Bristol (IPA: bris’t?l) is a city, unitary authority and ceremonial county in South West England. It is situated 115 miles (185 km) west of London at 51°27′14?N, 2°35′48?W. With a population of 400,000, and metropolitan area of 550,000, Bristol is England’s sixth, and the United Kingdom’s ninth, most populous city. As such, it is one of England’s core cities. It was chartered as a city in 1155 and county in 1373. For half a millennium Bristol was the second or third largest English city, until the rapid rise of Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham, in the Industrial Revolution of the 1780s. The city borders on the unitary districts of Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, and has a short coastline on the Bristol Channel.

Bristol is one of the main centres of culture, employment and education in the region. From its earliest days, its prosperity has been linked to that of the Port of Bristol, the commercial port, which was in the city centre but has now moved to the Bristol Channel coast at Avonmouth and Portbury. In more recent years the economy has been built on the aeronautic industry, and the city centre docks have been regenerated as a centre of heritage and culture. The city is famous for its unique music and film industries, and was a finalist for the 2008 European Capital of Culture.

Bristol has been a trading center since the 12th cent. First chartered as a city in 1155, it became a separate county by order of Edward III in 1373, the first provincial town to receive this honor. During the reign of Edward III the manufacture of woolen cloth was developed. The cloth was exported chiefly to Ireland, Spain, and Portugal. From Bristol the explorers John Cabot and his son Sebastian (to whom there is a monument on Brandon Hill) sailed to Newfoundland and America. In the 18th cent. Bristol was active in the colonial triangular trade: English goods went to Africa; African slaves to the West Indies; and West Indian sugar, rum, and tobacco to Bristol. The Great Western (1838), one of the first transatlantic steamships, and the Great Britain (1845) the first ocean steamship with a screw propeller, were launched from Bristol.

The port declined during the late 18th and early 19th cent. because of competition from Liverpool, the end of slave trading, and the decline of the West Indian trade. It revived in the mid-19th cent. The city was heavily damaged during World War II. The poets Thomas Chatterton and Robert Southey were born there.