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Britain is not only London. Here are some of the other notable towns and cities.

Two notes before we begin:

  • To be a city, you have to have "letters patent" from the monarch or have been one since 1189, or as it's charmingly often called, "time immemorial". A cathedral is not required, but helps. For that matter it's possible to have a cathedral and not be a city, such as Blackburn. Most of the country's large cities (with the exception of London and Bristol note ) only gained city status in the latter half of the nineteenth century. It is actually possible for administrative errors to cause a place to lose its city status: the Kentish town of Rochester actually achieved this embarrassing feat in 1998. There are currently 76 cities in the United Kingdom, with the most recent additions being seven cities in 2022.
  • After the Second World War, the Government set up "New Towns" around London to deal with the lack of good housing for Londoners and other city dwellers displaced by the Luftwaffe (a significant amount of housing stock had been destroyed by the Blitz or was slummy anyway). Opinion on these is mixed, with the most notable example, Milton Keynes, generally being used as a punchline.

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Home Counties

  • Basildon, Essex (E) — A "new town". Stereotypical home of the "Essex Girl" (often named the British stereotype of the US Valley Girl), and the birthplace of Depeche Mode.
  • Bedford, Bedfordshire (E) — Large Italian population, and home to the largest Sikh temple outside of London. Once described by Nelson Mandela as "a jewel of racial harmony".
  • Billericay, Essex (E) — Small commuter town. The birth place of Russell Tovey and Richard Osman, where Lee Evans went to school and one of the two settings of Gavin & Stacey. Immortalised in song by Ian Dury and the Blockheads' "Billericay Dickie".
  • Bournemouth, Dorset (SW) — A large seaside resort town near the border with Hampshire (it was part of Hampshire prior to 1974), this town sits on the border between the South East of England and The West Country. It was also the first British town to use CCTV, back in 1985. The conurbation that this town forms part of is the largest such area not to have any part with city status so is arguably England's largest town. And just to make it clear, their football team (which will play in the Premier League for the first time ever in 2015) is nicknamed "the Cherries", not the Gynecologists.
  • Brighton, East Sussex (SE) — A popular seaside resort (along with its neighbour Hove, with which it has joint city status), famous for its piers and its large LGBT scene. The setting for Quadrophenia, Brighton Rock and Sugar Rush. It is also home to the Royal Pavilion, a grand building that looks a lot like the Taj Mahal (although its interior is Chinese-themed) and was constructed under the order of the Prince Regent the son of mad King George III.
  • Canterbury, Kent (SE) - The heart of Anglican Christianity. The local Archbishop, head of the Church of England, is usually found in London, especially when an Awesome Moment of Crowning is called for. Canterbury Cathedral was the site of Thomas Beckett's martyrdom, and subsequently became an important destination for pilgrims, as depicted in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Canterbury Cathedral charges visitors £15.00 a head to get in, thus perpetuating the proud tradition of fleecing the pilgrims that Chaucer noted seven hundred years ago. Sadly, also infamous for pub arson in order to claim on the insurance - one attempt didn't just set it on fire, it blew it up!
  • Colchester, Essex (E) — The oldest town in Britain, and the original Roman capital (under the name Camulodunum). Also one of the newest cities, having obtained that status in September 2022. Closer culturally to East Anglia than most other towns in Essex (the nearer you get to London the more overspill Londoners you find, of the sort who get the county its atrocious reputation with the rest of England. Most of Essex is just London overspill these days.) Colchester is also an Army garrison town (home to the UK's only military prison) and civvies are best advised to avoid certain pubs at the weekend.
  • Dover and Folkestone, Kent (SE) — Dover is one of the main port entries in the UK from Europe, and nearby Folkestone is the home area of the Eurotunnel that connects the UK to Europe. Eurotunnel has completely killed the ferry trade out of Folkestone and the cross-channel ferries leaving Dover are diminished from what they were. The towns are seen as notorious for would-be illegal immigrants from the Middle East routed to camps in Calais by the French, in the hope that they will sneak onto Britain-bound lorries that carry loads through this town. Mostly famous for the White Cliffs.
  • Epsom, Surrey (SE) — A mid-sized commuter town which is part of London's urban sprawl, but not officially part of it, and just inside the M25 orbital motorway. Famous for the Epsom Downs racecourse.
  • Guildford, Surrey (SE) — Owns a cathedral (which appears in The Omen (1976): Damien freaks out at the prospect of entering it), but due to lack of those pesky letters is not a city. A strange bit of Memetic Mutation in The '80s and The '90s had all stand-up comedians claim that their audiences had travelled there from Guildford, regardless of where the act was taking place, for some unexplained reason.
  • Hungerford, Berkshire (SE) — a small town known for being the site of the Hungerford Massacre of 1987, in which a lone gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle, an M1 Carbine and a Beretta killed 16 people, including his own mother. This led to the 'Hungerford Report', which resulted in the Firearms (Amendment) Act of 1988, which effectively banned all automatic and semi-automatic weapons.
  • Luton, Bedfordshire (E) — multicultural town, once known as one of the centres of the British hat industry, but now known for being described as "multicultural without being cultural". Home of some of the first LGBT bars in the UK throughout the First and Second World War, and the River Lea, that finishes as the River Thames in London. A common target for many people that live outside of the town. Birthplace of one of the chasers from the UK version of The Chase, and several popular musicians. Also home to London Luton Airport, which, despite what various airlines want you to think, is not actually all that close to London.
  • The Medway Towns, Kent (SE) — A large conurbation formed from a number of towns on the Medway estuary in Kent. The main towns being Rochester, Gillingham and Chatham. Rochester used to be a city but accidentally lost its city status during local government reorganisation. The area used to be home to dockyards but these closed down in the 1980s. The Medway Towns are also associated with the author Charles Dickens who grew up in Chatham.
  • Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire (SE) — Built in the 1960s to accommodate the post-WWII population boom. Famous for mainly consisting of roundabouts and dual carriageways, due to a grid system that makes it easy to navigate around. It has one of the largest shopping centres in the country and is home to one of the country's most-maligned football teams, MK Dons, due to their dubious origins of completely ridding Wimbledon FC of their culture and identity. It has the ignoble honour of standing in for Metropolis in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and also had two characters visit a (fictional) prison there in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Obtained city status in August 2022.
    "The Arrangement was very simple, so simple in fact that it really didn't deserve the capital letter, which it had got for simply being in existence for so long. It was the sort of sensible arrangement that many isolated agents, working in awkward conditions a long way from their superiors, reach with their opposite number when they realize that they have more in common with their immediate opponents than their remote allies. It means a tacit non-interference in certain of each other's activities. It made certain that while neither really won, also neither really lost, and both were able to demonstrate to their masters the great strides they were making against a cunning and well-informed adversary.

    "It meant that Crowley [the demon] had been allowed to develop Manchester, while Aziriphale [the angel] had a free hand in the whole of Shropshire. Crowley took Glasgow, Aziraphale had Edinburgh (neither claimed any responsibility for Milton Keynes*, but both reported it as a success).

    * Note for Americans and other aliens: Milton Keynes is a new city approximately halfway between London and Birmingham. It was built to be modern, efficient, healthy, and, all in all, a pleasant place to live. Many Britons find this amusing.
  • Oxford, Oxfordshire (SE) — The so-called "City of Dreaming Spires" for its impressive architecture, most of which is part of its university which is rather well-known. Actually home to two universities - the second, Oxford Brookes, being the city's former Polytechnic - making it very much a student city. Famous for being bicycle friendly and a place where you can often see students and academics wandering around in all sorts of formalwear depending on the time of year. The city is also home to Inspector Morse and its spinoffs Lewis and Endeavour.
  • Portsmouth, Hampshire (SE) — As the name suggests it is by the sea. With an urban population of over 400,000, it is one of the largest cities in the South East and almost forms a conurbation with another nearby large city, Southampton. A major naval base has been there for hundreds of years — it was partly chosen because of the narrow entrance to its harbour, making it harder for enemy ships to get in and attack the fleet in harbour — and Portsmouth remains strongly associated with the Royal Navy. The town has pretty much swallowed up the neighbouring resort of Southsea, birthplace of Charles Dickens and the place where Arthur Conan Doyle practised as a doctor and wrote the first Sherlock Holmes stories.
  • Reading, Berkshire (SE) — A town that is desperate to become a city. Due to the way local government boundaries are drawn the town seems a lot smaller than the urbanity. Its urban population is almost three times that of the local government borough of Reading. Pronounced "Redding". The setting for some of Jasper Fforde's books.
  • Salisbury, Wiltshire (SW) — A cathedral city that shares its name with the nearby plain that houses Stonehenge. Salisbury today is a very nice market city with lots of pubs (one of which boasts a mummified hand as its signature feature). Birthplace of David Mitchell.
  • Slough, Berkshire (SE) — Formerly part of Buckinghamshire and is one of the most ethnically diverse towns in England. Setting for the UK version of The Office - something the town is not too happy about. (It was probably chosen for the location of the business because, as well as its comically awful reputation, Slough is genuinely home to some very large companies, like Amazon Europe). It also the subject of an infamous poem by John Betjeman, "Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough, it isn't fit for humans now". Unsurprisingly, the residents of Slough weren't terribly impressed, especially enemy bombs did actually land on the town during the Blitz. It is absolutely guaranteed that whenever Slough is mentioned in the UK, someone will quote Betjemen's line of doggrel. Largely because he summed up just about everyone's feelings towards the place.
  • Southampton, Hampshire (SE) — Southampton is the second largest city in Hampshire after nearby Portsmouth. It is home to a good university (the University of Southampton) and a not so good one (which we don't talk about in polite conversation) and therefore is home to a lot of students. It is also one of the few areas in the South East to elect a Labour MP in the last election. With an urban population of over 300,000 it is one of the largest cities in the South East and almost forms a conurbation with another nearby large city, Portsmouth. The city from which the Pilgrims set sail (although the Mayflower was chartered in London, and most of the Pilgrims came from other parts of the Home Counties or — most especially — East Anglia). In Anglo-Saxon times it was just called "Hamtun" (hence why the county is 'Hampshire', not 'Southampshire' or 'Southamptonshire') and so was Northampton until they renamed them so as to differentiate between the towns. Famous for the Titanic, the Spitfire and Benny Hill.
  • Southend-on-Sea, Essex (E) — As its name suggests this is a city on the south end of Essex and is by the sea. Like many towns beside the sea, it used to be a popular seaside resort, but has declined since holidays abroad became more affordable. The city is at the eastern-most edge and is the largest of a number of towns along the Essex side of the Thames estuary which almost form a conurbation which stretches all the way to London. However growth which would lead to this is prevented by the Metropolitan Green Belt although Southend and Basildon are close to becoming one urban sprawl. It has a small airport. It became a city in 2022 in tribute after one of the local MPs, who had been campaigning for city status, was murdered.
  • St Albans, Hertfordshire (E) — Typically considered an ideal city for high-income London commuters, since it's just thirty minutes from London, but it's also quite rural. Property prices are notoriously high, which means that in Monopoly variants using cities it occupies the 'Mayfair' space (i.e. the most expensive — for Americans, it's equivalent to the Boardwalk). This makes it the British equivalent of suburbia. Has a high number of pubs, but a fair amount of history. It was named after a Christian martyr who was executed by the Romans. The city also saw two battles occur during the Wars of the Roses.
  • Swindon, Wiltshire (SW) — Former railway town and the gateway to The West Country. The town expanded rapidly in the mid twentieth century but was never officially a new town. Generally regarded as something of a dump and, for this reason, the town is often used as a punchline by comedians. Efforts to change this reputation have failed miserably, with the town being voted the worst place to live in Britain. Swindon is famous for its "Magic Roundabout," which is a series of mini roundabouts surrounding a larger roundabout which is just as dizzying as it sounds, and for signposts that manage not to give you any idea as to where you are meant to be going. Birthplace of Billie Piper.
  • Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent (SE) — A spa town in Kent to the south of London, it's seen as the epitome of the middle class, conservative and Conservative values, as in "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells". Periodically the local newspaper leads a strenuous but doomed-to-failure attempt to deny and shed the "Disgusted of..." stereotype. Not to be confused with Tonbridge note  which is a separate large town also in Kent but four miles away.
  • Watford, Hertfordshire (E) — former industrial town (paper mills, print works, breweries), now the home of the headquarters of various big companies and an occasional international conference venue thanks to its proximity to, and good transport links with, London. Its location (just) within the M25 sometimes leads to it being referred to as (or assumed to be) a suburb of London. Home town of Geri Halliwell, Philip Glenister and heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua, as well as a football team that used to be owned by Elton John.

East Anglia

  • Cambridge, Cambridgeshire (E) — A famous university city known primarily for having one of the top ranked universities in the world, and having Cambridge University take part in an annual boat race against Oxford University.
  • Ely, Cambridgeshire (E) — One of the UK's smaller cities falling between Cambridge and Kings Lynn, it's small size stems from being surrounded by the fens for centuries prior to drainage. Known for its cathedral with its octaconal towers and being one of the main hold outs against the Norman conquest.
  • Felixstowe, Suffolk (E) — A seaside town with a small tourist industry. However, its main claim to fame is England's largest container port, which at this point is larger in area than the town itself. The "Independent state" of Sealand lies nine miles off the coast.
  • Ipswich, Suffolk (E) — The largest town in Suffolk. It gained nationwide notoriety in 2006 when five prostitutes were murdered in the town. Birthplace of Thomas Wolsey; Ed Sheeran also grew up in the local area. Has a football team that was once great, but is now to football what the Chudley Cannons are to Quidditch. Has a long rivalry with Norwich in football. Not to be confused with the other Ipswich in the former penal colony, or the ones on the other side of the pond. Saw a massive building program to redevelop its disused docks in the mid-2000s, which promptly collapsed when the 2008 crisis hit. This resulted in two tower blocks being left unfinished: The Mill, which, while the tallest building in East Anglia, is two-thirds empty; and the "Winerack", the skeleton of another tower that sat unfinished for a decade. The latter was finally finished in 2019; the new developer showed a sense of humour by adopting the long used nickname as its designation. Sadly, the Mill remains unfinished and is decaying badly (largely because nobody knows who actually owns the wretched thing). Ipswich is also home to the UK's largest agricultural export port, based around Cliff Quay, down the river from the old docks.
  • Woodbridge, Suffolk (E) — A small town just outside Ipswich, probably "just" far enough away to avoid being reduced to a mere suburb of the latter. Located on the River Deben, its claims to fame include one of the last working tide mills in the country, and the nearby Sutton Hoo site where a vast Saxon treasure was unearthed.
  • Aldeburgh, Suffolk (E) — A tiny seaside town northeast of Woodbridge, has two of the best fish and chip shops in the country, a strange sculpture of a scallop and Sizewell Nuclear Power station just up the road, and an annual Classical Music festival founded by Benjamin Britten. Used to be a massive port and boat building centre, but after the local river silted up, the population collapsed. Once elected two MPs to Parliament until it was realised there were so few people left the seats were literally being bought and sold. Like most rotten boroughs, it swiftly lost all representation after the 1832 Reform act.
  • Lowestoft, Suffolk (E) — A former fishing port and a seaside town that is the most easterly point in the UK. Has two piers, some very nice beaches, a museum ship, Pleasurewood Hills amusement park and a Bird's Eye frozen food factory. Currently a centre of renewable energy and support for the wind farms off the Suffolk coast.
  • Norwich, Norfolk (E) — Home of two large shopping centres, many music venues and a football team that generally challenges for promotion to the English Premier League, which it then clings onto by the tips of its fingers. Birthplace of Stephen Fry, and Alan Partridge. It is said to be one of the few areas of England where the midwife is obliged to discreetly ask the new mother if the father is a blood relative. (Another is apparently Fred West's Gloucestershire.)
  • King's Lynn, Norfolk (E) — Once a Hanseatic town, now a sleepy port and service town for the resorts on the wash coast. The Queen's Sandringham residence is a few miles up the road.
  • Hunstanton, Norfolk (E) — A small but well regarded resort town on the Wash coast. Notable for being one of the few places in the East of England where the sun sets over the sea (the town actually faces west into the bay of the Wash). There are vast numbers of seals out in the Wash bay, King John's lost treasure might be drowned somewhere nearby and the village of Heacham is just down the coast — literally just down the coast, as the two settlements are now separated by, at most, a couple of fields. In spite of this, Heacham (which likes being a village) has no intention of merging with Hunstanton.
  • Peterborough, Cambridgeshire (E) — Home of close elections, the name of the Daily Mail humour column and second train stop from King's Cross. The gateway to East Anglia, an area of Britain bypassed by the Industrial Revolution, which has no motorways, and which operates in an entirely different time zone.

The West Country

  • Bath, Somerset (SW) — A UNESCO World Heritage site, famous for its Roman baths (hence the name) and Georgian architecture. Used to be a very popular social destination for the upper classes to come and take the waters. Associated with Jane Austen, who lived most of her life there. Ironically enough, for about half a century (until 2006, when a multi million pound spa was built and diverted the naturally thermal waters to it), you couldn't actually take a bath in Bath due to amoeba contamination of the water. The city is very close to Bristol and a green belt prevents the city being subsumed by Bristol's urban sprawl.
  • Berkeley, Gloucestershire (SW) — Possibly one of the most historically important places you have never heard of, Berkeley is a very small town that has a castle where Edward II was murdered, and where Edward Jenner invented the smallpox vaccination in a house around the corner. William Tyndall, who first translated the Bible into English, was from the nearby village of Stinchcombe. A word of warning for the unwary, especially stray American tourists who actually manage to find the place, it pronounced "Bark-lee," not "Berk-lee."
  • Bristol (SW) — Historically in both Gloucestershire and Somerset, Bristol is today both a city and county. Well-known for its involvement with engineering; specifically civil engineering (The Clifton Suspension Bridge) and the aerospace industry, helping to bring us Concorde. Also believed to have one of the most prestigious universities in the UK. Not where ESPN is located, and not to be confused with that Alaskan lady's daughter. In case of invasion during World War II, The BBC built a secret studio in the cliffs near the Suspension Bridge. Setting of Skins, Being Human, CASUAL+Y, Holby City, and Teachers (2001), and the BBC has a studio complex there, which is famous for its wildlife documentaries. Origin of trip-hop music, Aardman Animations of Wallace & Gromit fame. Also home of the Bristol Stool Chart, a diagnostic guide to identifying digestive ailments and alimentary health from the observed quality and consistency of faeces (there are seven medically recognised varieties of turd) is not thought to be named after the city. Native Bristolians may disagree.
  • Cheltenham, Gloucestershire (SW) — The biggest town in Gloucestershire, Cheltenham is on the edge of the Cotswolds, and has a reputation as being quite snooty. Cheltenham is also known for being the home of GCHQ (that's Government Communications Headquarters, officially, although some people refer to the staff as the Gnomes of Cheltenham) in a hilariously unsubtle building known as "the Doughnut" for obvious reasons. note  Cheltenham is also known for horse racing - there are meets throughout the year but the most famous is the Cheltenham Festival, which tends to attract at least a couple of members of the Royal Family and usually takes place in the second week of March. As such, there tends to be a race on St. Patrick's Day, often the Gold Cup Day. Drunken Irishmen in town drowning their sorrows/spending all their winnings is best avoided by pretty much everyone who lives in the area.
  • Cirencester, Gloucestershire (SW) — Market town located in the east of the county and the de facto capital of the Cotswolds. Was actually the second most important town in Britain in Roman times (the local joke is that you can't even do gardening there without digging up something Roman), and now home of the Royal Agricultural College. The town name is actually spoken exactly how it's spelt. note 
  • Exeter, Devon (SW) — Historical city in the rural South West of England, known for its rather nice cathedral, well regarded university and being the site of the Met Office, the British national weather service. Also the childhood home of comedian Tommy Cooper and Chris Martin of Coldplay.
  • Glastonbury, Somerset (SW) — Stereotyped as being very religious — legend has it that Jesus' tomb was there, apparently Joseph of Arimathea visited once, and planted a Thorn bush. It is also the alleged burial place of King Arthurnote  and it suspected to be the Isle of Avalon from the stories. However, for all its religious associations, most of the shops in the town sell stuff more related with New Age beliefs. Best known for Glastonbury music festival, six miles out of the town.
  • Gloucester, Gloucestershire (SW) — The only city in Gloucestershire, and is only separated from Cheltenham by some suburbs, a strip of green belt land, and a small airport. Not as posh as its neighbour, Gloucester has a medieval Cathedral where Edward II is buried, having been murdered in nearby Berkeley Castle, which was also used for filming in the Harry Potter movies, a rugby team that can't decide whether they are good or rubbish, and not a lot else. Was also home to Fred and Rose West, one of the most infamous serial killing couples in UK history (probably second only to The Moors Murderers), though the local tourist board don't like to advertise that fact.
  • Plymouth, Devon (SW) — Largest town in Devon and near the border with Cornwall. The Pilgrims' last port of call before crossing the Atlantic. They only called in here to repair storm damage after setting sail from Southampton.
  • Stroud, Gloucestershire (SW) — A medium sized market town that was declared to be the best place to live in the UK by The Times newspaper, who had clearly never been there, in 2021. The town itself has a reputation for having a "hippy" vibe to it, with lots of vegan cafes and alternative shops. It also has one of the largest Farmer markets in the West Country. The surrounding villages are popular with celebrities due to Stroud having a direct train to London. They also have quite a few literature links - author Jilly Cooper lives in nearby Bisley,note  and Laurie Lee's book Cider with Rosie (which has been adapted for TV twice) recalled his childhood in Slad, a small village about two miles away from Stroud town centre.
  • Torquay, Devon (SW) — A large old seaside resort town in Devon. The setting of Fawlty Towers, and the birthplace of Agatha Christie.
  • Truro, Cornwall (SW) — The only city in Cornwall, and its de facto capital (The county council is based there, however the Criminal court is based in Bodmin, twenty miles to the north). Has a cathedral, and a nice high street.
  • Wells, Somerset (SW) — One of the smallest cities in England with a population hovering around the 10,000 mark, Wells is best known for its historic centre, cathedral, the Bishop palace, and the Wookey Hole caves to the north. The film Hot Fuzz was filmed in the city, though under the guise of Sandford.
  • Weston-super-Mare, Somerset (SW) — Holiday resort town on the North Somerset coast. Has a long sandy beach, and a pier, but rarely any sea, as the tide takes it over to Wales for most of the day, leaving behind quicksand where there should be water, and thus, is often referred to as Weston-super-Mud by anybody in the surrounding area. Despite this, it is popular with Brummies in the summer, and people who work in Bristol, due to the house prices being a lot lower there than in the city but it being close enough for the daily commute. Birthplace of John Cleese.
  • Yeovil, Somerset (SW) — This place has a railway station called Yeovil Junction, despite the station's neither being in Yeovil nor a junction. Also notable for formerly being a (rare) Liberal Democrat safe seat and the home of Britain's helicopter-building industry.

The Midlands

  • Birmingham, West Midlands (W Mids) — The "workshop of the world" during the Industrial Revolution. Considered the UK's second city due to its urban population of over 2 million peoplenote , yet nobody's ever heard of it - and those who have tend to think it's a dump. The other Birmingham (in Alabama) was named after this one. In Victorian-era detective stories, a favorite way for the criminal to get another character temporarily (and harmlessly) out of the way was to send them off to Birmingham on some wild goose chase or another. Whereas nowadays a train from London to Birmingham takes an hour and a half (and an even faster line is being planned, though some Londoners can't see why), back then it took up most of the day to get there. Birthplace of Ozzy Osbourne, Lenny Henry, Duran Duran, The Moody Blues, the Electric Light Orchestra, UB40 and members of Slade.
    • Warhammer 40,000 has a planet named Birmingham. One wonders about the designer's opinion of the actual city...
      Birmingham is also known as the Black Planet, as it receives almost no visible light from its system's sun. As a result, the planet receives few visitors, and its inhabitants have become linguistically and culturally isolated. Its technology is primitive compared to the rest of the Imperium, as the musket is still in use among the natives.
  • Corby, Northamptonshire (E Mids) — A medium-sized town in Northamptonshire. Only notable for being the being home to a large number of Scottish migrant workers which earnt the town the nickname Little Scotland, also according to The Other Wiki the people there speak with an almost Glaswegian accent. Has memetic status as a Wretched Hive locally, and its inhabitants are the Butt Monkeys of the rest of the county for no particularly good reason.
  • Coventry, West Midlands (W Mids) — Home of Lady Godiva. Severely damaged by a German air raid in World War II,note  leading to the city's transformation from an historic cathedral city to the soulless, depressing post-war abomination it is infamous for today (the original cathedral was destroyed in the raid and a new one built next to it. For some reason, a person who is ostracised can be said to have been "sent to Coventry". (Part of Ellis Peters's Brother Cadfael's Penance takes place in Coventry.)
  • Derby, Derbyshire (E Mids) — The largest city in Derbyshire and very close to the border with Nottinghamshire. The town's suburbs also almost run into Nottingham's suburbs. Many of the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines used in the iconic Supermarine Spitfire were made here during WWII, and Rolls-Royce still makes plane and submarine engines here today. The Bombardier factory here is in danger of closing due to a government decision to award a massive contract to another country instead.
  • Grimsby, Lincolnshire (Yorks & Humber) — A "grim" town in Lincolnshire, formerly along with Hull and Scunthorpe was in the county of Humberside which was abolished in 1996 although there is still a Humberside police force. The town was once an important port but has not grown very much since the 1930s. The town neighbours the old seaside resort of Cleethorpes which is connected to Grimsby by urban sprawl. The movie Grimsby is (unsurprisingly) set in the town.
  • Leicester, Leicestershire (E Mids) — Pronounced "less-tuh". Has two universities and apparently the first Tesco outside London was opened here. Also has the two tallest skyscrapers in the entire East Midlands region (a rather underwhelming 84 metres and 82 metres high). A market town-turned-big city thanks to the Industrial Revolution. Until recently, Leicester was most famous (or infamous) for its large South Asian immigrant population (around 30%) and has been called "The largest Indian settlement west of Mumbai". As of 2016, this has been eclipsed by the astounding rise of the local football team, Leicester City, to prominence - at the end of the 2014/15 season, they narrowly avoided relegation from the Premier League, then went on to win the league in 2015/16, despite being given 5000/1 odds of doing so. Seeing as how Association Football fans love an underdog as much as anyone, the majority of fans of teams not in direct contention for the title were cheering them on. Also famous for Walker's crisps, ex-football player turned Match of the Day pundit Gary Lineker (who regularly features in adverts for Walker's crisps), and the Adrian Mole series.
  • Lincoln, Lincolnshire (E Mids) — Somewhat situated in geographical limbo, being part of the East Midlands but close to Yorkshire and East Anglia, Lincoln is too far north to be in the south and too far south to be in the north. Inhabited since Roman times and known for its magnificent cathedral, the third biggest in the country and once the tallest building in the world. Birthplace of Jim Broadbent, and nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln.
  • Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire (E Mids) — Medium sized town in Nottinghamshire, although close to Lincolnshire. Mostly just called Newark unless talking to Americans. Known for being one of, if not the last, Royalist towns to surrender during the Civil War. A few hundred years earlier King John died in the castle (which is now little more than a ruin).
  • Nottingham, Nottinghamshire (E Mids) — Home of Games Workshop (they have a museum there), the origin of Robin Hood. Has a bad reputation for crime, mainly because the City Council's borders only contain the inner city parts; some of the city's suburbs outside the border are among the safest in the country. The biggest city in the (otherwise unremarkable) East Midlands region, it's actually the eighth biggest city in England, but its City Council's nonsensical borders relegate it to mid-20th in official lists. Matt Smith (the eleventh Doctor on Doctor Who) was born here. So were legendary British ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, of "Torvill and Dean's 'Bolero'" famenote . Also home to two historic Association Football teams: Notts County, the world's oldest professional football club, and Nottingham Forest, winners of back-to-back European Cups (the modern-day UEFA Champions League) in 1979 and 1980 under Brian Clough.
  • Northampton, Northamptonshire (E Mids) — Alan Moore lives here. His first prose novel Voice in the Fire is a fictional history of the town. (Stick to his comics.) Close to the intersection of the M6 and the M1, making it possible to get to anywhere in the UK from here, and neighbouring town Daventry is a favoured spot for freight headquarters. It's the size of the city without actually being one.
    • Northampton is the location of the shoe factory in Kinky Boots (and the actual location of the real "Kinky Boots" company, too)
  • Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire (Yorks & Humber) — A large town in North Lincolnshire. Has a reputation as an industrial town and unsurprisingly the constituency it's in elects a Labour MP. Namesake of the Scunthorpe Problem. Also former British PM David Cameron's wife was brought up on an estate (as in, a big posh mansion, not a Council Estate) not too far from the town.
  • Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire (W Mids) — Situated in the North Midlands (an almost meaningless geographic term even within England) and also known as 'The Potteries'. These days most cheap pottery is imported rather than made here so it now does 'ceramic technology'. For most people this just means that if your toilet isn't made of plastic it probably came from Stoke. Technically a conurbation of six towns rolled into one another (excluding Newcastle-under-Lyme which opted to retain its independence but is with the city's urban sprawl), but with each of them attempting to maintain their own identity (and not doing very well). The result is a fairly disjointed and schizophrenic city, with local government dominated by smaller sub-local issues and the council run by a three main party coalition to keep the crazies out (the city was a significant BNP target in elections until the BNP went extinct, and other parties of similar ilk have taken their place). Take That (Band)'s Robbie Williams is perhaps the most famous person to come out of Stoke-on-Trent, alongside Motörhead's Lemmy. The local council refused a petition to erect a statue of the hard-living bewarted rocker, as this was not the sort of local-boy-made-bad that they wanted to acknowledge.
    • Also famous for Stoke City, the local Association Football team which until very recently had a reputation for Unnecessary Roughness and long ball tactics. While these were unpopular with the fans of almost every other team, they successfully established Stoke in the English Premier League, and under manager Mark Hughes, that physicality is fading away to be replaced by a more cultured team with a baffling number of former Barcelona players and starring 5'6" former Bayern Munich and Inter Milan midfielder Xherdan 'the Magic Dwarf' Shaqiri. Ironically, this team ended up being relegated, and to add insult to injury, most of the stars went on to enjoy great success at other clubs (Shaqiri, for example, has won the UEFA Champions League and English Premier League with Liverpool). However, due to the shape of the Britannia stadium, the state of the pitch and the local weather, the inevitable question asked of any skilful player, up to and including Lionel Messi, is, 'but could he do it on a cold, rainy night in Stoke?'
  • Wolverhampton, West Midlands (W Mids) — A large suburb of Birmingham, one of the "Millennium Cities" that was granted its status in the year 2000 - not particularly city sized just qualifying as a large town but undergoing a period of great growth since its promotion to city. Has two cathedral sized churches, one officially classified as a "collegiate church".

Yorkshire

  • Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire (Yorks & Humber) — The largest fishing town in the county and having the second largest town population wise in the county after Kingston Upon Hull, Bridlington is also home to different tourist attractions including Sewerby Hall, Bempton Cliffs and other amenities that provide tourism for the large fishing community. Bridlington is also known for being the Lobster Capital of Europe. Finally the old town in Bridlington was used as the setting for the 2016 film adaption of Dad's Army.
  • Bradford, West Yorkshire (Yorks & Humber) — Half of the Leeds-Bradford conurbation, it has a 22% South Asian population, which gets it a reputation for curry but also terrorism. Includes the Ilkley Moor area, best known for the unofficial anthem of Yorkshire "On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at" (On Ilkley Moor without a hat). Tropers may be interested to know it is the home of Britain's official National Media Museum (formerly the Museum of Photography, Film, and Television), with a large collection of film and TV memorabilia, and it has the only Cinerama cinema outside of the US.
  • Doncaster, South Yorkshire (Yorks & Humber) — A city of about 160,000 which impatiently waited to become a city from 1300 AD until its wish was granted in 2022. Primarily known for its St Leger Stakes horse race and building steam locomotives. Has an airport named after Robin Hood, thanks to some modern historians arguing the outlaw was actually from Barnsdale rather than Sherwood (This has still been unpopular with the locals, who would have preferred it to be named after Danian heroic pilot Douglas Bader, and believe the name was chosen because foreigners are morons). Birthplace of Jeremy Clarkson, Dame Diana Rigg, and home of BRIAN BLESSED and (by sheer coincidence) the UK's largest university for the hearing impaired.
  • Emley, West Yorkshire (Yorks & Humber) — a fairly unimportant little town except for one thing, the local TV/radio transmitter, which is also the tallest freestanding structure in the UK. The distinctive concrete tower was constructed in the late 1960s following the old tower dramatically collapsing amid a severe wind storm (lots of ice had built up on the tower; the current one was designed specifically to prevent this from happening again).
  • Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire (Yorks & Humber) — A large industrial city on the Humber Estuary (North Coast) and by far the largest settlement in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The city was badly effected during the Blitz and it used to have a large fishing & ship-building industry which was heavily affected by the Anglo-Icelandic Cod Wars in the 1970s. Dockyard where HMS Bounty was built. Universally known as 'Ull. Only the City Council uses the full formal name for the city although Kingston turns up in the names of local businesses. Being the 'King's Town' is ironic anyway, as the English Civil War kicked off when the city's governor slammed the gates in the face of Charles I and his entourage. The city is quite proud of this and one pub features 'The Plotting Parlour' where the decision was allegedly made. The city is also proud of being the hometown of slavery abolitionist William Wilberforce. Nowadays more famous for its three sports teams - Hull City in (association) football, and Hull FC and Hull Kingston Rovers in rugby league. Famous for having the only public telephone service outside of British Telecom. (It's called Kingston Communications) Mentioned in Only Fools and Horses - "What the bloody hell am I doing in Hull?" and in Blackadder Goes Forth's episode "General Hospital":
    Blackadder: Went to one of the great universities, I suppose. Oxford... Cambridge... Hull.
  • Leeds, West Yorkshire (Yorks & Humber) — A major technology centre, one half of the Leeds-Bradford conurbation and the fourth biggest city in England. Has a big university that sports the 3rd longest corridor in Europe running through its Earth & Environment, Maths, Physics and Computer Science departments. Home of the formerly wildly successful Leeds United (one set of ill-advised financial dealings later, they were reduced to their current status of ongoing misery), Leeds Rhinos, and Headingley cricket ground, a regular Test venue. Birthplace of Howard Moon and Harold "Ox" Oxley. Oh, also Malcolm McDowell.
  • Sheffield, South Yorkshire (Yorks & Humber) — Home of The Full Monty,The History Boys, the 'World' snooker championship, and the invention of stainless steel. Once famous for its steel industry which, contrary to popular imagination, is still there, it's just far more specialized and not employing nearly as many people as it once did. And don't mention the time Sheffield Forgemasters was inadvertently involved in making parts for the Iraqi "Supergun". With half a million people, it's England's ninth largest city, and its greenest, if only because it's on the edge of the Pennines and the city boundary includes sparsely populated areas of the Peak District. It's just large enough to be cosmopolitan; just small enough to be overlooked by the rest of the country. It can seem much bigger to outsiders because, unlike in Manchester there's no, "Greater Sheffield" designation to suggest that the city is effectively contiguous with the towns of Barnsley in the North, Rotherham in the east, and Chesterfield in the South. Michael Palin, Sean Bean, Def Leppard and the Arctic Monkeys hail from there. People from Sheffield are sometimes called "Dee-Doughs" or "Dee-Dahs" due to pronouncing th as d (remember that Yorkshire still uses thee as a common term of address). It's also just about the biggest city in the world that doesn't have an airport (although "Robin Hood"/Finningley is effectively the airport even if it's technically in Doncaster).
  • York, North Yorkshire (Yorks & Humber) — A pretty medieval city in Yorkshire, best known for its enormous cathedral (York Minster), railways, chocolate factories (KitKats, Smarties and Polos originated here, among others), city walls, proliferation of pubs and horse-racing. King George VI once remarked that "the history of York is the history of England." He was Duke of York at the time, so he was probably just trying to find something nice to say. The place has been ruled by the Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans throughout its past, so he did have a point - the Romans called it 'Eboracum', and company names such as 'Ebor Taxis' or 'Ebor Pizza' are still common.
    • In fact it's gone through more names than probably any other place in Britain - successive waves of invaders mispronouncing the local name saw it move between the Latin Eboracum, the Brythonic/Welsh Ebrauc, the Anglo-Saxon Eoforwic, and the Danish Jorvik before settling as York. Hordes of tourists in the summer, but manages to stay a pleasant place to live and work. Home to the Church of England's other Archbishop.
    • York (or rather Eboracum) is where the Roman Emperor Constantine grew up (although he was born in the Balkans) and where he proclaimed himself Emperor. This means he is the city's second favourite historical thing to commemorate after the Vikings.
    • Contrary to popular belief, old York has nothing to do with New York; New York was named after a person, the Duke of York (later James II), not the city. Given the later history of New York in the American Revolution, it's Hilarious in Hindsight that it was named for a king that the British themselves overthrew in a revolution. The lack of similarity between small, picturesque York and the great metropolis of New York is sometimes pointed out, for example by Dave Gorman: "New York has a lot more Americans than old York, although if you've ever been in old York city centre in the summer this may be hard to believe".
    • York is infamous as one of - if not the most - regularly flooded cities in England; if Britain is suffering widespread flooding (as it has done recently) expect pictures of the River Ouse (especially the seemingly perennially waterlogged King's Arms pub) to turn up on the news. The city now has various flood defences, but severe weather will usually send the locals running for the sandbags.
    • The setting for Eternal Law.

The North West

  • Aughton, Lancashire (NW) — A civil parish in West Lancashire. If it is known for anything, it is for Argleton; a non-existent settlement supposedly between the A59 and the Town Green railway station that somehow appeared on Google Maps in 2008.
  • Blackburn, Lancashire (NW) — One of the first industrialised towns and a former mill town. The town has a cathedral but is not a city and like many former mill towns is home to a large Muslim population, the largest in percentage terms outside London. Famous for having four thousand holes in its roads in 1967. Not exactly the birthplace of football but the place from which teams of working class men first took on and beat wealthy amateurs (the sort who would call it "Soccer") in The FA Cup bringing the game to the people.
  • Blackpool, Lancashire (NW) — The archetypal northern seaside resort town. A very popular tourist destination (over 10 million visit the town a year) unfortunately it is also very deprived (for England) in places. [1] The setting for Reserved for the Cat and (of course) Blackpool. Its football team spent some years in the Premiership under the management of the ever popular Ian Holloway.
  • Carnforth, Lancashire (NW) — Market town and railway junction near Lancaster. Best known for its railway station, where the station scenes of Brief Encounter were filmed.
  • Chester, Cheshire (NW) — County town for the county of Cheshire.note  Originally a Roman garrison town with a rich architectural heritage extending from Roman times through the middle ages to Victorian times. Notable for The Rows, a complex of medieval buildings still in use today as shops. The city sits on the Welsh border and some of its suburbs lie across the border in the Welsh county of Flintshire. In fact, the border between England and Wales runs right down Boundary Lane, where houses on the left side are in Flintshire and Wales while their neighbours opposite are in Cheshire and England.note  Best known in popular culture as the setting for Hollyoaks.
  • Chorley, Lancashire (NW) — A market town in Central Lancashire, between Preston and Bolton. Like many towns of that era its fortune came from production of cotton and coal. Chorley played a key part in the Second World War by being site of the Royal Ordnance Factory which employed 40,000 people at its height. Following postwar industrial decline, Chorley has become more reliant on services and commuting to neighbouring towns and cities for employment. Chorley was designated as part of Central Lancashire New Town, alongside Leyland and Preston, but this was beset by problems and had been wound up by the mid '80s. Referenced frequently in works of Peter Kay, with the initially fictional "Chorley FM", which later became licensed as a real radio station. Famous for its Chorley Cakes, a type of currant-filled pastry.
  • Lancaster, Lancashire (NW) — The capital of Lancashire. Smaller and more laid-back than its supposed rival, York. The seat of Lancaster University and so has a high proportion of students who have a big impact on the city's culture. Has a castle where the Pendle Witches (sort of like the Salem Witches only eighty years earlier and Catholic not Puritan) were tried and hanged. Overlooked by a huge monument known officially as the Ashton Memorial and unofficially as the Taj Mahal of the North.
  • Leyland, Lancashire (NW) — Sister town of Chorley and Preston. Known for the vehicle manufacturer and one-time household name Leyland Motors, which later became the infamous British Leyland. After several mergers and acquisitions Leyland Trucks exists today as a subsidiary of American company Paccar. What once employed the entire town now employs approximately 1,000 people.
  • Liverpool, Merseyside (NW) — Home of The Beatles, Liverpool FC, Bread, Clive Barker and Craig Charles. Oh, and and Everton FC. Locals are called "Liverpudlians", or, more colloquially, "Scousers" (after a local soup called lobscouse). Scousers are stereotyped in media as being argumentative, criminal-minded but lovable at heart and prone to displays of emotion not usually found in Britons. There is a large Irish-descended population in Liverpool, from which both Lennon and McCartney came. Liverpool also has, (perhaps now had) at least three Welsh-language churches, testimony to the input of people from nearby North Wales. This can also be seen in the history of players for both Liverpool FC and Everton FC, with respective club legends Ian Rush and Neville Southall being Welsh. In fact, Welsh regiments of the British Army still find it a rich recruiting area; there used to be a separate Army regiment, the Liverpool Welsh, which has long since been amalgamated into the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2004, and the city was made European Capital of Culture in 2008. As might be guessed, the city is football obsessed, with both teams dominating English football in the 80s (as well as European football, in Liverpool's case). As of 2020, Liverpool are the current Premier League champions, ending a 30 year wait for the title in style. Cue much gloating.
    • Also, the entire city despises the Sun newspaper and has since the Hillsborough Disaster of the 1989 and the Sun's infamous 'The Truth' front page story in which they alleged a number of disgusting things about the Liverpool fans. To this day, despite several grovelling apologies of dubious sincerity, The Sun isn't bought anywhere within the Mersey area. You quite literally cannot even give it away. This is not an exaggeration - people have tried. Since then, Liverpool FC have banned the paper and its journalists from their premises, a ban they take very seriously (prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the English Football Association offered Liverpool the chance to hold a potentially lucrative warm-up game for Euro 2020 at Anfield. The response was flat refusal). Everton have since joined them, after a Sun columnist (who was also the editor behind 'The Truth' headline) compared a player of Nigerian descent note  to a gorilla.
  • Manchester, Greater Manchester (NW) — Setting for Life on Mars, Fresh Meat and Shameless (UK), and (more or less) where the Ninth Doctor gets his accent. Home of Manchester United, where David Beckham played, and also rivals Manchester City. Argues with Birmingham about second city status. The City of Manchester is just the central bit. The whole conurbation (Greater Manchester) is made up of 10 metropolitan boroughs (including one, Salford, which is technically a city in its own right), like a miniature version of One London, 33 Boroughs. These are the City of Manchester, Stockport, Tameside, Oldham, Rochdale, Bury, Bolton, Wigan, City of Salford, and Trafford.
    • Manchester United's ground is in Trafford (hence the name 'Old Trafford'), and Christopher Eccleston's accent is from Salford (though no-one outside the cities would really know the difference). Manchester took over from Liverpool as the music capital of Britain during the 1990s, when its thriving club scene gave it the name "Madchester" note . Waterloo Road is set in Rochdale. Be careful referring to someone from outside the City of Manchester itself as being from Manchester. "Greater Manchester" was created in 1974 in an attempt to create a county which represented most of Manchester's metropolitan area it was brought about by lumping together the bottom right hand corner of Lancashire, the top right hand corner of Cheshire, and little bits on the outside edges from Yorkshire. To this day, a large proportion of the population of Greater Manchester are perpetually confused as to whether they're in Lancashire, Cheshire or Greater Manchester, and many of the residents are adamant to deny Greater Manchester actually exists. People from Stockport (despite the course of the river Mersey and the top of Lancashire Hill marking the time-honoured border between the two counties, which puts the northern half of the town firmly in Lancashire) will deny they are in Manchester and are adamant their town is still in Cheshire. (Indeed, people in the upmarket Stockport suburb of Cheadle deny that they are even in Stockport - despite an unbroken rolling vista of urban development between Edgeley and their suburb, Cheadle people still loudly insist they inhabit a village in Cheshire, or that they don't pay the higher level of income tax just to live in Stockport). And as for the bit around Todmorden, note  dragged unwillingly in from Yorkshire... this is the Alsace-Lorraine of the Pennines, and displaced Yorkshire folk still bang on about it now. Despite this, since it became cool to be Mancunian (primarily due to the music scene i.e. Happy Mondays, Oasis etc., though the football teams might have had something to do with it), many folks from Greater Manchester will simply state they're from Manchester, either for geographic reference (you're always close to the city itself in the county) or just to big themselves up. Many folks with the M postcode consider themselves Mancunian nonetheless, regardless of which borough they live in, although the most ardent of Salfordian would dispute this.
    • Fun fact: Manchester's name ultimately comes from an ancient determination that it sat on a hill that looked like breasts — that is to say, "Manchester" means "Tit City". Making it strange that the name is pretty much just "Man-chest" now, though that's more apt considering how flat the city is.
  • Morecambe, Lancashire (NW) — Seaside resort town with close links to Lancaster. Perhaps most famous for being birthplace of Eric Morecambe, whom a large statue of stands on the seafront.
  • Preston, Lancashire (NW) — Formerly an industrial town, expanded as a new town in the 1970s alongside Leyland and Chorley, with tentative plans to merge the three as a super-town called Central Lancashire. These never came to fruition and in 2002 Preston became a city in its own right. A robotic dog in Wallace & Gromit was named Preston after the city and it was the place where Nick Park (Wallace & Gromit's creator) was born. Also the birthplace of former cricket star and current Top Gear presenter Freddie Flintoff.
  • Warrington, Cheshire (NW) — Directly in between Liverpool and Manchester, Warrington is officially the largest town in Cheshire. Do NOT ask whether or not it ought to be a city. Used to be part of Lancashire (and indeed, you will occasionally still find references to Warrington, Lancashire). Best known for its rugby team, the Warrington Wolves, and to non-rugby fans for housing the UK's first IKEA. Also includes Lymm, who will often insist vociferously that it doesn't include them at all.
  • Wigan, Greater Manchester (NW) — It's home to a former Premiership football club, though the Rugby League team is better supported and more successful, Heinz Baked Beans, a major shopping complex and the World Pie Eating Championships. Formerly part of Lancashire, it became part of Greater Manchester as one of the ten boroughs in 1974. It's also the setting for the Wallace & Gromit animations.

The Far North

  • Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria (NW) — Decayed industrial town in the bit of Cumbria that used to be in Lancashire (and that many argue still is). Founded out of nothing but a tiny fishing hamlet in the nineteenth century by a railway pioneer who visualised it as a New Liverpool, a place from which you'd travel to New York. It didn't catch on. It did have the world's largest iron and steel works for a while, and a major shipyard, but the steelworks closed in the 1970s and shipyard much reduced and dependent on building nuclear submarines. The real town is the fictional mainland terminus for the Island of Sodor's railways in The Railway Series and Thomas & Friends
    • The most northerly town in the United States was not named after Barrow. Before it was renamed in 2016 to Utqiaġvik, the name the local Iñupiat people have always used, it was however named after Sir John Barrow, who was born in the nearby small town of Ulverston, which is also the birthplace of Stan Laurel.
  • Carlisle, Cumbria (NW) — The capital or county town of Cumbria (a county created in 1974 out of the ancient counties of Cumberland and Westmorland, a big chunk of Lancashire and some bits shaved off Yorkshire to make the edges straight enough to fit in a London bureaucrat's filing cabinet) very close to the border with Scotland (and, no, it's not in Wales) so close in fact the city changed hands several times in the Middle Ages. Best known as an important railway junction and for Carr's Water Biscuits, floods and Eddie Stobart lorries. Technically, Carlisle was between 1974 and 2023 the UK's largest city (by area) as the City Council governed an area of 402 square miles though most of the district was rural and even mountainous and larger than some English counties.
  • Darlington, County Durham (NE) — A large town just north of the border between Yorkshire and County Durham, and - along with Stockton - the site of the world's first passenger railway line. Still a major point on the main East Coast railway line, and has an outpost of the National Railway Museum (the main part is in York).
  • Durham, County Durham (NE) — The famous Cathedral featured in the Harry Potter films as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Also, the Cathedral and Castle are World Heritage sites. Roger Whittaker sang "I'm Gonna Leave Old Durham Town", though in fact he never lived there. Bill Bryson was once chancellor of its University, possibly because he described the town in print as "perfect" and recommended that the reader "go there at once, take my car".
  • Hartlepool, County Durham (NE) — A port town in the north-east of England. Legend has it that they once hung a monkey as a French spy, leading to the nickname "Monkey Hangers". This is all anyone knows about Hartlepool. Their lower-league football team has "H'Angus the Monkey" as its mascot, and one of its previous occupants is now famously the mayor. Peter Mandelson was MP for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004 (when he was shunted to Brussels). Home of Soccer Saturday frontman Jeff Stelling.
  • Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear (NE) — Home of Geordies. Historically a major shipbuilding location, but has suffered a long decline. The locals are passionate about their local side Newcastle United, who were contenders at the top end of the Premier League table as recently as 2004. In recent years, they have suffered the indignity of relegation (to much mockery) and even after returning to the Premier League, aside from one 5th place finish in 2012, they mostly lurked at the bottom end of the table for the rest of the decade. After a group led by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund bought the club in 2021 (amid much controversy), things started looking up, with United making a serious run at Champions League qualification in 2023. Their colours are vertical black and white stripes, leading to jokes about setting off supermarket barcode readers as it's common for the locals to wear football colours at all times - this passion about the club leads to the club's 52,000 seater stadium being full every match of the season, no matter how badly the team are doing. Pronounced "Nyir-CAS-sil", often with a long pause in between the first and second syllables. A major centre of coal-mining since the Middle Ages (though it's declined in recent times) redundant or pointless action is often called "taking coals to Newcastle".
    • Not to be confused with Gateshead - or, rather, the two are not to be confused as being the same city, despite being essentially contiguous. Newcastle occupies the north side of the river, Gateshead the south. The famous car park in Get Carter, for example, isn't in Newcastle, it was in Gateshead. Whereas another scene has a chase across the landmark High Level Bridge,
    • Also not to be confused with Newcastle-under-Lyme, which is in Staffordshire.
  • Sunderland, Tyne and Wear (NE) — Don't call the locals Geordies. They tend to prefer the term Mackem (though some older residents will consider this a slur). As this might imply, there is a big rivalry with Geordies, usually manifesting itself over the football (the Tyne-Wear derby is one of the more violent and hard-fought footballing derbies) but it dates back to before the English Civil War over which the two cities took opposite sides. Mackem is postulated to come from the terms "Mack 'em and tack 'em" (i.e. Make them and take them) as Sunderland was one the biggest shipbuilding town in the world (only become a city in 1992, after the Shipyards decline) and would make the ships that Newcastle would take for fitting out. Currently home to a University which was a former polytechnic and that decent Pharmacology and IT departments, the National Glass Centre, a museum dedicated to glass blowing and glass manufacture, and St. Peter's Church in Monkewearmouth, parts of which date from A.D. 674-675 and which was the birth parish of the Venerable Bede.
  • Teesside, North Yorkshire/County Durham (NE) — A large conurbation in the North East consisting of a number of smaller towns including Middlesbrough, Redcar and Stockton-on-Tees. It lies on the boundary between North Yorkshire and County Durham. The area has tried to be rebranded (by New Labour) as Tees Valley but everyone in Teesside thinks that name is shit and for poofs note  so they never use it. Sometimes Hartlepool and Darlington are included in the definition for Teesside, but that is controversial.
  • Whitehaven, Cumbria (NW) — A former coal-mining town and port. When the grime was cleaned off it in the 1970s onward it was discovered to have quite a lot of rather nice Georgian buildings and so had an outbreak of well-heeled young people and trendy bars around the harbour. Mostly notable for being the target of the last attempted invasion of Britain, by John Paul Jones (no, not that one). He failed, though some might say he was welcome to it.

    Wales 
  • Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire — Often claiming to be the oldest town in Wales, Carmarthen is the main town within the shire of Carmarthenshire. Often features in mythology as the Hometown of Merlin.
  • Barry (Barry Island), Vale of Glamorgan — A seaside town that's no longer actually an island (due to the docks being built there in the 1880s) about ten miles south of Cardiff. One of the two settings of Gavin & Stacey. It also has the dubious honour of being the birthplace and home of the parents Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
    • Note that the town is called Barry, not Barry Island which is just a district of Barry, which makes it a bit like calling London Hammersmith. Calling Barry “Barry Island” is an easy way to annoy the 97% of residents who don't live on the island.
      • Also the setting of series 3 and 4 of Being Human, after the protagonists flee Bristol.
  • Cardiff — Capital of Wales. Home to the current Doctor Who franchise (though for series 4, Torchwood split its filming between here and Los Angeles), the Welsh Assembly and the Millennium Stadium. The latter, which dominates the city skyline, doubled for an alien vault in Utah. Also serves as the fictional setting for Torchwood's first three series.
    • Very much a student city (students make up approximately a quarter of the city's population), with the Cathays and Roath areas just outside the centre of the city being dominated by the two campuses of Cardiff University, as well as Cardiff Metropolitan University and the University of South Wales note  and their related accommodation. As a result of this, food and entertainment tend to be pretty cheap and fairly high quality. That said, for much the same reason, drunken students are an occupational hazard.
  • Newport — A city often overlooked in media due to being only 15 miles from Cardiff, Newport is a city which used to be a large contributor to the Welsh steel industry. Due to the decline of the industry, Newport has been dying down quite a lot now. Its most iconic landmark would be its transporter bridge, which is one of only 12 that are still in use today.
  • Swansea — A seaside city to the West of Cardiff, at the end of the M4. Birthplace of Russell T. Davies and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and home of the DVLA.note 
  • Wrexham — A large town that became a city in September 2022, considered to be the "Capital of North Wales". The locals still consider it a "town". Burial place of Elihu Yale, the guy who Yale University was named after and who the local universitynote  might have been named after, if Yale University hadn't complained and got legal. Has strong connections with the city of Liverpool and a strong rivalry with closest city, Chester. Nowadays, it's most famous for its football team (which plays in the English league system despite its Welsh location), one of the world's oldest professional clubs and now owned by Hollywood stars Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds. The series Welcome to Wrexham chronicles their ownership of the team.note 
  • Aberystwyth, Ceredigion — A small town on the west coast of Wales, it's in the centre of Wales so is often seen as some sort of link between the North (Y Gogledd) and the South. Other than that it's known for its university which is one of the oldest in Wales (not the oldest, as some students claim; that title belongs to the Lampeter campus of the University of Wales, Trinity St Davids, which has been around since 1822), the ruins of a castle and a small theme park up a cliff. Often joked about being "Birmingham on Sea" for the amount of "Brummie" tourists that come to the town in the summer or move here permanently. The setting of the Aberystwyth Noir novels by Malcom Pryce, although Pryce's Aberystwyth is very different from the real one. Oh, and it's considered to be relatively safe if there is a nuclear attack on the UK.
  • Merthyr Tydfil — A town in the south of Wales (fourth largest in the country, after Cardiff, Swansea, and Newport). Like a number of Welsh valley towns it is most notable for the decline and closure of the area's coalmines and once booming iron and steel industries. note  This town is arguably the worst affected because it is the most deprived. Many people there are unemployed and 30% of the population suffer from limiting long term illness. It also has the lowest life expectancy in Wales. In 2006 Channel 4 named it the 3rd worst place to live in the UK and the town was the smallest place on the list. However, Merthyr is very close to a national park and its status as a Crapsack Town is often disputed. Also serves as a punchline in jokes owing to its name being an Inherently Funny Word.
  • Portmeirion, Gwynedd — A village in North Wales, built in the style of an Italian village. If you've ever seen an episode of The Prisoner, you've seen Portmeirion, where it plays the role of The Village. Alternatively, you might have seen it doubling for Renaissance Italy in Doctor Who's The Masque of Mandragora.
  • Machynlleth, Powys — A market town in central Wales. Also a trap for the unwary visitor to this Welsh-speaking area – it looks innocuous compared to many Welsh names but it's actually a real stinker to get the non-Welsh tongue around.
  • Llanelli, Carmarthenshire — A seaside market town in west Wales that stereotypically lives, eats, drinks, sleeps and breathes rugby (union), which is to some degree Truth in Television. The traditional local club, Llanelli RFC, claimed many an international scalp during the sport's amateur era, most notably New Zealand's All Blacks in 1972, and is now the primary feeder club to the Scarlets, which compete in the United Rugby Championship that also features sides from Ireland, Italy, Scotland and South Africa. Traditionally a manufacturing centre, especially for tinplate, note  but now with a more service-oriented economy. The area around Llanelli is also one of the main strongholds of the Welsh language; whilst only about 25% of the town speaks Welsh as their first language, it's surrounded by areas where a majority speak the language.
  • Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch, Gwynedd — A village on the north-western island of Anglesey. Its famously long name means "St Mary's Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel Near to the Rapid Whirlpool of St Tysilio of the Red Cave". This name was made up in 1860 for the new railway station as a tourist attraction: before then the village was plain Llanfairpwllgwyngyll. Its other claim to fame is that it hosted the first ever meeting of the British Women's Institute.

    Scotland 

Aberdeen

"Well I was born in Aberdeen, but I overcame that hurdle."
—"Dennis Law", Only an Excuse?

The Granite City, and thus has higher than average background radiation. Formerly an important fishing and shipbuilding town, the existing huge docks became very useful with the discovery of North Sea Oil in the 1970s. Oil is a big deal here: Aberdeen has the busiest heliport in the world to ferry workers to the rigs and back. Incredibly grey, what with all the granite combined with the generally dull weather. Also, it's the heroin capital of Western Europe, although this isn't really noticeable or prevalent outside of the bad areas.

Today, with all these rich oil executives running the place, everything costs a bloody fortune - especially housing.

Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire have their own quite distinct local Scots dialect, known as Doric. If one considers Scots as one step removed from "Standard English", then Doric is as far removed again from Scots - so someone fluent in Scots can generally follow it, but it's somewhat opaque to those only familiar with "the Queen's English". Visitors need have no fear though, as everyone there speaks the latter as well.

Dunblane, Stirling, and Falkirk

Three towns in the central belt, served by the M9 motorway from Edinburgh. Dunblane is famous for two things: tennis and the Dunblane School Massacre, in which an unhinged gunman marched into Dunblane Primary School and killed 16 children and a teacher before committing suicide. The resulting public outcry forced the government to effectively ban all handgun ownership in Britain. It is also the hometown of British tennis number one Andy Murray, who was present at the school during the massacre.

Dundee

A place almost as cheery in description as Aberdeen. While it used to be known for jam, jute, and journalism, the jute industry (which is a type of fibre grown in India and used to make sacking material) sharply declined after the First World War, and the jam industry ended in 1988 when the James Keiller company was sold and moved to Manchester. Journalism is still going strong, however, and Dundee is the home of DC Thomson, most famous for being the publishers of a number of newspapers as well as some of the most popular British comics such as The Beano, The Dandy and Commando. There's a statue of Desperate Dan and his dog in Dundee city centre.

The other thing Dundee is famous for is the Tay Rail Bridge, which was the sight of one of the worst rail disasters in British history. The only reason anyone remembers this is because it's the subject of the world's worst poem, The Tay Bridge Disaster, by William Topaz McGonagall, the world's worst poet.

Oh, and in keeping with Scotland's "bad-thing-capital-of-Europe" tradition, it is the knife-crime, teen pregnancy and STD capital of Europe. This has led other Scots (and some locals) to refer to it as "Scumdee." On a cheerier note, it is the sunniest city in Scotland, and so is also named "Sundee". Also, it has a fruit cake named after it, which is nice if you like fruit cake.

Edinburgh

Capital of Scotland, situated on the Firth of Forth in the East of Scotland. Has the Scottish National Museum, the Scottish National Library, Holyrood Palacenote  and Parknote , a pretty cantilever bridge crossing the Forth, and a very famous castle that dominates the city skylinenote .

Also home to its namesake university, the University of Edinburgh (founded 1582 by King James VI), which is outrageously prestigious and knows it. Unfortunately, its reputation for excellence really is pretty much entirely deserved. The three other universities in the city — Queen Margaret University, Heriot-Watt University, and Edinburgh Napier University — are also quite decent, not that the UofE's partisans are willing to admit it.

The Edinburgh International Festival (a performing arts festival, often known as just 'The Festival') and The Edinburgh Fringe (established as an alternative to the Festival) are held every year in August, and The Fringe is known as the place where aspiring comedians from all over Britain come to make their bones. Also notable in literature for being the home of none other than J. K. Rowling, who wrote the early Harry Potter books in a little cafe on Nicholson Stnote .

Also has possibly the most spectacular Hogmanaynote  festival in the Isles, with bonfires, street performers, and food and beverage carts; many of the downtown streets are made pedestrian-only for the night, and absolutely everyone gets smashing drunk.

The name is pronounced approximately "Eddin-bruh" (although this will vary by accent), not "Edin-burg". Exactly who it was named after is a matter of some controversy; the theory put forward at Edinburgh Castle is that it comes from 'Dun Edin' (spellings vary), meaning 'Fort on the Sloping Ridge'.

Oh, also the home town of Sean Connery.

Has recently ordered a tram system, which has become a byword for pork barrel spending, mismanagement, incompetence and general clusterfrakery. To sum up, Edinburgh council wanted £375 million for a three line tram system. We will now pay £1.2bn for a single line system, plus £228 million interest on a 30-year loan to cover the overspend. Edinburgh did have a tram system, but got rid of it in 1956. People seem to have forgotten why...note 

  • Trainspotting is set here, though the actual town isn't as crappy as portrayed in the novel and film.
  • Iain Rankin's "Rebus" novels are also set in Edinburgh, with attention to authentic detail: particularly tellingly, it is possible to follow Rebus pub crawls in the city.
  • The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is set in an Edinburgh girls' school.
  • Also the setting for Scotland Street, a serial in the Scotsman newspaper, and the Isabel Dalhousie series of cozy mysteries, both by Alexander MacCall Smith.

Glasgow

Forty-six miles to the west of Edinburgh, and quite a bit larger - it is the largest city in Scotland and the third largest in the UK overall, behind Birmingham, and London (though "Greater Manchester" and "Greater Leeds" are larger than "Greater Glasgow" as both contain other large cities such as Bradford and Salford - also, its population is way smaller if you define the city council area as its boundaries). Calls itself "second city of the empire" and was the centre of heavy industry and shipbuilding. Due to being one of only three major cities on the West Coast of the UK (Liverpool and Bristol being the other two) was a major centre of trans-atlantic trade prior to the American revolution, inspiration for the "city blocks" used in US architecture, with all the North-South streets in the centre of town being named after tobacco merchants Hosted the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Was murder capital of Western Europe through the 80s but in 2016 was ranked second (leading many Glaswegians to ask "Who beat us?"
  • Setting for Rab C. Nesbitt.
  • Home town of several well-known Scottish comedians, most notably Billy Connolly.
  • Has the simplest Metro in the entire world, the Glasgow Subway. Local papers insist it is nicknamed "The Clockwork Orange" but this is not a term you will hear locals use. There are two lines. "That way" and "the other way". The other lines were expanded out over time and have become "suburban" rail with one line actually now extending from Edinburgh in the East to the Oban in the West Highlands.

Lerwick, Shetland

The northernmost town in the United Kingdom, being located even further north than the Scandinavian capitals, Helsinki and Saint Petersburg, Lerwick is known for the annual Up Helly Aa fire festival, which is over 100 years old, celebrates the Nordic heritage of Shetland and includes a procession of men dressed as Vikings and the burning of a replica longship. Due to the northerly location of this town, days in the summer have 19 hours of sunshine, while there is less than 6 hours of sunlight in the winter.

Livingston, West Lothian

Another "new town", sometimes dubbed "Scotland's Milton Keynes". Nobody is sure if this is a compliment or not. Famously difficult to navigate for out-of-towners and a complete bastard to navigate for pedestrians. The postwar authorities tried to build it without traffic lights, using roundabouts instead. This has made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered to have been a bad move. Home to the ancient village of Livingston Village, whose inhabitants are displeased at the enormous town built next to them. Home of the mediocre Livingston F.C. The nearby town of Bathgate was the birthplace of David Tennant.

Inverness, Highland

Home town of Karen Gillan. Main city (since 2001) of the Highlands and a key place for bagpiping. Less touristy than one would expect given that it is within very easy reach of both Culloden Moor and Loch Ness, but still hosts a number of B&Bs as it is the seat of tourism for the Highlands and the northernmost major city in Scotland. Sometimes called "Inversneckie", for reasons unfathomable.

  • The setting of Alex Mabon's novels The Lads from the Ferry and War in the Ferry (the Ferry being South Kessock, a district on the Moray Firth which used to have a ferry to the Black Isle).

Paisley, Renfrewshire

Birthplace of Steven Moffat. Also the setting for A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil. Has a bit of trouble with its status - technically, it ticks all the boxes for becoming a "city", but keeps getting turned down for the title, remaining a "town." Formerly a centre of the weaving industry (hence the term "Paisley pattern") and later a popular destination for weekend shopping, Paisley was badly affected when large shopping complexes (or, to use the American term, malls) sprang up nearby, drawing custom away from the town. Usually considered a Glasgow suburb and shares in some of its "tough" reputation .

Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway

Famous for the 1988 "Lockerbie Bombing", when a Pan Am airliner was destroyed above the town by a terrorist bomb. Also has an improbably large Tesco supermarket for a relatively small town, with the word 'Tesco' written on the roof letters large enough to be seen from space. It does have a rather nice Fish and Chip shop just outside the train station. In other ways, it conforms to the stereotype of Scotland, with a disproportionate number of fast food outlets and red sandstone churches dotted across the town.

Tobermory, Argyll and Bute

What's the story in Tobermory? Well, it's a picturesque and colourful seafront town on the Isle of Mull, of which it is the capital. Tobermory has quite an association with British children's TV, as it is the place where the pre-school series Balamory was made, and it also gave its name to one of The Wombles. Unfortunately, it doesn't really have a pink castle; the castle itself is real, but is located near North Berwick east of Edinburgh (and isn't actually pink).

St Andrews, Fife

A pretty and ancient coastal town in Fife, about halfway between Edinburgh and Dundee. At one time it was the seat of an Archbishopric, and effectively the Scottish equivalent of Canterbury, though its cathedral - purported resting place of St Andrew the Apostle - is now a picturesque ruin, having been destroyed during the Protestant Reformation. Now largely known for its medieval university - the oldest in Britain after Oxford and Cambridge, and equally rarefied - and as the effective home of golf. The town is quite literally surrounded by golf courses, and The R&A, which together with the United States Golf Association sets the rules for the sport, is housed next to the 18th green of the most famous of said courses, the Old Course. The Prince and Princess of Wales famously met in the town as students in the early 2000s.

    Northern Ireland 

Belfast

Regional capital. Former industrial powerhouse of the British Empire, but this has declined. Still an aerospace hub through the work of Short Brothers plc. Lots of The Troubles happened here. Also birthplace of the Titanic.

Londonderry/Derry/Stroke City/The Maiden City

Don't start on the name. Best not make the "smell our Derry air" joke, either.
  • And on that note, the melody that "Danny Boy" is most commonly set to is called (variously) "Londonderry Air", "Derry Air", or "Air from County Derry"

Armagh, County Armagh

Home to Sir Jonathan Swift. Known for its Georgian architecture and Northern Ireland's main Plane-arium.

Lisburn, County Antrim/Down and Newry, County Armagh/Down

Became cities in 2003. There were accusations that both were selected to become cities, despite there only supposed to be one city from each part of the UK, so there would be a Protestant City (Lisburn) and a Catholic City (Newry). Lisburn is part of the Belfast commuter belt. Newry is the last town in Northern Ireland before you cross the border on your way to Dublin. Newry is currently experiencing good commercial trade as Southern shoppers hop over the border to take advantage of the good Sterling/Euro exchange rate.
  • Fun related fact: Before Walmart sold the majority stake in its British subsidiary Asda to a British outfit in 2020, one of the five most profitable Walmart locations in the world (in terms of percent margin) was the Asda in the County Fermanagh town of Enniskillen, because of Southern shoppers looking for bargains.

Bangor, County Down

The UK's newest city, with the letters patent granting that status having been issued in November 2022. Not to be confused with the other UK city named Bangor (in Wales) or the city across The Pond in Maine. (It's unknown which of the two British cities gave its name to the one in Maine.) Part of the Belfast commuter belt and a popular seaside resort.

    Other important places 

Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland (NE)

Technically in England, but has passed back and forth between there and Scotland rather a lot in the pastnote , has a Scottish post codenote , and has a football team that plays in the Scottish league system (because Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC is less of a trek away from the city than Plymouth Argyle). One of the Scottish counties (Berwickshire) is even named after the town even though the town is now part of England. An SNP MSPnote  called for it to be returned to Scotland in 2008, but that didn't go very far.
  • There's an old urban legend playing to this indecisiveness that claims that when Britain went to war with Russia in The Crimean War, the actual declaration was "The Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Berwick-upon-Tweed declare war on Russia" or thereabouts; and when peace was declared, only the kingdoms of England and Scotland officially declared peace with Russia, leaving the town at war with the country for over a century. So a Russian official still visited the town to ensure peaceful relations. (It's also definitely apocryphal, since the town had been incorporated fully into England in English legal documents for over a century. More to the point, by the time of the Crimean War (1853), the kingdoms of England and Scotland had ceased to exist as separate legal entities nearly 150 years earlier, being replaced by and subsumed into the Kingdom of Great Britain by the Acts of Union 1707—and the Kingdom of Great Britain was itself subsumed into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Suffice it to say the declaration of war would refer to the United Kingdom, and not the non-existent kingdoms of England and Scotland.)
    • QI bought this one, suggesting that the Crimean War didn't actually end until the mayor of Berwick signed an armistice with Russia, and thus the War only had one survivor (a tortoise).
  • On the border with Wales, there is a similar region known as Monmouthshire. The status of that county wasn't fully settled until the 1960s, and until then Acts of Parliament would commonly refer to "Wales and Monmouthshire", while other Acts and the Encyclopædia Britannica placed the county firmly within England. The far-right English Democrat party often campaign to move the area into England, though with little success.

The Colonies

Port Stanley

Main settlement in The Falkland Islands.

Plymouth, Montserrat

Legally the capital of Montserrat (an island in The Caribbean) but has been abandoned since a volcano erupted nearby back in the 1990s.

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