Tyneside is a built-up area across the banks of the River Tyne in Northern England. Residents of the area are commonly referred to as Geordies. The whole area is surrounded by the North East Green Belt.
The population of Tyneside as published in the 2011 census was 774,891, making it the eighth most-populous urban area in the United Kingdom. In 2013, the estimated population was 832,469.
Politically, the area is mainly covered by the metropolitan boroughs of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside and South Tyneside. The boroughs on the Tyne are joint with Wearside which is in both the ceremonial counties of Durham (Chester-le-Street) and Tyne and Wear.
The ONS 2011 census had 774,891 census respondents inside the "Tyneside Built-up Area" or "Tyneside Urban Area". These figures are a decline from 879,996; this loss was mainly due to the ONS reclassifying Hetton-le-Hole, Houghton-le-Spring, Chester-le-Street and Washington in the Wearside Built-up Area instead of Tyneside. In both the 2001 and 2011 census the area was given the following subdivisions; Gateshead, Jarrow and Tynemouth had boundary changes:
The people of Newcastle, called "Geordies", have a reputation for their distinctive dialect and accent. Newcastle may have been given this name, a local diminutive of the name "George", because their miners used George Stephenson's safety lamp (invented in 1815 and called a "Georgie lamp") to prevent firedamp explosions, rather than the Davy lamp used elsewhere. An alternative explanation relates that during the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 the people of Newcastle declared their allegiance to the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, George I and George II; whereas the rest of the county of Northumberland, to the north, stood loyal to James Francis Edward Stuart.
While Newcastle upon Tyne had been an important local centre since Roman times, and was a major local market town from the Middle Ages, the development of Newcastle and Tyneside is owed to coal mining.