Nottingham is a city and unitary authority area located in Nottinghamshire, England, located 128 miles (206 km) north of London, in the East Midlands.

Nottingham has links to the legend of Robin Hood and to the lace-making, bicycle (notably Raleigh bikes) and tobacco industries. It was granted its city charter in 1897 as part of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Nottingham is a tourist destination; in 2011, visitors spent over £1.5 billion – the thirteenth highest amount in England’s 111 statistical territories.

In 2015, Nottingham had an estimated population of 321,550 with the wider urban area, which includes many of the city’s suburbs, having a population of 915,977. Its urban area is the largest in the east Midlands and the second largest in the Midlands. The population of the Nottingham/Derby metropolitan area is estimated to be 1,610,000. Its metropolitan economy is the seventh largest in the United Kingdom with a GDP of $50.9bn (2014). The city is also ranked as a sufficiency-level world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.

Nottingham has an award-winning public transport system, including the largest publicly owned bus network in England and is also served by Nottingham railway station and the modern Nottingham Express Transit tram system.

It is also a major sporting centre, and in October 2015 was named ‘Home of English Sport’. The National Ice Centre, Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre, and Trent Bridge international cricket ground are all based in or around the city, which is also the home of two professional league football teams; the world’s oldest professional league club Notts County, and Nottingham Forest, famously two-time winners of the UEFA European Cup under Brian Clough in 1979 and 1980. The city also has professional rugby, ice hockey and cricket teams, and the Aegon Nottingham Open, an international tennis tournament on the ATP and WTA tours. This accolade came just over a year after Nottingham was named as the UK’s first City of Football.

On 11 December 2015, Nottingham was named a “City of Literature” by UNESCO, joining Norwich, Melbourne, Prague and Barcelona as one of only a handful in the world. The title reflects Nottingham’s literary heritage, with Lord Byron, D. H. Lawrence and Alan Sillitoe having links to the city, as well as a strong contemporary literary community, a thriving publishing industry and a vibrant poetry scene.

It has two universities, the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University, which are attended by over 70,610 students—with 43,765 at the University of Nottingham, and Nottingham Trent University having 26,845, according to the respective University websites.

Read more

Read more

Mansfield is a market town in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the main town in the Mansfield local government district and is a part of the Mansfield Urban Area. Nestling in a pocket within the Maun Valley surrounded by hills, the town is around 12 miles (19 km) north of Nottingham. The district of Mansfield is a largely urban area situated in the north west of Nottinghamshire populated by 99,600 residents, the vast majority of whom live in Mansfield (including Mansfield Woodhouse), with Market Warsop a secondary centre, and the remainder in the rural north of the district. Adjacent to the urban area of Sutton-in-Ashfield, Mansfield is the only major sub-regional centre in Nottinghamshire covering an area of 30 square miles (78 sq km). The Centre for Cities (2009) categorises the town as a ‘small city’, although it does not officially hold city status.

Mansfield is the only local authority area in the county to have a directly elected Mayor and in October 2008 Mansfield elected its first Youth Mayor.

Historically, the district has been influenced heavily by its industrial past with coal mining and textiles thriving in the district until their decline in the 1990s, but in common with the national economy the area has seen the decline of these sectors. Mansfield has 20.2% (12,890) of its working age population seeking key out of work benefits (based on a 63,800 total working age population) (NOMIS).

Over the last century the population has declined in parallel with this traditional industrial base. However much has been done to diversify the economic base and to replace jobs lost. Mid-year population forecasts reveal that since April 2008 the population has gone from 100,100 to 100,600 in 2009, 99,700 in 2010 to the current figure of 99,600 in 2011.

Read more

Read more