Middlesbrough (ˈmɪdəlzbrə ) is a town in the Middlesbrough unitary authority borough of North Yorkshire, England. The town is in Teesdale, near the North York Moors National Park. With a population of 148,215, it was classed as large town to smaller city at the 2021 UK census. It is the largest town of the wider Teesside area, which had a population of 376,633 in 2011.
Until the early 1800s, the area was rural farming land in the historic county of Yorkshire. The town was a planned development which started in 1830, housing and port was created with coal and later ironworks added. Steel production and ship building began in the late 1800s, remaining associated with the town until the post-industrial decline of the late twentieth century. Trade (notably through ports) and digital enterprise sectors contemporarily contribute to the local economy, Teesside University and Middlesbrough College to local education.
In 1853, it became a town. In 1889, the North Riding of Yorkshire became an administrative county, and the town's municipal borough also became a county borough. From 1968 until 1974, some boroughs and parishes both from the rest of the county and County Durham formed the County Borough of Teesside. Cleveland became a non-metropolitan county in 1974, and was abolished in 1996, leading to its current governance.
Middlesbrough started as a Benedictine priory on the south bank of the River Tees, its name possibly derived from it being midway between the holy sites of Durham and Whitby. The earliest recorded form of Middlesbrough's name is "Mydilsburgh". The name literally means "middle fortress".
In 686, a monastic cell was consecrated by St. Cuthbert at the request of St. Hilda, Abbess of Whitby. The manor of Middlesburgh belonged to Whitby Abbey and Guisborough Priory. Robert Bruce, Lord of Cleveland and Annandale, granted and confirmed, in 1119, the church of St. Hilda of Middleburg to Whitby. Up until its closure on the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII in 1537, the church was maintained by 12 Benedictine monks, many of whom became vicars, or rectors, of various places in Cleveland.