Blackpool is a coastal resort in Lancashire, England, on the northwest coast of the United Kingdom. The town located 17.5 miles (28.2 kilometers) northwest of Preston, 27 miles (43 kilometers) north of Liverpool, 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of Bolton, and 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of Manchester, on the Irish Sea between the Ribble and Wyre estuaries. At the time of the 2011 Census, it had a population of 142,065 people.
Blackpool was a seaside hamlet in Lancashire’s Hundred of Amounderness during the Middle Ages and Early Modern era, and remained such until the mid-18th century, when it became popular in England to come to the shore in the summer to bathe in sea water to enhance one’s well-being. Visitors to Blackpool’s 7-mile (11-kilometer) sandy beach may utilize a new private road constructed by Thomas Clifton and Sir Henry Hoghton in 1781. In the same year, stagecoaches started travelling from Manchester to Blackpool, then Halifax to Blackpool in 1782. Henry Banks and his son-in-law John Cocker developed additional structures in Blackpool in the early nineteenth century, resulting in a population increase from fewer than 500 in 1801 to over 2,500 in 1851. In 1821, Blackpool’s St John’s Church was dedicated.
When a railway was constructed in the 1840s linking it to the industrialized parts of Northern England, Blackpool became a prominent tourist destination in England. The railway made it more simpler and cheaper for tourists to access Blackpool, resulting in an influx of residents and the incorporation of Blackpool as a borough in 1876, with its own town council and aldermen. In 1881, Blackpool was a thriving resort with a seafront lined with piers, fortune-tellers, public houses, trams, donkey rides, fish-and-chip shops, and theatres, with a population of 14,000 people. By 1901, Blackpool had grown to a population of 47,000 people, cementing its reputation as “the classic British seaside resort.” It had expanded to 147,000 people by 1951.
In the late twentieth century, changes in preferences, along with options for Britons to go abroad, had an impact on Blackpool’s standing as a major resort. Despite this, Blackpool’s urban fabric and economy remain largely undiversified and strongly based in the tourist industry, with millions of people flocking to the borough’s beachfront each year. Blackpool Tower, Blackpool Illuminations, the Pleasure Beach, Blackpool Zoo, Sandcastle Water Park, the Winter Gardens, and the UK’s only surviving first-generation tramway are among the city’s principal attractions and monuments.
