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Birmingham Travel Guide - Travel S Helper

Birmingham

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Birmingham is a significant city in England’s West Midlands and a metropolitan borough. With a population of 1,101,360 people in 2014, it is the biggest and most populated British city outside of London. With a population of 2,440,986 at the 2011 census, the city is part of the West Midlands Built-up Region, the UK’s third most populous urban area. With a population of 3.8 million, Birmingham is the UK’s second most populous metropolitan region. Birmingham is also Europe’s ninth most populated metropolitan region.

Birmingham grew to international prominence in the 18th century as the epicenter of the Midlands Enlightenment and subsequent Industrial Revolution, which saw the town at the forefront of global advances in science, technology, and economic development, producing a series of innovations that laid many of the foundations of modern industrial society. It was dubbed “the first industrial town in the world” by 1791. With thousands of small workshops practising a wide range of specialized and highly skilled trades, Birmingham’s unique economic profile encouraged exceptional levels of creativity and innovation, and provided a diverse and resilient economic base for industrial prosperity that lasted into the final quarter of the twentieth century. The industrial steam engine, perhaps the most significant innovation in British history, was created in Birmingham. Its high degree of social mobility produced a culture of broad-based political radicalism, which gave it a political influence unequalled in Britain outside London and a crucial part in the formation of British democracy under leaders ranging from Thomas Attwood to Joseph Chamberlain. Birmingham was brutally bombarded by the German Luftwaffe from the summer of 1940 until the spring of 1943, in what is known as the Birmingham Blitz. Damage to the city’s infrastructure, combined with a planned program of destruction and new construction by planners, resulted in considerable demolition and redevelopment in the decades following.

The service sector now dominates Birmingham’s economy. The city is a large international commercial center that has been designated as a beta global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, as well as a major transportation, retail, events, and conference hub. With a GDP of $121.1 billion in 2014, its metropolitan economy is the second biggest in the United Kingdom, and its six universities make it the country’s largest center of higher education outside of London. Birmingham’s major cultural institutions, such as the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Birmingham Library, and Barber Institute of Fine Arts, have international reputations, and the city’s grassroots art, music, literary, and culinary scenes are vibrant and influential. Birmingham is the UK’s fourth most visited city by international tourists.

Birmingham’s athletic legacy is well-known across the globe, with the Football League and lawn tennis both having their origins in the city. Its most successful football team, Aston Villa, having won seven league championships and one European Cup, while Birmingham City is the other professional club.

Birmingham residents are known as Brummies, a phrase derived from the city’s nickname, Brum. This is taken from Brummagem, the city’s dialect name, which may have been derived from Bromwicham, one of the city’s older names. A unique Brummie accent and dialect may be heard.

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Birmingham | Introduction

Birmingham – Info Card

POPULATION : • City 1,101,360
• Urban 2,440,986
• Metro 3,701,107
FOUNDED :   Settlement c. 600
Seigneurial borough 1166
Municipal borough 1838
City 1889
Metropolitan borough 1 April 1974
TIME ZONE : Time zone GMT (UTC+0)
Summer (DST) BST (UTC+1)
LANGUAGE :  English
RELIGION :
AREA :   • City 103.39 sq mi (267.77 km2)
• Urban 231.2 sq mi (598.9 km2)
ELEVATION :  460 ft (140 m)
COORDINATES :  52°28′59″N 1°53′37″W
SEX RATIO :  Male: 49.3
 Female: 50.7%
ETHNIC : 57.9% White (53.1% White British)
26.6% Asian
8.9% Black
4.4% Mixed Race
2.0% Other
AREA CODE :  0121
POSTAL CODE :  B
DIALING CODE :  +44 121
WEBSITE :   Birmingham City

Tourism in Birmingham

Birmingham is the country’s second-largest city, located in the West Midlands. Known as the “City of a Thousand Trades” and the “Workshop of the World” during the Victorian period, Brum, as residents refer to the city, is experiencing a 21st-century renaissance as a major retail and cultural destination.

Birmingham (the h is silent, and the g is harsh in local dialect, as in Birming-gum) was in the epicenter of the United Kingdom’s industrial revolution, and its riches was founded on the plethora of trades that created. This resulted in a large canal network with more miles of canals than Venice or Amsterdam (despite the fact that they are two quite different kinds of canal).

During WWII, most of the city center was destroyed, and the replacement structures contributed nothing to the city. Birmingham, on the other hand, has been experiencing a major transformation since the 1990s, with many of the postwar structures being replaced. The canals have been cleaned up to provide for pleasant pathways, and the bulk of the city center is now pedestrianized. Locals commend the City Council for the recent change, which has preserved the city’s industrial background while still making it seem contemporary and forward-thinking.

HP Sauce, Tony Hancock, Cadbury’s chocolate, The Lunar Society (whose members included James Watt and Matthew Boulton), Black Sabbath, UB40, Jasper Carrot and the Spitfire, and the Mini are just a few of the city’s significant affiliations (car, not skirt).

Birmingham is known for its literary connections, including JRR Tolkien, Washington Irving, who composed Rip Van Winkle while staying with his sister’s family in Birmingham, and Arthur Conan Doyle, who purchased a violin on Sherlock Street while studying medicine in Birmingham. Residents include writers Jim Crace, Judith Cutler, and David Lodge.

Shropshire, Warwick, and Stratford-Upon-Avon, all close, present more archetypal pictures of “olde” England. Birmingham, on the other hand, has many of its own tourist attractions, a thriving nightlife, and some of the greatest shopping outside of London.

Climate of Birmingham

Birmingham, like most of the British Isles, has a temperate marine climate, with average high temperatures of 21.3 °C (70.3 °F) in the summer and 6.7 °C (44.1 °F) in the winter. Between 1971 and 2000, the hottest day of the year averaged 28.8 degrees Celsius (83.8 degrees Fahrenheit), while the coldest night averaged 9.0 degrees Celsius (15.8 degrees Fahrenheit). Each year, 11.2 days had a temperature of 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) or higher, while 51.6 nights had an air frost. The hottest temperature ever recorded was 34.9 °C (94.8 °F) in August 1990.

Birmingham, like most other big cities, has a significant urban heat island effect. On the coldest night ever recorded, 14 January 1982, the temperature at Birmingham Airport, on the city’s eastern outskirts, dropped to 20.8 °C (5.4 °F), but only 12.9 °C (8.8 °F) at Edgbaston, near the city centre.

Due to its interior position and relatively high elevation, Birmingham is a snowy city in comparison to other significant UK conurbations. Birmingham Airport averaged 13.0 days of snow per year between 1961 and 1990, compared to 5.33 at London Heathrow. [112] Snow showers generally flow through the city on north westerly airstreams through the Cheshire gap, although they may also arrive off the North Sea on north easterly airstreams.

Extreme weather is uncommon in the city, however tornadoes have been known to strike, the most recent of which occurred in July 2005 in the city’s south, causing damage to houses and businesses.

Geography of Birmingham

Birmingham lies in the West Midlands region of England, on the Birmingham Plateau, which is a relatively high plateau spanning between 500 and 1,000 feet (150–300 meters) above sea level and is spanned by Britain’s primary north-south watershed between the Severn and Trent basins. The Lickey Hills, Clent Hills, and Walton Hill, which rise to 1,033 feet (315 meters) and provide panoramic views of the city, are located to the south west of the city. The River Tame and its tributaries, the Cole and the Rea, are the only rivers and brooks that drain Birmingham.

The city of Birmingham is part of the West Midlands Built-up Area, which covers 59,972 hectares and includes the predominantly residential borough of Solihull to the south east and the city of Wolverhampton and the industrial towns of the Black Country to the north west (600 km2; 232 sq mi). The Birmingham metropolitan area, which includes the former Mercian capital of Tamworth and the cathedral city of Lichfield in Staffordshire to the north, the industrial city of Coventry and the Warwickshire towns of Nuneaton, Warwick, and Leamington Spa to the east, and the Worcestershire towns of Redditch and Bromsgrove to the south west, is surrounded by this.

Much of the territory presently covered by the city was formerly part of the old Forest of Arden, whose previous presence can still be felt in the city’s thick oak tree cover and the great number of districts ending in “-ley”: the Old English -lah meaning “woodland clearing.”

Economy of Birmingham

Birmingham rose to prominence as a manufacturing and engineering center, but the service sector now accounts for 88 percent of the city’s employment, according to figures from 2012. Birmingham is the most populous city in the United Kingdom for jobs in public administration, education, and health care, and the second most populous city outside of London for jobs in financial and other commercial services, behind Leeds. The Globalization and World Cities Research Network has classed it as a beta-world city, the third highest in the UK after London and Manchester, and its larger metropolitan economy is the second-largest in the United Kingdom, with a GDP of $121.1 billion (2014 est., PPP). Birmingham is home to two FTSE100 firms (Severn Trent and IMI plc, which is now a FTSE250 company), as well as two more in the broader metropolitan region, representing the biggest concentration outside of London and the South East. Birmingham gets 42 percent of the UK’s overall conference and exhibition sector, thanks to significant facilities such as the National Exhibition Centre and the International Convention Centre.

Manufacturing employed 8% of Birmingham’s workforce in 2012, which was lower than the national average. Jaguar Land Rover in Castle Bromwich and Cadbury in Bournville are two major industrial operations in the city, with significant local producers also supporting a supply network of precision-based small manufacturers and craft industries. Traditional industries have also survived: the city’s Jewellery Quarter’s 300 independent manufacturers still make 40% of the UK’s jewelry, continuing a trade that began in Birmingham in 1308.

Birmingham’s GVA was £24.1 billion (as of 2013), and the city’s economy expanded slowly between 2002 and 2012, with growth 30 percent lower than the national average. Between 1997 and 2010, the value of industrial production in the city fell by 21% in real terms, whereas the value of financial and insurance operations more than quadrupled. Birmingham has the greatest level of entrepreneurial activity outside of London, with 16,281 start-ups registered in 2013, and the number of registered enterprises in the city increased by 1.6 percent in 2012. Between 2010 and 2013, Birmingham was only second to London and Edinburgh in terms of private sector employment creation.

Birmingham has more economic disparity than any other large English city, and is only surpassed by Glasgow in the United Kingdom. With 14.4% of the economically active people jobless, unemployment rates are among the highest in the nation (Dec 2013). The proportion is more than 30% in the inner-city wards of Aston and Washwood Heath. Birmingham is the most disadvantaged local authority in England in terms of income and employment deprivation, with two-fifths of the population living in regions designated as being in the 10% most deprived portions of England. The infant mortality rate in the city is significant, roughly 60% more than the national average. Meanwhile, just 49% of women have employment in Birmingham, compared to 66% nationwide, and only 28% of the working-age population in Birmingham has a bachelor’s degree, compared to 34% in other Core Cities.

Birmingham was ranked 51st in the world in the 2014 Mercer Quality of Living Survey, which was the second highest grade in the UK. This is an improvement from the city’s 2008 ranking of 56th. By 2026, the Big City Plan intends to propel the city into the top 20 of the index. To entice investment, a section of the city has been designated as an enterprise zone, with tax breaks and simplified planning.

Internet, Communication in Birmingham

TELEPHONE

The city’s national dialing code is 0121, followed by a three-digit area code, and then a four-digit phone number. The format of a fully stated Birmingham number is 0121 000 0000. Within the national dialing code region, the minimum requirement is 000 0000.

BT payphones may be found all across the city, and most accept cash as well as credit/debit cards. International calls are not inexpensive. Because there are no telephone centers, a pre-paid phone card may be a smart alternative if you plan on making a lot of calls home.

In all regions of the city, all GSM mobile networks provide outstanding coverage.

INTERNET

All public libraries, including the new (opened 2013) Library of Birmingham, provide free internet access, albeit connections may be sluggish and you may have to wait for a terminal; access requires a library membership card.

Some BT payphones in the city core also provide access to the internet (look for the ones with light blue broadband signs on them).

Wi-Fi is offered at a variety of cafes and other locations, including most of the city center independents and chains.

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