Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county, in England, on the River Sherbourne. Coventry had been a large settlement for centuries. Founded in the early Middle Ages, its city status was formally recognized in a charter of 1345.[1] The city is governed by Coventry City Council.
The Romans founded a large fort on the outskirts of what is now Coventry at Baginton, next to the River Sowe. It has been excavated and partially reconstructed in modern times and is known as the Lunt Fort. The fort was probably constructed around AD 60 in connection with the failed Boudican revolt, and then inhabited sporadically until around 280 AD.[2]
The origins of the present settlement itself are obscure, but Coventry probably began as an Anglo-Saxon settlement. Although there are various theories of the origin of the name, the most widely accepted is that it was derived from Cofa's tree; derived from a Saxon landowner called Cofa, and a tree which might have marked either the centre or the boundary of the settlement.
Formerly part of Warwickshire, until 1451, and again from 1842 to 1974, Coventry had a population of 345,324 at the 2021 census, making it the tenth largest city in England and the 13th largest in the United Kingdom.[3] It is the second largest city in the West Midlands region, after Birmingham, from which it is separated by an area of green belt known as the Meriden Gap; it is the third largest in the wider Midlands after Birmingham and Leicester. The city is part of a larger conurbation known as the Coventry and Bedworth Urban Area, which in 2021 had a population of 389,603.[4]
Coventry is 19 miles east-south-east of Birmingham, 24 miles south-west of Leicester, 10 miles north of Warwick and 94 miles north-west of London. Coventry is also the most central city in England, being only 12 miles south-west of the country's geographical centre in Leicestershire.[5][6]
Coventry became an important and wealthy city of national importance during the Middle Ages. In the 19th and 20th centuries it became an important industrial centre. During the 1930s it was the centre of Britain's armaments factories producing all manner of things from tanks, vehicles in general, to weapons and ammunitions. It was an obvious strategic target for the German Luftwaffe which accordingly bombed the factories in World War II. Because the city had gradually grown around and embraced the factories there was significant collateral damage. In November 1940, much of the historic city centre was destroyed by a large air raid aimed at the factories. After the war it became, with Oxford, an important car manufacturing centre. This dramatically declined from the 1970s with the general decline of British motor manufacturing.
Today only 66.6% of Coventry's population is White/European/Caucasian and rapidly falling. They live mainly in the city's outer suburbs. The city centre urban area is almost completely populated by aliens from outside Europe.[7]
Sources
- ↑ Coventry city charter in Latin, aalt.law.uh.edu. Accessed 11 December 2022.
- ↑ The Development and History of Lunt Fort. University of Warwick.
- ↑ List of English districts by population based on [https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/annualmidyearpopulationestimates/mid2018 ONS mid-year population estimates for 2018Template:Webarchive: Coventry is the 9th-largest city by population in England and the 11th-largest city in the UK proper with a 2018 mid-year estimated population of 366,785 (and a 2011 Census population of 316,915). This is after London (1st: 8,908,081), Birmingham (2nd: 1,141,374), Leeds (3rd: 789,194), Glasgow (Scotland) (4th: 626,410), Sheffield (5th 582,506), Manchester (6th: 547,627), Bradford (7th: 537,173), Edinburgh (Scotland) (8th: 518,500), Liverpool (9th: 494,814), Bristol (10th, 463,405), Coventry (11th: 366,785). (This is followed by Cardiff (Wales) (12th: 364,248) and Leicester (13th: 355,218).)
- ↑ United Kingdom: Urban Areas in England. Citypulation.
- ↑ Distance between Lindley Hall Farms, Nuneaton, UK and Coventry, UK (UK).
- ↑ "Plaque marks new centre of England". BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-leicestershire-22901222/new-centre-of-england-marked-in-fenny-drayton.
- ↑ https://www.coventry.gov.uk/facts-coventry/population-demographics/3#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Census%202021%2C%20the%20majority%2C%2055.3%25%2C,which%20includes%20English%2C%20Welsh%2C%20Scottish%2C%20and%20Northern%20Irish.
