24.com'' from ...
City Hall in South Africa. The dome is high and figures above the door state "
Hibernia
''Hibernia'' () is the Classical Latin name for Ireland. The name ''Hibernia'' was taken from Greek geographical accounts. During his exploration of northwest Europe (c. 320 BC), Pytheas of Massalia called the island ''Iérnē'' (written ). ...
encouraging and promoting the Commerce and Arts of the City".
Among the city's grandest buildings are two former banks:
Ulster Bank
Ulster Bank ( ga, Banc Uladh) is a large retail bank, and one of the traditional Big Four (banking)#Ireland, Big Four Irish clearing banks. The Ulster Bank Group is subdivided into two separate legal entities: NatWest, National Westminster Ban ...
in Waring Street (built in 1860) and
Northern Bank, in nearby Donegall Street (built in 1769). The
Royal Courts of Justice
The Royal Courts of Justice, commonly called the Law Courts, is a court building in Westminster which houses the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, High Court and Court of Appeal of England and Wales. The High Court also sits on circui ...
in Chichester Street are home to Northern Ireland's
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
. Many of Belfast's oldest buildings are found in the
Cathedral Quarter area, which is currently undergoing redevelopment as the city's main cultural and tourist area.
Windsor House, high, has 23 floors and is the second tallest building (as distinct from structure) in Ireland. Work has started on the taller
Obel Tower, which already surpasses the height of Windsor House in its unfinished state.
The ornately decorated
Crown Liquor Saloon, designed by Joseph Anderson in 1876, in Great Victoria Street is one of only two pubs in the UK that are owned by the
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
(the other is
the George Inn, Southwark in London). It was made internationally famous as the setting for the classic film, ''
Odd Man Out'', starring
James Mason. The restaurant panels in the Crown Bar were originally made for ''Britannic'', the sister ship of the ''Titanic'',
built in Belfast.
The Harland and Wolff shipyard has two of the largest
dry docks in Europe, where the giant cranes,
Samson and Goliath stand out against Belfast's skyline.
Including the Waterfront Hall and the
Odyssey Arena, Belfast has several other venues for performing arts. The architecture of the
Grand Opera House has an oriental theme and was completed in 1895. It was bombed several times during the Troubles but has now been restored to its former glory.
The Lyric Theatre, which re-opened on 1 May 2011 after undergoing a rebuilding programme and is the only full-time producing theatre in Northern Ireland, is where film star
Liam Neeson began his career. The
Ulster Hall (1859–1862) was originally designed for grand dances but is now used primarily as a concert and sporting venue.
Lloyd George,
Parnell and
Patrick Pearse
Patrick Henry Pearse (also known as Pádraig or Pádraic Pearse; ga, Pádraig Anraí Mac Piarais; 10 November 1879 – 3 May 1916) was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist, republican political activist and revolutionary who ...
all attended political rallies there.
A legacy of
the Troubles are the many '
peace lines' or '
peace walls
The peace lines or peace walls are a series of separation barriers in Northern Ireland that separate predominantly republican and nationalist Catholic neighbourhoods from predominantly loyalist and unionist Protestant neighbourhoods. Th ...
' that still act as barriers to reinforce ethno-sectarian residential segregation in the city. In 2017, the Belfast Interface Project published a study entitled "Interface Barriers, Peacelines & Defensive Architecture" that identified 97 separate walls, barriers and interfaces in Belfast. A history of the development of these structures can be found at the Peacewall Archive.
Parks and gardens
Sitting at the mouth of the River Lagan where it becomes a deep and sheltered lough, Belfast is surrounded by mountains that create a micro-climate conducive to horticulture. From the Victorian Botanic Gardens in the heart of the city to the heights of Cave Hill Country Park, the great expanse of
Lagan Valley
The Lagan Valley (, Ulster Scots: ''Glen Lagan'') is an area of Northern Ireland between Belfast and Lisburn. The River Lagan rises on Slieve Croob in County Down and flows generally northward discharging into Belfast Lough. For a section, the ...
Regional Park to Colin Glen, Belfast contains an abundance of parkland and forest parks.
Parks and gardens are an integral part of Belfast's heritage, and home to an abundance of local wildlife and popular places for a picnic, a stroll or a jog. Numerous events take place throughout including festivals such as Rose Week and special activities such as bird watching evenings and great beast hunts.
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 commissioned more than 30 public sculptures since 1993. In 2006, the
City Council
A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...
set aside £8 million to continue this work. The
Belfast Naturalists' Field Club
The Belfast Naturalists' Field Club is a club of naturalists based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Founded in 1863, the club was an important part of the education system for Victorian naturalists and worked largely through first-hand field studies ...
was founded in 1863 and is administered by National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland.
With an average of 670,000 visitors per year between 2007 and 2011, one of the most popular parks is
Botanic Gardens in the
Queen's Quarter. Built in the 1830s and designed by
Sir Charles Lanyon
Sir Charles Lanyon DL, JP (6 January 1813 – 31 May 1889) was an English architect of the 19th century. His work is most closely associated with Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Biography
Lanyon was born in Eastbourne, Sussex (now East Sussex) in ...
, Botanic Gardens Palm House is one of the earliest examples of a curvilinear and cast iron
glasshouse. Other attractions in the park include the Tropical Ravine, a humid jungle glen built in 1889, rose gardens and public events ranging from live opera broadcasts to pop concerts.
U2 played here in 1997.
Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon Park, to the south of the city centre, attracts thousands of visitors each year to its International Rose Garden.
Rose Week in July each year features over 20,000 blooms. It has an area of of meadows, woodland and gardens and features a
Diana, Princess of Wales 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.
In 2008, Belfast was named a finalist in the Large City (200,001 and over) category of the
RHS Britain in Bloom competition along with
London Borough of Croydon and
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...
.
Belfast Zoo is owned by Belfast City Council. The council spends £1.5 million every year on running and promoting the zoo, which is one of the few local government-funded zoos in the UK and Ireland. The zoo is one of the top visitor attractions in Northern Ireland, receiving more than 295,000 visitors a year. The majority of the animals are in danger in their natural habitat. The zoo houses more than 1,200 animals of 140 species including
Asian elephant
The Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''), also known as the Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus '' Elephas'' and is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in ...
s,
Barbary lions,
Malayan sun bears (one of the few in the United Kingdom), two species of penguin, a family of
western lowland gorilla
The western lowland gorilla (''Gorilla gorilla gorilla'') is one of two Critically Endangered subspecies of the western gorilla (''Gorilla gorilla'') that lives in montane, primary and secondary forest and lowland swampland in central Afr ...
s, a troop of
common chimpanzee
The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...
s, a pair of
red pandas, a pair of
Goodfellow's tree-kangaroos and
Francois' langurs. The zoo also carries out important conservation work and takes part in European and international breeding programmes which help to ensure the survival of many species under threat.
Demography
At the
2001 census, the population was 276,459,
while 579,554 people lived in the wider
Belfast Metropolitan Area.
This made it the
fifteenth-largest city in the United Kingdom, but the
eleventh-largest conurbation.
Belfast experienced a huge growth in population in the first half of the 20th 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.
Since then, the inner city numbers have dropped dramatically as people have moved to swell the
Greater Belfast suburb population. The 2001 census population in the same Urban Area had fallen to 277,391
people, with 579,554 people living in the wider
Belfast Metropolitan Area.
The 2001 census recorded 81,650 people from Catholic backgrounds and 79,650 people from Protestant backgrounds of working age living in Belfast. The population density in 2011 was 24.88 people/hectare (compared to 1.34 for the rest of Northern Ireland).
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
A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the " cit ...
, with a pronounced wedge of affluence extending out the Malone Road and Upper Malone Road to the south.
An area of deprivation is found in the inner parts of the north and west of the city. The areas around the
Falls Road,
Ardoyne
Ardoyne () is a working class and mainly Catholic and Irish republican district in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. It gained notoriety due to the large number of incidents during The Troubles.
Foundation
The village of Ardoyne was founded in ...
and
New Lodge (Catholic nationalist) and the
Shankill Road (Protestant loyalist) are among the ten most deprived wards in Northern Ireland.
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.
These zones –
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...
/
republican on one side and
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
/
loyalist on the other – are invariably marked by
flags,
graffiti
Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
and
murals. Segregation has been present throughout the history of Belfast but has been maintained and increased by each outbreak of violence in the city. This escalation in segregation, described as a "ratchet effect", has shown little sign of decreasing.
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.
Areas where segregated working-class areas meet are known as
interface areas and sometimes marked by
peace lines.
Ethnic minority communities have been in Belfast since the 1930s.
The largest groups are Poles, Chinese and Indians.
Since the expansion of the European Union, numbers have been boosted by an influx of Eastern European
immigrants. Census figures (2011) showed that Belfast has a total non-white population of 10,219 or 3.3%,
while 18,420 or 6.6%
of the population were born outside the UK and Ireland.
Almost half of those born outside the UK and Ireland live in
south Belfast Belfast South can refer to:
*The southern part of Belfast
* Belfast South (Assembly constituency)
*Belfast South (Northern Ireland Parliament constituency)
Belfast South was a borough constituency of the Parliament of Northern Ireland from 192 ...
, where they comprise 9.5% of the population.
The majority of the estimated 5,000 Muslims and 200
Hindu families living in Northern Ireland live in the
Greater Belfast area.
2011 Census
On Census Day (27 March 2011) the usually resident population of Belfast Local Government District was 333,871 accounting for 18.44% of the NI total. This represents a 1.60% increase since the 2001 Census.
On Census Day 27 March 2011, in Belfast Local Government District (2014), considering the resident population:
* 96.77% were white (including Irish Traveller) while 3.23% were from an ethnic minority population;
* 48.82% belong to or were brought up in the Catholic faith and 42.47% belong to or were brought up in a 'Protestant and Other Christian (including Christian related)' denomination; and
* 43.32% indicated that they had a British national identity, 35.10% had an Irish national identity and 26.92% had a Northern Irish national identity.
Respondents could indicate more than one national identity
On Census Day 27 March 2011, in Belfast Local Government District (2014), considering the population aged 3 years old and over:
* 13.45% had some knowledge of Irish;
* 5.23% had some knowledge of Ulster-Scots; and
* 4.34% did not have English as their first language.
On Census Day 27 March 2011, considering the population aged 16 years old and over:
* 25.56% had a degree or higher qualification; while
* 41.21% had no or low (Level 1*) qualifications.
Level 1 is 1–4 O Levels/CSE/GCSE (any grades) or equivalent
On Census Day 27 March 2011, considering the population aged 16 to 74 years old:
* 63.84% were economically active, 36.16% were economically inactive;
* 52.90% were in paid employment; and
* 5.59% were unemployed, of these 43.56% were long-term unemployed.
Long-term unemployed are those who stated that they have not worked since 2009 or earlier
File:Population Density Belfast City Council 2011 Census.png, Population density
File:Religion Belfast City Council 2011 Census.png, Percentage Catholic or brought up Catholic
File:National Identity Belfast City Council 2011 Census.png, Most commonly stated national identity
File:Born Outside UK And Ireland Belfast City Council 2011 Census.png, Percentage born outside the UK and Ireland
Economy
When the population of Belfast town began to grow in the 17th century, its economy was built on commerce.
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-17th century, Belfast exported beef, butter, hides, tallow and corn and it imported coal, cloth, wine, brandy, paper, timber and tobacco.
Around this time, the linen trade in Northern Ireland blossomed and by the middle of the 18th century, one fifth of all the linen exported from Ireland was shipped from Belfast.
The present city however is a product of the
Industrial Revolution. It was not until industry transformed the linen and shipbuilding trades that the economy and the population boomed. By the turn of the 19th century, Belfast had transformed into the largest linen producing centre in the world,
earning the city and its hinterlands the nickname "
Linenopolis" during the Victorian Era and into the early part of the 20th century.
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.
The
Harland and Wolff shipbuilding firm was created in 1861, and by the time the ''
Titanic'' was built, in 1912, it had become the largest shipyard in the world.
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.
The rise of mass-produced and cotton clothing following
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
were some of the factors which led to the decline of Belfast's international linen trade.
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.
For several decades, Northern Ireland's fragile economy required significant public support from the
British exchequer of up to £4 billion per year.
After the Troubles
The
IRA ceasefire in 1994 and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 have given investors increased confidence to invest in Belfast. This has led to a period of sustained economic growth and large-scale redevelopment of the city centre. Developments include
Victoria Square, the
Cathedral Quarter, and the
Laganside with the
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major Ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek Epic poetry, epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by moder ...
complex and the landmark
Waterfront Hall.
Other major developments include the regeneration of the
Titanic Quarter, and the erection of the
Obel Tower, a skyscraper set to be the tallest tower on the island.
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 and the UK average of 5.5%. Over the past 10 years employment has grown by 16.4%, compared with 9.2% for the UK as a whole.
Northern Ireland's
peace dividend has led to soaring property prices in the city. In 2007, Belfast saw house prices grow by 50%, the fastest rate of growth in the UK. In March 2007, the average house in Belfast cost £91,819, with the average in south Belfast being £141,000. In 2004, Belfast had the lowest owner occupation rate in Northern Ireland at 54%.
Peace has boosted the numbers of tourists coming to Belfast. There were 6.4 million visitors in 2005, which was a growth of 8.5% from 2004. The visitors spent £285.2 million, supporting more than 15,600 jobs. Visitor numbers rose by 6% to reach 6.8 million in 2006, with tourists spending £324 million, an increase of 15% on 2005. The city's two airports have helped make the city one of the most visited weekend destinations in Europe.
Belfast has been the fastest-growing economy of the thirty largest cities in the UK over the past decade, a new economy report by Howard Spencer has found. ''"That's because
fthe fundamentals of the UK economy and
ecausepeople actually want to invest in the UK,"'' he commented on that report.
BBC Radio 4's World reported furthermore that despite higher levels of corporation tax in the UK than in the Republic. There are "huge amounts" of foreign investment coming into the country.
''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...
'' wrote about Belfast's growing economy: "According to the region's development agency, throughout the 1990s Northern Ireland had the fastest-growing regional economy in the UK, with GDP increasing 1 per cent per annum faster than the rest of the country. As with any modern economy, the service sector is vital to Northern Ireland's development and is enjoying excellent growth. In particular, the region has a booming tourist industry with record levels of visitors and tourist revenues and has established itself as a significant location for call centres."
Since the ending of the region's conflict tourism has boomed in Northern Ireland, greatly aided by low cost.
''
Der Spiegel'', a German weekly magazine for politics and economy, titled Belfast as ''The New Celtic Tiger'' which is "open for business".
Infrastructure
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
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in Nor ...
in 1998, there has been significant
urban regeneration in the city centre including Victoria Square,
Queen's Island
Titanic Quarter in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is a large-scale waterfront regeneration, comprising historic maritime landmarks, film studios, education facilities, apartments, a riverside entertainment district, and the world's largest Titan ...
and
Laganside as well as the Odyssey complex and the landmark
Waterfront Hall. The city is served by two airports: The
George Best Belfast City Airport adjacent to Belfast Lough and
Belfast International Airport
Belfast International Airport is an airport northwest of Belfast in Northern Ireland, is the main airport for the city of Belfast. Until 1983, it was known as ''Aldergrove Airport'', after the nearby village of Aldergrove. In 2018, over 6.2 ...
which is near
Lough Neagh.
Queen's University of Belfast is the main university in the city. The
Ulster University also maintains a campus in the city, which concentrates on fine art, design and architecture.
Belfast is one of the constituent cities that makes up the
Dublin-Belfast corridor region, which has a population of just under 3 million.
Utilities
Most of Belfast's water is supplied via the
Aquarius pipeline from the
Silent Valley Reservoir in
County Down
County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...
, created to collect water from the
Mourne Mountains. The rest of the city's water is sourced from
Lough Neagh, via ''Dunore Water Treatment Works'' in County Antrim.
The citizens of Belfast pay for their water in their
rates bill. Plans to bring in additional water tariffs have been deferred by
devolution in May 2007. Belfast has approximately of
sewers, which are currently being replaced in a project costing over £100 million and due for completion in 2009.
Power is provided from a number of
power stations
A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid.
Many po ...
via
NIE Networks Limited transmission lines.
Phoenix Natural Gas Ltd. started supplying customers in Larne and Greater Belfast with natural gas in 1996 via the newly constructed
Scotland-Northern Ireland pipeline.
Rates in Belfast (and the rest of Northern Ireland) were reformed in April 2007. The discrete
capital value system means rates bills are determined by the capital value of each domestic property as assessed by the ''Valuation and Lands Agency''. The recent dramatic rise in house prices has made these reforms unpopular.
Health care
The
Belfast Health & Social Care Trust is one of five trusts that were created on 1 April 2007 by the
Department of Health. Belfast contains most of Northern Ireland's regional specialist centres. The
Royal Victoria Hospital is an internationally renowned centre of excellence in trauma care and provides specialist trauma care for all of Northern Ireland. It also provides the city's specialist
neurosurgical,
ophthalmology
Ophthalmology ( ) is a surgical subspecialty within medicine that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of eye disorders.
An ophthalmologist is a physician who undergoes subspecialty training in medical and surgical eye care. Following a med ...
,
ENT, and
dentistry
Dentistry, also known as dental medicine and oral medicine, is the branch of medicine focused on the teeth, gums, and mouth. It consists of the study, diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases, disorders, and conditions ...
services. The
Belfast City Hospital is the regional specialist centre for haematology and is home to a cancer centre that rivals the best in the world. The Mary G McGeown Regional Nephrology Unit at the
City Hospital is the kidney transplant centre and provides regional renal services for Northern Ireland.
Musgrave Park Hospital in south Belfast specialises in
orthopaedics,
rheumatology
Rheumatology (Greek ''ῥεῦμα'', ''rheûma'', flowing current) is a branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis and management of disorders whose common feature is inflammation in the bones, muscles, joints, and internal organs. Rheumatolog ...
,
sports medicine
Sports medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with physical fitness and the treatment and prevention of injuries related to sports and exercise. Although most sports teams have employed team physicians for many years, it is only since th ...
and
rehabilitation. It is home to Northern Ireland's first Acquired Brain Injury Unit, costing £9 million and opened by
Charles, Prince of Wales
Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to ...
and
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
Camilla (born Camilla Rosemary Shand, later Parker Bowles, 17 July 1947) is Queen Consort of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms as the wife of King Charles III. She became queen consort on 8 September 2022, upon the a ...
in May 2006. Other hospitals in Belfast include the
Mater Hospital in north Belfast and the
Children's Hospital.
Transport
Belfast is a relatively
car-dependent city by European standards, with an extensive road network including the
M2 and
M22 motorway route. A 2005 survey of how people travel in Northern Ireland showed that people in Belfast made 77% of all journeys by car, 11% by public transport and 6% on foot.
It showed that Belfast has 0.70 cars per household compared to figures of 1.18 in the East and 1.14 in the West of Northern Ireland.
A road improvement-scheme in Belfast began early in 2006, with the upgrading of two junctions along the
Westlink dual-carriageway to
grade-separated standard. The improvement scheme was completed five months ahead of schedule in February 2009, with the official opening taking place on 4 March 2009.
On 25 October 2012 the stage 2 report for the York Street intersection was approved and in December 2012 the planned upgrade moved into stage 3 of the development process. If successfully completing the necessary statutory procedures, work on a grade separated junction to connect the Westlink to the M2/M3 motorways is scheduled to take place between 2014 and 2018, creating a continuous link between the M1 and M2, the two main motorways in Northern Ireland.
Black taxis are common in the city, operating on a
share basis in some areas. These are outnumbered by
private hire taxis. Bus and rail public transport in Northern Ireland is operated by subsidiaries of
Translink. Bus services in the city proper and the nearer suburbs are operated by
Translink Metro, with services focusing on linking residential districts with the city centre on 12
quality bus corridors running along main radial roads,
More distant suburbs are served by
Ulsterbus.
Northern Ireland Railways provides
suburban services along three lines running through Belfast's northern suburbs to
Carrickfergus,
Larne
Larne (, , the name of a Gaelic territory) is a town on the east coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland, with a population of 18,755 at the 2011 Census. It is a major passenger and freight roll-on roll-off port. Larne is administered by Mid ...
and
Larne Harbour, eastwards towards
Bangor and south-westwards towards
Lisburn and
Portadown. This service is known as the
Belfast Suburban Rail system. Belfast is linked
directly to
Coleraine,
Portrush and
Derry
Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. Th ...
. Belfast has a direct rail connection with
Dublin called ''
Enterprise'' which is operated jointly by NIR and
Iarnród Éireann, the state railway company of the
Republic of Ireland
Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern ...
. There are no rail services to cities in other countries of the United Kingdom, due to the
lack of a bridge or tunnel connecting
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
to the island of
Ireland. There is, however, a combined ferry and rail ticket between Belfast and cities in Great Britain, which is referred to as
SailRail
In Britain and Ireland, a SailRail ticket allows travel with a combination of train and ferry. The brand, which was in existence by 2005, is principally associated with rail tickets between National Rail stations in Great Britain and stations in ...
.
In April 2008, the
Department for Regional Development reported on a plan for a light-rail system, similar to
that in Dublin. The consultants said Belfast does not have the population to support a light rail system, suggesting that investment in bus-based rapid transit would be preferable. The study found that bus-based rapid transit produces positive economic results, but light rail does not. The report by Atkins & KPMG, however, said there would be the option of migrating to light rail in the future should the demand increase.
The city has two airports:
Belfast International Airport
Belfast International Airport is an airport northwest of Belfast in Northern Ireland, is the main airport for the city of Belfast. Until 1983, it was known as ''Aldergrove Airport'', after the nearby village of Aldergrove. In 2018, over 6.2 ...
offering, domestic, European and international flights such as Orlando operated seasonally by
Virgin Atlantic. The airport is located northwest of the city, near Lough Neagh, while the
George Best Belfast City Airport, which is closer to the city centre by train from
Sydenham on the
Bangor Line, adjacent to Belfast Lough, offers UK domestic flights and a few European flights. In 2005, Belfast International Airport was the 11th busiest commercial airport in the UK, accounting for just over 2% of all UK terminal passengers while the George Best Belfast City Airport was the 16th busiest and had 1% of UK terminal passengers. The Belfast – Liverpool route is the busiest domestic flight route in the UK excluding London with 555,224 passengers in 2009. Over 2.2 million passengers flew between Belfast and London in 2009.
Belfast has a large
port
A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as ...
used for exporting and importing goods, and for passenger ferry services.
Stena Line runs regular routes to
Cairnryan in Scotland using its conventional vessels—with a crossing time of around 2 hours 15 minutes. Until 2011 the route went to
Stranraer and used inter alia a HSS (High Speed Service) vessel—with a crossing time of around 90 minutes. Stena Line also operates a route to
Liverpool
Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...
. A seasonal sailing to
Douglas, Isle of Man is operated by the
Isle of Man Steam Packet Company
An isle is an island, land surrounded by water. The term is very common in British English. However, there is no clear agreement on what makes an island an isle or its difference, so they are considered synonyms.
Isle may refer to:
Geography
* ...
.
The
Glider bus service is a new form of transport in Belfast. Introduced in 2018, it is a
bus rapid transit
Bus rapid transit (BRT), also called a busway or transitway, is a bus-based public transport system designed to have much more capacity, reliability and other quality features than a conventional bus system. Typically, a BRT system includes ...
system linking East Belfast, West Belfast and the Titanic Quarter from the City Centre. Using
articulated buses, the £90 million service saw a 17% increase in its first month in Belfast, with 30,000 more people using the Gliders every week. The service is being recognised as helping to modernise the city's public transport.
National Cycle Route 9 to
Newry
Newry (; ) is a city in Northern Ireland, divided by the Clanrye river in counties Armagh and Down, from Belfast and from Dublin. It had a population of 26,967 in 2011.
Newry was founded in 1144 alongside a Cistercian monastery, although ...
, which will eventually connect with Dublin, starts in Belfast.
Culture
Belfast's population is evenly split between its Protestant and Catholic residents.
These two distinct cultural communities have both contributed significantly to the city's culture. Throughout the Troubles, Belfast artists continued to express themselves through poetry, art and music. In the period since the
Good Friday Agreement
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in Nor ...
in 1998, Belfast has begun a social, economic and cultural transformation giving it a growing international cultural reputation. In 2003, Belfast had an unsuccessful bid for the 2008
European Capital of Culture. The bid was run by an independent company, ''Imagine Belfast'', who boasted that it would "make Belfast the meeting place of Europe's legends, where the meaning of history and belief find a home and a sanctuary from caricature, parody and oblivion." According to ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide ...
'' the bid may have been undermined by the
city's history and volatile politics.
In 2004–05, art and cultural events in Belfast were attended by 1.8 million people (400,000 more than the previous year). The same year, 80,000 people participated in culture and other arts activities, twice as many as in 2003–04.
A combination of relative peace, international investment and an active promotion of arts and culture is attracting more tourists to Belfast than ever before. In 2004–05, 5.9 million people visited Belfast, a 10% increase from the previous year, and spent £262.5 million.
The
Ulster Orchestra, based in Belfast, is Northern Ireland's only full-time
symphony orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families.
There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, ...
and is well renowned in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1966, it has existed in its present form since 1981, when the
BBC Northern Ireland Orchestra was disbanded. The music school of Queen's University is responsible for arranging a notable series of lunchtime and evening concerts, often given by renowned musicians which are usually given in The Harty Room at the university (University Square).
Musicians and bands who have written songs about or dedicated to Belfast include
U2,
Van Morrison
Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards.
As a teenager in ...
,
Snow Patrol,
Simple Minds,
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...
,
Rogue Male,
Katie Melua
Ketevan Katie Melua (; ka, ქეთევან "ქეთი" მელუა, ; born 16 September 1984) is a Georgian and British singer and songwriter. She was born in Kutaisi and raised in Belfast and London. Under the management of com ...
,
Boney M,
Paul Muldoon,
Stiff Little Fingers,
Nanci Griffith,
Glenn Patterson,
Orbital
Orbital may refer to:
Sciences Chemistry and physics
* Atomic orbital
* Molecular orbital
* Hybrid orbital Astronomy and space flight
* Orbit
** Earth orbit
Medicine and physiology
* Orbit (anatomy), also known as the ''orbital bone''
* Orbito ...
,
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, hav ...
,
Fun Boy Three,
Spandau Ballet
Spandau Ballet () were an English new wave band formed in Islington, London, in 1979. Inspired by the capital's post-punk underground dance scene, they emerged at the start of the 1980s as the house band for the Blitz Kids, playing "European D ...
,
The Police
The Police were an English rock band formed in London in 1977. For most of their history the line-up consisted of primary songwriter Sting (lead vocals, bass guitar), Andy Summers (guitar) and Stewart Copeland (drums, percussion). The Poli ...
,
Barnbrack
Barnbrack is a Northern Irish male vocal/instrumental folk/ pop group, with band members Alex Quinn, Jimmy McPeake and Eoin McMahon. The word 'barnbrack' is a play on the Anglicised Irish word "Barmbrack", a type of bread that contains fruit. Bar ...
,
Gary Moore,
Neon Neon,
Toxic Waste,
Energy Orchard
Energy Orchard were a guitar-based rock band of the late 1980s and early 1990s, from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Fronted by Bap Kennedy (brother of singer-songwriter Brian Kennedy), their style drew heavily on the influence of Van Morrison and othe ...
, and
Billy Bragg.
Belfast has a longstanding underground club scene which was established in the early 1980s.
Belfast has a high concentration of Irish-speakers. Like all areas of the island of Ireland outside of the
Gaeltacht, the Irish language in Belfast is not that of an unbroken intergenerational transmission. However, the establishment of the
Shaw's Road Gaeltacht community has inspired use of the language across Northern Ireland. The language is heavily promoted in the city and is particularly visible in the Falls Road area, where the signs on both the iconic black taxis and on the public buses are bilingual. Projects to promote the language in the city are funded by various sources, notably
Foras na Gaeilge, an all-Ireland body funded by both the Irish and British governments. There are a number of Irish language Primary schools and one secondary school in Belfast. The provision of certain resources for these schools (for example, such as the provision of textbooks) is supported by the charitable organisation TACA.
In late August 2018, at least three groups were vying for the right to purchase the 5,500
RMS Titanic
RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, Unit ...
relics that were an asset of the bankrupt
Premier Exhibitions. One of the offers was by a group including the
National Maritime Museum
The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the Unit ...
and
National Museums Northern Ireland
National Museums Northern Ireland (NMNI) (formerly ''National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland'') is a museum service in Northern Ireland, consisting of the Ulster American Folk Park, the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum and the Ulst ...
, with assistance by
James Cameron. Oceanographer
Robert Ballard said he favored this bid since it would ensure that the memorabilia would be permanently displayed in Belfast (where the Titanic was built) and in
Greenwich
Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross.
Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwic ...
. A decision as to the outcome was to be made by a
United States district court
The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district c ...
judge.
Media
Belfast is the home of the ''
Belfast Telegraph
The ''Belfast Telegraph'' is a daily newspaper published in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by Independent News & Media. Its editor is Eoin Brannigan. Reflecting its unionist tradition, the paper has historically been "favoured by the Protestant po ...
'', ''
Irish News'', and ''
The News Letter'', the oldest
English-language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to t ...
daily newspaper in the world still in publication. The Belfast Telegraph was bought by the Dublin-based
Independent News & Media group in March 2000.
The city is the headquarters of
BBC Northern Ireland,
ITV station
UTV and commercial radio stations
Q Radio and
U105. Two community radio stations,
Blast 106
Blast 106 is an FM radio station broadcasting to Greater Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Laga ...
and Irish-language station
Raidió Fáilte, broadcast to the city from west Belfast, as does
Queen's Radio, a student-run radio station which broadcasts from
Queen's University Students' Union.
One of Northern Ireland's two community TV stations,
NvTv, is based in the
Cathedral Quarter of the city. There are two independent cinemas in Belfast: the
Queen's Film Theatre and the
Strand Cinema
The Strand Arts Centre is an independent four-screen cinema in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is one of the two remaining independent cinemas in Belfast, alongside the Queen's Film Theatre. It is located on the Holywood Road. It has long been acc ...
, which host screenings during the
Belfast Film Festival and the
Belfast Festival at Queen's. Broadcasting only over the Internet is Homely Planet, the Cultural Radio Station for Northern Ireland, supporting community relations.
The city has become a popular film location; The Paint Hall at Harland and Wolff has become one of the
UK Film Council
The UK Film Council (UKFC) was a non-departmental public body set up in 2000 to develop and promote the film industry in the UK. It was constituted as a private company limited by guarantee, owned by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and ...
's main studios. The facility comprises four stages of . Shows filmed at The Paint Hall include the film ''
City of Ember'' (2008) and
HBO's ''
Game of Thrones'' series (beginning in late 2009).
In November 2011, Belfast became the smallest city to host the
MTV Europe Music Awards. The event was hosted by
Selena Gomez and celebrities such as
Justin Bieber
Justin Drew Bieber ( ; born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian singer. Bieber is recognized for his genre-melding musicianship and has played an influential role in modern-day popular music. He was discovered by American record executive Scooter ...
,
Jessie J
Jessica Ellen Cornish (born 27 March 1988), known professionally as Jessie J, is an English singer. Born and raised in London, she began her career on stage, aged 11, with a role in the West End musical '' Whistle Down the Wind''. She studied ...
,
Hayden Panettiere, and
Lady Gaga
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta ( ; born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. Gaga began performing as a teenag ...
travelled to Northern Ireland to attend the event, held in the
Odyssey Arena.
Sports
Belfast has several notable sports teams playing a diverse variety of sports such as
football,
Gaelic games,
rugby,
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...
, and
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two o ...
. The
Belfast Marathon
The Belfast City Marathon takes place in Belfast in Northern Ireland. The organisers describe it as the "largest mass sport participatory event in Northern Ireland" with between 15,000 and 18,000 participants taking part in several events. These ...
is run annually on May Day, and attracted 20,000 participants in 2011.
The
Northern Ireland national football team, ranked 59th as of October 2022 in the
FIFA World Rankings
The FIFA Men's World Ranking is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football, led by Brazil national football team, Brazil . The teams of the List of men's national football teams, men's member nations of FIFA, football's w ...
, plays its home matches at
Windsor Park. Football clubs active in Belfast include:
Linfield,
Glentoran,
Crusaders
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...
,
Cliftonville,
Donegal Celtic,
Harland & Wolff Welders,
Dundela
Dundela Football Club, nicknamed "The Duns" is a semi-professional, Northern Irish football club from Belfast, currently playing in the NIFL Championship, and plays its home matches at Wilgar Park. The club's colours are green and white. The hom ...
,
Knockbreda,
PSNI,
Queen's University Queen's or Queens University may refer to:
*Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada
*Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
**Queen's University of Belfast (UK Parliament constituency) (1918–1950)
**Queen's University of Belfast ...
,
Newington,
Sport & Leisure and
Brantwood
Brantwood is a historic house museum in Cumbria, England, overlooking Coniston Water. It has been the home of a number of prominent people. The house and grounds are administered by a charitable trust, the house being a museum dedicated to Jo ...
.
Belfast was the home town of former
Manchester United player
George Best, the 1968
European Footballer of the Year, who died in November 2005. On the day he was buried in the city, 100,000 people lined the route from his home on the Cregagh Road to Roselawn cemetery. Since his death the
City Airport The City airport is an umbrella term used to refer to airports - international, regional or otherwise - that are extremely close - generally walking distance - to the city centre. This discounts any airport that has "city" in the name, like Kansas C ...
was named after him and a trust has been set up to fund a memorial to him in the city centre.
Belfast is home to over twenty
Gaelic football
Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach; short name '), commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or Football is an Irish team sport. It is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by ki ...
and
hurling
Hurling ( ga, iománaíocht, ') is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic Irish origin, played by men. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goals, the number of pla ...
clubs.
Casement Park in west Belfast, home to the
Antrim county teams, has a capacity of 32,000 which makes it the second largest
Gaelic Athletic Association
The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ga, Cumann Lúthchleas Gael ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional ...
ground in
Ulster
Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label=Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...
. In May 2020, the foundation of
East Belfast GAA returned Gaelic Games to unionist East Belfast after decades of its absence in the area. The current club president is Irish-language enthusiast
Linda Ervine who comes from a unionist background in the area. The team currently plays in the Down Senior County League.
The 1999
Heineken Cup champions
Ulster Rugby play at
Ravenhill Stadium in the south of the city. Belfast has four teams in rugby's
All-Ireland League:
Belfast Harlequins in Division 1B; and
Instonians,
Queen's University Queen's or Queens University may refer to:
*Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada
*Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
**Queen's University of Belfast (UK Parliament constituency) (1918–1950)
**Queen's University of Belfast ...
and
Malone in Division 2A.
Belfast is home to the
Stormont cricket ground since 1949 and was the venue for the
Irish cricket team's first ever
One Day International against
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
in 2006.
Belfast is home to one of the biggest
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two o ...
clubs in the United Kingdom, the
Belfast Giants
The Belfast Giants (known officially as the Stena Line Belfast Giants due to sponsorship) are a professional ice hockey team based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They compete in the UK's Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) and are the current cham ...
. The Giants were founded in 2000 and play their games at the 9,500 capacity
SSE Arena, where crowds normally range from 4,000 to 7,000. Many ex-NHL players have featured on the Giants roster, none more famous than world superstar
Theo Fleury. The Giants play in the 10-team professional
Elite Ice Hockey League
The Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL), sometimes referred to as the British Elite League or, for sponsorship reasons, the Viaplay Elite League, is an ice hockey league in the United Kingdom. Formed in 2003 following the demise of the Ice Hockey ...
which is the top league in the United Kingdom. The Giants have been
league champions 6 times, most recently in the
2021–22 season. The
Belfast Giants
The Belfast Giants (known officially as the Stena Line Belfast Giants due to sponsorship) are a professional ice hockey team based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They compete in the UK's Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) and are the current cham ...
are a huge brand in Northern Ireland and their increasing stature in the game led to the
Belfast Giants
The Belfast Giants (known officially as the Stena Line Belfast Giants due to sponsorship) are a professional ice hockey team based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They compete in the UK's Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) and are the current cham ...
playing the
Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston. The Bruins compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division (NHL), Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern Conference. The ...
of the
NHL
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
on 2 October 2010 at the SSE Arena in Belfast, losing the game 5–1.
Other significant sportspeople from Belfast include double world snooker champion
Alex "Hurricane" Higgins and world champion boxers
Wayne McCullough,
Rinty Monaghan
John Joseph Monaghan (21 August 1918 – 3 March 1984) was a world flyweight boxing champion from Belfast. He became famous in the post-war period, eventually rising to become undisputed world champion and a hero to many people in his home city ...
and
Carl Frampton.
Leander ASC is a well known swimming club in Belfast. Belfast produced the Formula One racing stars
John Watson who raced for five different teams during his career in the 1970s and 1980s and Ferrari driver
Eddie Irvine.
Notable people
Academia and science
*
John Stewart Bell, physicist
*
Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, astrophysicist
*
John Boyd Dunlop, inventor
*
Lord Kelvin, physicist and engineer
Arts and media
*
Anthony Boyle, actor
*
Sir Kenneth Branagh, actor
*
Gordon Burns, journalist, gameshow host, best known for
The Krypton Factor
*
Ciaran Carson, writer
*
Frank Carson, comedian
*
Jamie Dornan, actor
*
Barry Douglas
Barry James Douglas (born 4 September 1989) is a Scottish professional footballer who plays as a left-back for Ekstraklasa club Lech Poznań.
After playing for Queen's Park and Dundee United F.C., Dundee United in Scotland, he joined Polish c ...
, musician
*
Candida Doyle, musician
*
James Galway, musician
*
Ciarán Hinds, actor
*
Eamonn Holmes, broadcaster
*
Brian Desmond Hurst, film director
*
Oliver Jeffers
Oliver Brendan Jeffers (born 1977) is a Northern Irish artist, illustrator and writer who now lives and works in Brooklyn. He went to the integrated secondary school Hazelwood College, then graduated from the University of Ulster in 2001. ...
, artist
*
C. S. Lewis, author
*
Paula Malcomson, actress
*
Gerry McAvoy, musician and long time bass guitarist with
Rory Gallagher
*
Brian Moore, acclaimed novelist
*
Gary Moore, guitarist
*
Van Morrison
Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards.
As a teenager in ...
, singer-songwriter
*
Doc Neeson, singer-songwriter
*
Patricia Quinn Patricia Quinn may refer to:
* Patricia Quinn (Northern Irish actress) (born 1944), Northern Irish actress, often referred to as "Pat"
* Patricia Quinn (American actress) (born 1937)
* Patricia Quinn (scientist), atmospheric chemist
See also
* Pat ...
, actress
*
Roy Walker (comedian), gameshow host, best known for
Catchphrase
Politics
*
Gerry Adams
Gerard Adams ( ga, Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh; born 6 October 1948) is an Irish republican politician who was the president of Sinn Féin between 13 November 1983 and 10 February 2018, and served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Louth from 2011 to 2 ...
. politician
*
Lord Craigavon
James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon PC PC (NI) DL (8 January 1871 – 24 November 1940), was a leading Irish unionist and a key architect of Northern Ireland as a devolved region within the United Kingdom. During the Home Rule Crisis of 1912 ...
, former
Prime Minister of Northern Ireland
*
Abba Eban (1915–2002), Israeli diplomat and politician, and President of the
Weizmann Institute of Science
*
Chaim Herzog, former
President of Israel
The president of the State of Israel ( he, נְשִׂיא מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, Nesi Medinat Yisra'el, or he, נְשִׂיא הַמְדִינָה, Nesi HaMedina, President of the State) is the head of state of Israel. The posi ...
*
Mary McAleese, former
President of Ireland
*
Peter Robinson Peter Robinson may refer to:
Entertainment
* Peter Robinson (sideshow artist) (1873–1947), American actor and sideshow performer, known for his appearance in film ''Freaks'' (1932)
* J. Peter Robinson (born 1945), British musician and film score ...
, former
First Minister of Northern Ireland
*
Lord Trimble
William David Trimble, Baron Trimble, (15 October 1944 – 25 July 2022) was a British politician who was the first First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2002, and leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 1995 to 2005. He was ...
, former First Minister of Northern Ireland,
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolog ...
winner
Sports
*
Paddy Barnes, boxer,
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a multi ...
Bronze Medalist
*
George Best, football player,
Ballon D'or winner
*
Danny Blanchflower
Robert Dennis Blanchflower (10 February 1926 – 9 December 1993) was a former Northern Ireland footballer, football manager and journalist who played for and captained Tottenham Hotspur, including during their double-winning season of 1960 ...
, football player and manager
*
Jackie Blanchflower, football player
*
Chris Brunt, football player
*
Ryan Burnett
Ryan Burnett (born 21 May 1992) is a Northern Irish former professional boxer who competed from 2013 to 2019. He was a unified bantamweight world champion, having held the WBA (Unified) and IBF titles between 2017 and 2018. At regional level h ...
, boxer
*
Anthony Cacace, boxer
*
Craig Cathcart
Craig George Cathcart (born 6 February 1989) is a Northern Irish professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for EFL Championship club Watford and the Northern Ireland national team. He has also captained his country's under-21 side.
A ...
, football player
*
Michael Conlan, boxer
*
P. J. Conlon
Patrick Joshua Conlon (born November 11, 1993) is a Northern Irish-American former professional baseball pitcher who played for the New York Mets in . He was the first Irish-born Major League Baseball player since Joe Cleary pitched for the Was ...
, baseball player
*
Killian Dain, professional wrestler
*
Mal Donaghy, football player
*
Corry Evans, football player
*
Jonny Evans, football player
*
Dave Finlay, professional wrestler
*
Carl Frampton, boxer
*
Craig Gilroy
Craig Gilroy (born 11 March 1991) is an Irish rugby union player who wing for Ulster, and is a former Ireland international. he was Ulster's player of the year in 2014–15, and was named in the Pro12 Dream Team twice.
Born in Bangor, County D ...
, rugby union player
*
Alex Higgins, snooker player
*
Paddy Jackson, rugby union player
*
Wayne McCullough,
WBC
WBC may stand for:
Business
*Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, a former large India broadcaster now folded into CBS
*Westpac (New Delhi Exchange code: WBC), a multinational Financial services company
*Wholesale Broadband Connect, BT Wholesale's ...
World Champion Boxer,
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a multi ...
Silver Medalist
*
Alan McDonald, football player
*
Rory McIlroy, golfer
*
Sammy McIlroy, football player and manager
*
Eamon Magee
Eamonn Magee (born 13 July 1971) is a retired Irish professional boxer who competed from 1995 to 2007, Retrieved 1 July 2016. becoming the World Boxing Union Welterweight Champion in 2007. He also held the Commonwealth Boxing Council, Commonwe ...
, boxer
*
Brian Magee, boxer
*
Jim Magilton, football player and manager
*
Rinty Monaghan
John Joseph Monaghan (21 August 1918 – 3 March 1984) was a world flyweight boxing champion from Belfast. He became famous in the post-war period, eventually rising to become undisputed world champion and a hero to many people in his home city ...
, World Flyweight boxing champion
*
Steve Morrow, football player and manager
*
Owen Nolan
Owen Liam Nolan (born 12 February 1972) is a Northern Irish-born, Canadian former professional ice hockey player. He was drafted first overall by the Quebec Nordiques in the 1990 NHL Entry Draft. During his 18-year NHL career, he played for t ...
, hockey player, Olympic gold medalist
*
Lady Mary Peters
Lady Mary Elizabeth Peters, (born 6 July 1939) is a Northern Irish former athlete, best known as a competitor in the pentathlon and shot put. Peters was named as Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter on 27 February 2019. She was installed ...
, Olympic gold medalist athlete
*
Tommy Robb,
Grand Prix
Grand Prix ( , meaning ''Grand Prize''; plural Grands Prix), is a name sometimes used for competitions or sport events, alluding to the winner receiving a prize, trophy or honour
Grand Prix or grand prix may refer to:
Arts and entertainment ...
motorcycle road racer
*
Anton Rogan, Football player
*
Pat Rice, football player and coach
*
Joe Swail, snooker player
*
Gary Wilson, cricketer
Other
*
Patrick Carlin
Patrick Carlin VC (1832 – 11 May 1895), of Belfast, County Antrim, was an Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth fo ...
,
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...
recipient
*
Shaw Clifton, former General of
The Salvation Army
*
Dame Rotha Johnston, entrepreneur
*
James Joseph Magennis, Victoria Cross recipient
*
Jonathan Simms, victim of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), noted for unprecedented survival rate of a decade with the disease
*
Rosemary Church, newsanchor
Education
Belfast has two universities.
Queen's University Belfast
, mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back?
, top_free_label =
, top_free =
, top_free_label1 =
, top_free1 =
, top_free_label2 =
, top_free2 =
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public research university
, parent = ...
was founded in 1845 and is a member of the
Russell Group, an association of 24 leading research-intensive universities in the UK. It is one of the largest universities in the UK with 25,231 undergraduate and postgraduate students spread over 250 buildings, 120 of which are listed as being of architectural merit.
Ulster University, created in its current form in 1984, is a multi-centre university with a campus in the
Cathedral Quarter of Belfast. The Belfast campus has a specific focus on Art and Design and Architecture, and is currently undergoing major redevelopment. The
Jordanstown campus, just from Belfast city centre concentrates on engineering, health and social science. The
Coleraine campus, about from Belfast city centre concentrates on a broad range of subjects. Course provision is broad – biomedical sciences, environmental science and geography, psychology, business, the humanities and languages, film and journalism, travel and tourism, teacher training and computing are among the campus strengths. The
Magee campus, about from Belfast city centre has many teaching strengths; including business, computing, creative technologies, nursing, Irish language and literature, social sciences, law, psychology, peace and conflict studies and the performing arts. The
Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN) Web Service receives funding from both universities and is a rich source of information and source material on the Troubles as well as society and politics in Northern Ireland.
Belfast Metropolitan College is a large
further education college with three main campuses around the city, including several smaller buildings. Formerly known as Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education, it specialises in
vocational education. The college has over 53,000 students enrolled on full-time and part-time courses, making it one of the largest further education colleges in the UK and the largest in the island of Ireland.
The
Belfast Education and Library Board was established in 1973 as the local council responsible for education, youth and library services within the city. In 2006, this board became part of the
Education Authority for Northern Ireland. There are 184 primary, secondary and
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
schools in the city.
Tourism
Belfast is one of the most visited cities in the UK, and the second most visited on the island of Ireland. In 2008, 7.1 million tourists visited the city. Numerous tour bus companies and boat tours run there throughout the year, including tours based on the series
Game of Thrones, which has had various filming locations around Northern Ireland.
Frommer's, the American travel guidebook series, listed Belfast as the only United Kingdom destination in its ''Top 12 Destinations to Visit'' in 2009. The other listed destinations were
Berlin
Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...
(Germany),
Cambodia
Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...
,
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second larges ...
(South Africa),
Cartagena (Colombia),
Istanbul
Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...
(Turkey), the
Lassen Volcanic National Park (US),
Saqqara
Saqqara ( ar, سقارة, ), also spelled Sakkara or Saccara in English , is an Egyptian village in Giza Governorate, that contains ancient burial grounds of Egyptian royalty, serving as the necropolis for the ancient Egyptian capital, Memphi ...
(Egypt), the
Selma To Montgomery National Historic Trail
The Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail is a National Historic Trail in Alabama. It commemorates and marks the journey of the participants of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches in support of the Voting Rights Act.
History
The Selma t ...
(US),
Waiheke Island (New Zealand), Washington, D.C. (US), and
Waterton Lakes National Park (Canada).
Belfast City Council is currently investing into the complete redevelopment of the Titanic Quarter, which is planned to consist of apartments, hotels, and a riverside entertainment district. A major visitor attraction,
Titanic Belfast is a monument to Belfast's maritime heritage on the site of the former Harland & Wolff shipyard, opened on 31 March 2012. It features a criss-cross of escalators and suspended walkways and nine high-tech galleries. They also hope to invest in a new modern transport system (including high-speed rail and others) for Belfast, with a cost of £250 million.
In 2018, six hotels were opened, with the biggest in Northern Ireland, the £53 million
Grand Central Hotel Belfast
The name Grand Central Hotel Belfast refers to two separate hotels at different locations in the city. The first opened in 1893 and was converted to a military barracks in 1972, before being demolished in the late 1980s. The second is a converted ...
officially open to the public. The other hotels included AC Marriot, Hampton By Hilton, EasyHotel, Maldron Belfast City Centre and Flint. The new hotels have helped to increase a further 1,000 bedrooms in the city.
Belfast was successful in attracting many conferencing events, both national and international, to the city in 2018. Over 60 conferences took place that year with 30,000 people helping contribute to a record 45 million pounds for the local economy.
There is a tourist information centre located at
Donegall Square North.
Twin towns – sister cities
Belfast City Council takes part in the
twinning scheme,
and is twinned with the following sister cities:
*
Nashville,
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to ...
, United States (since 1994)
*
Hefei,
Anhui Province, China (since 2005)
*
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...
,
, United States (since 2014)
*
Shenyang,
Liaoning Province, China (since 2016)
Freedom of the City
The following people and military units have received the
Freedom of the City of Belfast.
Individuals
*
Sir Kenneth Branagh: 30 January 2018.
*
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in ...
: 28 September 1910.
*
Rt Hon Sir Winston Churchill : 16 December 1955.
*
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (Birth name, né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 ...
, 9 April 2018
*
Rt Hon Sir John Jordan : 28 September 1910.
*
George J. Mitchell, 9 April 2018
*
Lady Mary Peters
Lady Mary Elizabeth Peters, (born 6 July 1939) is a Northern Irish former athlete, best known as a competitor in the pentathlon and shot put. Peters was named as Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter on 27 February 2019. She was installed ...
: 2 November 2012.
*
William Pirrie, 1st Viscount Pirrie
William James Pirrie, 1st Viscount Pirrie, KP, PC, PC (Ire) (31 May 1847 – 7 June 1924) was a leading British shipbuilder and businessman. He was chairman of Harland and Wolff, shipbuilders, between 1895 and 1924, and also served as Lo ...
: 1898, the first person to be awarded Freedom Of The City of Belfast.
Military units
* The
Royal Ulster Rifles: 6 February 1954.
* The
Royal Sussex Regiment
The Royal Sussex Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army that was in existence from 1881 to 1966. The regiment was formed in 1881 as part of the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 35th (Royal Sussex) Regiment of Foot ...
: 1961.
Notes
References
Further reading
* Beesley, S. and Wilde, J. 1997. ''Urban Flora of Belfast''. Institute of Irish Studies & The Queen's University of Belfast.
* Deane, C. Douglas. 1983. ''The Ulster Countryside.'' Century Books.
* Gillespie, R. 2007. ''Early Belfast.'' Belfast Natural History & Philosophical Society in Association with Ulster Historical Foundation. .
* Nesbitt, Noel. 1982. ''The Changing Face of Belfast.'' Ulster Museum, Belfast. Publication no. 183.
* Pollock, V. and Parkhill, T. 1997. ''Belfast''. National Museums of Northern Ireland.
* Scott, Robert. 2004. ''Wild Belfast: On Safari in the City.''
Blackstaff Press
The Blackstaff Press is a publishing company in Newtownards, County Down, Northern Ireland. Founded in 1971, it publishes printed books on a range of subjects (mainly, but not exclusively, of Irish interest) and, since 2011, has also published e- ...
. .
* Walker, B.M. and Dixon, H. 1984. ''Early Photographs from the Lawrence Collection in Belfast Town 1864–1880.'' The Friar's Bush Press,
* Walker, B.M. and Dixon, H. 1983. ''No Mean City: Belfast 1880–1914.'' .
* Connolly, S.J. Ed. 2012. Belfast 400 People Places and History. Liverpool University Press.
* McCracken, E. 1971. ''The Palm House and Botanic Garden, Belfast''. Ulster Architectural Heritage Society.
* McMahon, Sean. 2011. ''A Brief History of Belfast.'' The Brehon Press. Belfast.
* Fulton, C. 2011. ''Coalbricks and Prefabs, Glimpses of Belfast in the 1950s.'' Thedoc Press.
* O'Reilly, D. 2010. " Rivers of Belfast". Colourpoint Books.
* Weatherall, Norman (text) and Evans, David (paintings) 2002 ''South Belfast Terrace and Villa.'' Cottage Publications
External links
Belfast City Council
{{Authority control
Capital cities in the United Kingdom
Cities in Northern Ireland
Districts of Northern Ireland, 1972–2015
Districts of Northern Ireland, 2015-present
Populated coastal places in the United Kingdom
Port cities and towns in Northern Ireland
Port cities and towns of the Irish Sea