Nottingham (ˈnɒtɪŋəm , locally ˈnɒtnʊm) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robin Hood and to the lace-making, bicycle and tobacco industries. The city is also the county town of Nottinghamshire and the settlement was granted its city charter in 1897, as part of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Nottingham is a tourist destination; in 2018, the city received the second-highest number of overnight visitors in the Midlands and the highest number in the East Midlands.
In the Census 2021 results, Nottingham had a reported population of 323,632. The wider conurbation, which includes many of the city's suburbs, has a population of 768,638. It is the largest urban area in the East Midlands and the second-largest in the Midlands. Its Functional Urban Area, the largest in the East Midlands, has a population of 919,484. The population of the Nottingham/Derby metropolitan area is estimated to be 1,610,000. The metropolitan economy of Nottingham is the seventh-largest in the United Kingdom with a GDP of $50.9 billion (2014). Aside from Birmingham, it is the only city in the Midlands to be ranked as a sufficiency-level world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.
Nottingham is a major sporting centre and, in October 2015, was named 'Home of English Sport'. The National Ice Centre, Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre and Trent Bridge international cricket ground are all based in or around the city, which is also the home of two professional football teams: Notts County, recognised as the world's oldest professional league club, and Nottingham Forest, famously two-time winners of the UEFA European Cup under Brian Clough and Peter Taylor in 1979 and 1980. The city has professional rugby, ice hockey and cricket teams; it also hosts the Aegon Nottingham Open, an international tennis tournament on the ATP and WTA tours.