Bristol

Bristol (ˈbrɪstəl) is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. On the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. It is in the West of England Combined Authority and the most populous city in South West England. The wider Bristol Built-up Area is the eleventh most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. Iron Age hillforts and Roman villas were built near the confluence of the rivers Frome and Avon. Around the beginning of the 11th century, the settlement was known as Brycgstow (Old English: 'the place at the bridge'). Bristol received a royal charter in 1155 and was historically divided between Gloucestershire and Somerset until 1373 when it became a county corporate. From the 13th to the 18th century, Bristol was among the top three English cities, after London, in tax receipts. A major port, Bristol was a starting place for early voyages of exploration to the New World. On a ship out of Bristol in 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian, became the first European to land on mainland North America. In 1499, William Weston, a Bristol merchant, was the first Englishman to lead an exploration to North America. At the height of the Bristol slave trade, from 1700 to 1807, more than 2,000 slave ships carried an estimated 500,000 people from Africa to slavery in the Americas. The Port of Bristol has since moved from Bristol Harbour in the city centre to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Dock. Bristol's modern economy is built on the creative media, electronics and aerospace industries; the city-centre docks have been redeveloped as centres of heritage and culture. The city had the largest circulating community currency in the UK, the Bristol Pound, which was pegged to the pound sterling before it ceased operation in August 2020. The city has two universities: the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol).