the City of Birmingham has a people of 992,400 (2004 estimate). Along by using Wolverhampton, Solihull and the towns of the Black Country, Birmingham forms a big the share of a big urban sprawl; the "West Midlands conurbation", which has a population of 2,275,000.

A metropolitan area of which Birmingham is part is defined per government when a West Midlands county, which also includes a city of Coventry and has a people of 2,579,200, however inside practice includes area of the circumferent counties of Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire. Depending upon commuting and economic influence, the area effecitvely extends on top lot of the West Midlands region.

A city is usually known by its nickname Brum (from a local title Brummagem), and its population when Brummies. Birmingham is residence to the distinctive Brummie accent and dialect.

Birmingham is an ethnically & unfeeling diverse city. About 30% of Birmingham's people is of non-white ethnicity; at the period of the 2001 census, 70.4% of the people was White (including 3.2% Irish), 19.5% Asian or Asian British, 6.1% Black or Black British, 0.5% Chinese, and Trey.5% of mixed or even more ethnic heritage.

History
Birmingham has the recorded history running back K years. In that period, it has grown from either the bantam Anglo-Saxon farming village into a major industrial & commercial city.

A Birmingham metropolitan area was occupied within Roman times, with many military roads & the big fort. Birmingham began life as a little Anglo-Saxon hamlet in the Early Middle Ages. It was foremost recorded around written documents per Domesday Book of 1086 as a small village, worth only 20 shillings.

In the 12th century, Birmingham was granted the charter to hang on to a market, which in time became called a Bull Ring. As the ready to hand location for trade, Birmingham shortly developed into a microscopic however thriving market town.

Per 16th century, Birmingham's access to supplies of iron ore and coal meant that metalworking industries became established. In the 17th century, Birmingham became an important manufacturing town by owning the reputation for producing small arms. Birmingham manufacturers supplied Oliver Cromwell's forces with good deal of their weaponry during the English Civil War. Arms manufacture within Birmingham became a staple trade & was concentrated in the area called the Gun Quarter.

When you took a Industrial Revolution (from a mid 18th century onwards), Birmingham grew rapidly into the major industrial centre. Unlike numerous more English industrial cities like Manchester, industry in Birmingham was depending upon little workshops rather than large factories or mills. .

Railways arrived around Birmingham in 1837, with a opening of the Grand Junction Railway and later the London and Birmingham Railway the railways soon linked Birmingham to each corner of Britain. New Street Station was opened as a joint station in 1854. & this was before long followed per Great Western Railway's Snow Hill station.

When you took a Victorian era, a people of Birmingham grew chop-chop to overflow half the million & Birmingham became the 2nd big people centre within Britain. It became called a "City of a thousand trades" due to the wide array of industries placed there. Birmingham's importance led thereto existence granted city status by Queen Victoria in 1889.

Birmingham suffered heavily bomb damage during World War II, and part following of this a central city was extensively re-developed in a period of the 1950s and 1960s, with numerous concrete office buildings, ring-roads, and nowadays great deal-derided prosaic subways. Following, Birmingham gained the reputation for ugliness & was oftentimes described as a "concrete jungle".

Around recent years yet, Birmingham has been transformed, a central city has been extensively renovated & restored using a construction of newly squares, a restoration of old streets, buildings & canals, a removal of a prosaic subways, & the demolition & subsequent renovation of the Bull Ring shopping centre, which now includes a architecturally unique Selfridges building.

In a decades charted Globe War II, a face of Birmingham changed dramatically, by having big shell immigration from either the British Commonwealth and beyond.

Birmingham's transition from either an industrial centre to the touristry & services economy is better illustrated per hosting of the number 1 official summit of the G8 at the International Convention Centre (May 15 to May 17, 1998).

Economy

Birmingham is an significant manufacturing and engineering centre, employing across 100,000 population inside industry & contributing billions of pounds to the national economy. Across the quarter of the UK's exportation originate in the greater Birmingham metropolitan area.

Birmingham's industrial heritage predates a Industrial Revolution, and higher until a 20th Century the city maintained a traditiinside of single craftsmen, occasionally working independently in their have back yards or even on piecework rates in rented workshops, alongside big manufactory. When you took a Industrial Revolution several manufactory, metalworks & businesses prospered in a city, including a areas called the Gun Quarter and the Jewellery Quarter. A Jewellery Quarter is still a big concentration of dedicated jewellers around Europe, & of these third of the jewelry mass produced in the UK is made in a single mile of Birmingham city center. Until 2003, coins for circulation were manufactured in a Jewellery Quarter at the Birmingham Mint, the oldest independent mint in the world, which continues to develop commemorative coins and medals. James Watt improved the Steam Engine while working in a city, and historically a big manufacturers in the city use been associated sustaining the steam, electric and petrol transport and power industries. A city's workers designed & constructed railway carriages, steam engines, bicycles, automobiles and even – outstandingly for someplace therefore far from either a sea – ships, which were made when pre-prefab sections, so assembled at a coast. Birmingham was at home to ii major auto factory: MG Rover in Longbridge and Jaguar in Castle Bromwich. But, a first for the previous looks bleak, when MG Rover went into administration inside 2005, resulting in a plant existence mothballed & a loss of 6,000 jobs at the places, + thomas more in the supply chain.

A city's present day products include automotive vehicle, vehicle components & accessories, weapons, electrical equipment, plastics, machine tools, chemicals, food, jewellery and glass. locate project (including research into nanotechnology at the University of Birmingham) is expanding in the city. More renowned brands from a "city of a thousand trades" include Bakelite, Bird's Custard, Brylcreem, BSA, Cadbury's chocolate, Chad Valley toys, Halfords, HP Sauce, Typhoo Tea and Valor.

Birmingham has ended D law firms, and is Europe's second big insurance market. A city attracts terminated 40% of the UK's amount conference trade. 2 of Britain's "big four" banks were founded there. Lloyds Bank (today Lloyds TSB) began in 1765 and the Midland Bank (now a share of HSBC) opened inside Union Street in August 1836.

Inside recent years Birmingham's economy has diversified into service industries, retailing, tourism and conference hosting, which are today a independent employers in the city. Hundreds to thousands of humans visit Birmingham yearly, & around 2004 a city was known as a 2nd right place to shop inside England when a West End of London [http://www.guardian.co.uk/northsouth/article/0,2763,1160740,00.html]. Attractions for visitant include Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Millennium Point, Bull Ring, Selfridges Building, Cadbury World, Tolkien Trail [http://www.virtualbrum.co.uk/tolkien.htm], Birmingham Royal Ballet, and the National Sea Life Centre.

Architecture

Although Birmingham has existed as the award for on top a thousand years, in todays world's city is irresistibly the product of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, as a very incubation of the city began by having the Industrial Revolution. Consequently, comparatively couple of buildings hold up from either its earliest history.

Traces of medieval Birmingham can be seen in a oldest churches, notably the original parish church, St Martin's in a Bullring, where the church has stood since at least the 12th century. A todays church (begun in the area of 1290) was extensively re-built in the 1870s, retaining some original bulwarks & foundations. Two or three more buildings from either a mediaeval & Tudor periods survive, among the two The Old Crown public house in Digbeth, the 15th century ''Saracen's Head'' public house & Old Grammar School within Kings Norton and Blakesley Hall in Yardley.

A city grew apace from either Georgian times and a total of buildings exist from either this period of time. Among the two come St Philip's Cathedral, originally built as a parish church, St Paul's Church in the largely Georgian St Paul's Square, Soho House in Handsworth, the home of Matthew Boulton, and Perrott's Folly in Ladywood (which is said to have later inspired J. R. R. Tolkien).

A Victorian era saw extensive building across a city. Major public buildings like a Town Hall, a Law Courts, the Council House (see picture) & a Museum & Art Gallery were constructed, many under the auspices of Joseph Chamberlain's reforming mayoralty. Saint Chad's Cathedral, built in 1839 by Augustus Pugin, was the first Roman Catholic Cathederal to be built in the UK since the Reformation. A characteristic materials of Victorian Birmingham come red brick and terracotta, & numbers of ticket Victorian buildings own been retained in Just released Street and Corporation Street in the city centre. Through a city, a require to home a industrial workers bring about to miles of red-brick streets & terraces, numerous of back-to-back houses, some of which were late to turn into inner-city slums.

Continued people incubation in the interwar period, saw vast estates of semi-detached houses being repose on greenfield land in outlying parts of the city like Kingstanding and Weoley Castle, but a coming of World War II and the Blitz claimed several endures & many beautiful buildings as well. Even so, a destruction that took place around post-war Birmingham was too extensive: twelve of ticket Victorian buildings rather a intricate glass-roofed Birmingham New Street Station, and a old Central Library, were razed in the 1950s and 1960s and replaced with modernist concrete buildings. Inside inner-city areas as well, good deal Victorian housing was redeveloped and existing communities were relocated to tower block estates like Castle Vale.

A planning decisions of a post-war years were to have a profound result on the image of Birmingham around subsequent decades, by owning the mix of ring roads, shopping malls and tower blocks typically known as the 'concrete jungle'. Around other recent years, Birmingham hwhen learnt from either what numbers of look at as a mistakes of the 1960s & instituted the big tower prevent demolition and renovation programmes anywhere around Europe. There has been a good deal of newly building inside a city center in recent years, including the award-winning Future Systems' Selfridges building, an irregularly-shaped structure covered in hundreds to thousands of reflective discs (look at picture), a Brindleyplace development and a Millennium Point science and technology centre.

Politics

Birmingham City Council is the big local authority in the UK with, following the shake-up of boundaries inside June 2004, 120 councillors representing just under of these million population, inside Forty wards.

Fallowing a election of 10 June 2004, there is no overall control, by owning a Great hundred seats existence divided between a Labour, (53 councillors), Conservative (39) and Liberal Democrat ("Lib-Dem", 28) parties.

There is a Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition, by using Conservative class action leader Mike Whitby when Leader of the council & Lib-Dem class action leader Paul Tilsley when Deputy Leader.

Birmingham's eleven constituencies are represented in the House of Commons by one Conservative, one Liberal Democrat, and Ix Labour MPs.

Birmingham is too a seat of the Government Office for the West Midlands region.

Places of interest
Aston Hall The Back to Back houses Barber Institute of Fine Arts Birmingham Botanical Gardens Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery Birmingham Thinktank - Science Museum Blakesley Hall Brindleyplace - Canalside development Cannon Hill Park Centenary Square Central Mosque Chamberlain Square featuring a BBC Big Screen Convention Quarter Gun Quarter - Once a first gun manufacturing community in the UK Jewellery Quarter - The big concentration of dedicated jewellers around Europe mac National Sealife Centre Sarehole Mill St Philip's Cathedral Sutton Park Victoria Square

View too Places of interest in Birmingham

Famous residents
Neville Chamberlain, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Ozzy Osbourne are a few of the many famous names associated with Birmingham.

Look at as well list of famous residents of Birmingham, England

Transport
Due inside a portion to its central location inside England, Birmingham is a major conveyance hub on the motorway, rail, and canal networks.

These are served by a total of major roads, including the M5, M6, M6 Toll, M40, and M42 motorways.

Local public conveyance is by bus, local train and tram (the Midland Metro light railway system between the city center & Wolverhampton). A benumb 11A & 11C outer circle bus routes are a hanker urban bus routes around Europe. A city's independent station, Birmingham New Street, is at the centre of the national rail network, when Birmingham International railway station serves Birmingham International Airport which has flights to cities across Europe & many Asian and North American destinations.

Birmingham is as well notable for its canal models; at one time a lifeblood of the city's industries, their have is at present principally for pleasure. There are 35 miles (Sixty kilometer) of canals in the city, virtually all remaining navigable. A abundance of canals has led to the oftentimes manufactured claim that "Birmingham has more canals than Venice". Although this is around a select few feel right (Venice has Xxvi miles), Birmingham is far big [http://jquarter.members.beeb.net/walk6x.htm], & a types of waterway are very different. Birmingham's canals come relatively shallow unreal trend lines, when people around Venice come primarily reinforced natural trend lines between islands of a laguna in which the city stands.

Education

Birmingham has deuce-ace universities: the University of Birmingham, Aston University and the University of Central England (UCE). It too has 2 more higher education colleges (Newman College and the Birmingham College of Food, Tourism and Creative Studies). A Birmingham Conservatoire and Birmingham School of Acting, both okay, a share of UCE, offer higher education in the arts.

A city council is England's big local education authority, directly or indirectly responsible Twenty-five nursery schools, 328 primary schools, 77 secondary schools [http://www.bgfl.org/services/nqt/primsec.htm] and 29 special schools [http://www.bgfl.org/services/nqt/sen.htm]. It as well diarrhea a library service, with Four million visitant annually [http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/GenerateContent?CONTENT_ITEM_ID=1787&CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE=0&MENU_ID=5255], & will bring about 4000 adult education courses throughout the season [http://www.bgfl.org/services/baes/default.htm].

The minority of the city's kids receive private education. King Edward's School is perhaps the most prestigious independent school in the city.

Sport

The cricket club wwhen inside being in Birmingham when early as 1745, and now a city is page to Warwickshire County Cricket Club whose ground at Edgbaston is also the venue for international test matches. International athletics meetings take place at a open-air Alexander Stadium in Perry Barr, the at home of Birchfield Harriers athletic club, which numbers numerous Olympic medallists among its past & present members. A National Indoor Arena (NIA) meanwhile is a major indoor athletics arena & around 2003 hosted the Ninth IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics. A NIA besides hosts cases within numerous more sports, like the World Indoor Badminton Championships.

A number one ever game of lawn tennis was played within Edgbaston in 1859; international tennis is however played at Edgbaston's Priory Club.

A city is residence to deuce of the UK's oldest agent football teams: Aston Villa (1874) and Birmingham City (1875), both of whom presently play in the Premier League. The world's 1st agency football league was founded at a meeting inside Aston on March 22 1885 under the auspices of William McGregor, the director of Aston Villa.

Birmingham as well has the sales person Rugby Union side, Moseley RFC, and there exists sales person basketball, boxing, hockey, and greyhound racing in the city.

Birmingham has been awarded a title National City of Sport per Sports Council.

Food & drink
Birmingham depending Breweries included Ansells, Davenports and Mitchells & Butlers. Aston Manor Brewery is currently a just brewery of any important size.

Numerous ticket Victorian saloon & blocks may however become detected through a city. A oldest auberge around Birmingham is the Old Crown in Digbeth (circa 1450). A Anchor Inn (1797), is also within Digbeth.

Far-famed food brands from either Birmingham include Typhoo tea, Birds custard, Blue Bird Toffee, Bournville cocoa, Cadbury chocolate, and HP Sauce.

A Wing Yip food empire first began in the city & at present has its headquarters in the Chinese Quarter.

Inside 1945, Abdul Aziz opened a coffee bar shop selling curry and rice in Steelhouse Lane. This late became A Darjeeling, a foremost Indian eating place around Birmingham. A Balti was invented in the city and has since standard tremendously gastronomical acclamation for the 'Balti Belt' of eating place in the Sparkbrook, Balsall Heath and Ladywood areas.

A city boasts 2 Michelin starred restaurants: ''Simpson's and Jessica's'', each inside Edgbaston.

A BBC Good Food Show takes place at The National Exhibition Centre, and is Britain's large food event.

Culture and arts

Popular music

Although its music scene is non when famous when people of Liverpool or Manchester, Birmingham has had a vibrant & varied musical history across the second half-century.

In the 1960s, the "Brum Beat" era featured blues and early progressive rock bands such as a Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, The Move and The Moody Blues.

A city is typically described when a birthplace of heavy metal music, with Judas Priest and Black Sabbath coming from Birmingham. A founders of Led Zeppelin; Robert Plant and John Bonham came from nearby towns, & played inside local Brum Beat bands before forming Led Zeppelin.

In the 1970s members of A Move and The Idle Race formed the Electric Light Orchestra and Wizzard. A 1970s also saw the rise of reggae and ska in the city, with Steel Pulse and later on UB40, The Beat and Musical Youth. Singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading had many hits in the period of this decade.

A 1980s brought Duran Duran, possibly a virtually all successful new romantic group, and Dexy's Midnight Runners, and the 1990s the Charlatans, Dodgy and Ocean Colour Scene. The house music and hip hop culture has thrived in the city since the early eighties. Recent chart profits has came from either Mike Skinner (the.k.the. The Streets), R&B singer Jamelia and Editors.

Jazz is popular in a city, and the annual Birmingham International Jazz Festival is the largest of its kind in the UK.

Party in the Park, a popular chart music event, is Birmingham's big music festival.

Classical music

A internationally-an expert City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's home venue is Symphony Hall, where it gives frequent performances. A equally globe-an expert Birmingham Royal Ballet also resides in the city when does the world's oldest vocational dance school, Elmhurst School for Dance.

A Birmingham Triennial Music Festival took place from 1784 - 1912 and was considered the grandest of its variety throughout Britain. Music was written for the festival by Mendelssohn, Gounod, Sullivan, Dvorak, Bantock and most notably Elgar, who wrote quaternary of his best known chorale pieces for Birmingham.

Albert William Ketèlbey was born around Alma Street, Astin on 9 August 1875, a boy of a teacher at a Vittoria School of Art, Ketèlbey attended the Trinity College of Music, in which he beat the runner-second best, Gustav Holst, for a musical scholarship.

Birmingham's more city-centre music venues include A National Indoor Arena (NIA), the CBSO Centre, Adrian Boult Hall (ABH) at Birmingham Conservatoire and the Birmingham Town Hall (currently closed for renovation), which has played persons to numerous authoritative & popular music performances from either a late 1800s.

Theatre

There are numerous theatres inside Birmingham. A foursome big sales person theatres come a Alexandra Theatre ("the Alex"), Birmingham Repertory Theatre ("The Rep"), a Birmingham Hippodrome and the Old Rep. A Macintosh & Drum arts centres likewise persons several office plays.

A Fierce Festival teams with a Birmingham Repertory Theatre annually to present an series of quirky performances from either local & national corporations.

Literature

Literary figures associated with Birmingham include J. R. R. Tolkien, Arthur Conan Doyle, Washington Irving, David Lodge, W. H. Auden and Benjamin Zephaniah.

Visual art

Birmingham has one of a big collections of Pre-Raphaelite art in A world at The Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. Edward Burne-Jones was born within Birmingham, spent his foremost twenty years in a city, & down the road became the president of the Birmingham Society of Creative person. The Barber Institute of Fine Arts was declared 'Gallery of the Season' per 2004 Good Britain Guide. For the fully listings of picture gallery inside Birmingham, view Arts in Birmingham.

More celebrated Birmingham creative person include David Cox, David Bomberg, and various Afro-Caribbean creative person including Pogus Caesar, Keith Piper and Donald Rodney.

Graffiti (or "spraycan art") culture appeared in the early 1980s, and graffito art competitions come however regularly held.

Festivals and shows

Birmingham is residence to numbers of national, religious & spiritual festivals including a St. George's Day party. A Birmingham Tattoo is a military show that has taken place in the city for many years. A presently biennial Caribbean- style Birmingham International Carnival was originally the Handsworth Carnival, held around Handsworth Park from 1984, but currently will require place in the August of odd- numbered years, parading through wall street of Handsworth to Perry Barr Park. Birmingham Pride takes place in the 'gay village' and attracts as much as 100,000 visitant every month. A city besides hosts an annual arts festival (Artsfest) when you took September, in which population may enjoy numbers of of the regions' arts, loose.

A city's big only-day event is its St. Patrick's Day parade (Europe's second largest, after the one in Dublin).

Film and media

Birmingham is unusual around supporting 2 local newspapers - a Birmingham Post and the Evening Mail - when well as a Sunday Mercury, all owned per Trinity Mirror, who besides develop The Birmingham News, a each week freesheet distributed to zero in the leafy surburbs along by owning Forward, a Birmingham City Council's free newspaper distributed to homes & via community centres & public buildings.

A Electric Cinema on Station Street is the oldest working cinema in the UK, and Oscar Deutsch opened his first Odeon cinema in Perry Barr during the 1920s. A Birmingham Film Festival takes place annually, and a Birmingham School of Acting won a Royal Television Society award for their short film 'Soul Boy'. StarCity is said to be Europe's big leisure & cinema complex & is shortly from either a Britain's single lasting cause-around cinema maintained by T-Mobile; both come around Nechells.

A BBC has its regional headquarters, BBC Birmingham, in the Mailbox, in the Convention Quarter (where it relocated from either Pebble Mill), and several television and radio programes are produced in the city, including the world's long haul radio soap opera, The Archers. A Central TV and BBC studios are noted for several shows, including Tiswas, Crossroads, Dalziel & Pascoe, Midlands Today, the BBC Asian Network,. Local radio stations include BRMB, Galaxy, BBC WM and Heart FM, and Kerrang, Birmingham's first dedicated rock station.

Birmingham is as well a hub for various national ethnic media, including The Voice, The Sikh Times, Desi Xpress, The Asian Today and Raja TV (based in the Mailbox).

Science and invention

Local inventions & notable firsts include: gas lighting, roller skate wheels, the Baskerville Font, questionnaires, Custard powder, foam rubber, the magnetron (the core component in the development of radar), the UK electroplating industry, the number one ever have of radiography in an operation, and a UK's number 1 ever hole-in-the-heart operation, at Birmingham Children's Hospital.

Among a city's notable man of science & discoverer come: Matthew Boulton, proprietor of the Soho engineering works. Sir Francis Galton, originator of eugenics and important techniques within statistics. Alexander Parkes, inventor of celluloid, the number one synthetic polymer. Joseph Priestley, chemist and radical. James Watt, engineer and discoverer; associated by owning a steam engine. John Wright, inventor of the nature and severity of electroplating.

Partner cities
(Partner cities come akin to twin towns) Lyon, France Frankfurt, Germany Leipzig, Germany Milan, Italy Johannesburg, South Africa Chicago, Illinois, USA