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city in Merseyside, England, United Kingdom
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Liverpool is a port city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, 178 miles (286 km) north-west of London. It had an estimated population of 507,915 in 2025. The city is within the larger Liverpool City Region, a combined authority area with a population of over 1.5 million.
Established as a borough in Lancashire in 1207, Liverpool became significant in the late 17th century when the Port of Liverpool was heavily involved in the Atlantic slave trade. The port also imported cotton for the Lancashire textile mills, and became a major departure point for English and Irish emigrants to North America. Liverpool rose to global economic importance at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and was home to the first inter-city railway, the first non-combustible warehouse system (the Royal Albert Dock), and a pioneering elevated electrical railway; it was granted city status in 1880 and was moved from Lancashire to the newly created county of Merseyside in 1974. It entered a period of decline in the mid-20th century, which was largely reversed after the European Union selected it as the European Capital of Culture for 2008, reportedly generating over £800 million for the local economy within a year.
The economy of Liverpool is diverse and encompasses tourism, culture, maritime, hospitality, healthcare, life sciences, advanced manufacturing, creative and digital sectors. The city is home to the UK's second highest number of art galleries, national museums, listed buildings, and parks and open spaces, behind only London. It is often used as a filming location due to its architecture and was the fifth most visited UK city by foreign tourists in 2022. It has produced numerous musicians, most notably the Beatles, and recording artists from the city have had more UK No. 1 singles than anywhere else in the world. It has also produced numerous academics, actors, artists, comedians, filmmakers, poets, scientists, sportspeople, and writers. It is the home of Premier League football teams Everton and Liverpool. The world's oldest still-operating main line railway station, Liverpool Lime Street, is in the city centre; it is also served by the underground Merseyrail network. The city's port was the fourth largest in the UK in 2023, with numerous shipping and freight lines having headquarters and offices there.
Residents of Liverpool are formally known as Liverpudlians but are more often called Scousers in reference to scouse, a local stew made popular by sailors. The city's distinct local accent is also primarily known as Scouse. Its cultural and ethnic diversity is the result of attracting immigrants from various areas, particularly Ireland, Scandinavia, and Wales; it is also home to the UK's oldest black community and Europe's oldest Chinese community, as well as the first mosque in England.
The name comes from the Old English lifer, meaning thick or muddy water, and pōl, meaning a pool or creek, and is first recorded around 1190 as Liuerpul. According to the Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, "The original reference was to a pool or tidal creek now filled up into which two streams drained". Other origins of the name have been suggested, including "elverpool", a reference to the large number of eels in the Mersey. The adjective "Liverpudlian" was first recorded in 1833.
In the Middle Ages, Liverpool first existed as farmland within the West Derby Hundred before growing into a small town of farmers, fishermen and tradesmen and tactical army base for King John of England. A tidal creek, known as the Pool provided a natural harbour for ships. The town was planned with its own castle, although due to outbreaks of disease and its subordinance to the nearby Roman port of Chester, the town's growth and prosperity stagnated until the late 17th and early 18th centuries. There was substantial growth in the mid- to late 18th century, when the town became the European port most heavily involved in the Atlantic slave trade.
King John's letters patent of 1207 announced the foundation of the borough of Liverpool (then spelt as Liuerpul). There is no evidence that the place had previously been a centre of any trade. The borough was probably created because King John decided that it would be a convenient place to embark men and supplies for his Irish campaigns: in particular his Irish campaign of 1209. The original street plan of Liverpool is said to have been designed by King John near the same time it was granted a royal charter, making it a borough. The original seven streets were laid out in the shape of a double cross: Bank Street (now Water Street), Castle Street, Chapel Street, Dale Street, Juggler Street (now High Street), Moor Street (now Tithebarn Street) and Whiteacre Street (now Old Hall Street). Liverpool Castle was built before 1235, and survived until it was demolished in the 1720s. By the middle of the 16th century, the population was still around 600, although this was likely to have fallen from an earlier peak of 1,000 people due to slow trade and the effects of the plague.
In the 17th century, there was slow progress in trade and population growth. Battles for control of the town were waged during the English Civil War, including a brief siege in 1644. In 1699, the same year as its first recorded slave ship, Liverpool Merchant, set sail for Africa, Liverpool was made a parish by Act of Parliament. But arguably, the legislation of 1695 that reformed the Liverpool council was of more significance to its subsequent development. Since Roman times nearby Chester on the River Dee had been the region's principal port on the Irish Sea. However, as the Dee began to silt up, maritime trade from Chester became increasingly difficult and shifted towards Liverpool on the neighbouring River Mersey. The first of the Liverpool docks was constructed in 1715, and the system of docks gradually grew into a large interconnected system.
As trade from the West Indies, including sugar, surpassed that of Ireland and Europe, and as the River Dee continued to silt up, Liverpool began to grow even faster. The first commercial wet dock was built in Liverpool in 1715. Substantial profits from the slave trade and tobacco helped the town to prosper and rapidly grow, although several prominent local men, including William Rathbone, William Roscoe and Edward Rushton, were at the forefront of the local abolitionist movement.
The 19th century saw Liverpool rise to global economic importance. Pioneering arose, and world-first technology and civic facilities launched in the city to serve the accelerating population, one that was fuelled by an influx of ethnic and religious communities from all around the world.
By the start of the 19th century, a large volume of trade was passing through Liverpool, and the construction of major buildings reflected this wealth. In 1830, Liverpool and Manchester became the first cities to have an intercity rail link, through the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The population continued to rise rapidly, especially during the 1840s when Irish migrants began arriving by the hundreds of thousands as a result of the Great Famine. While many Irish people settled in the city at that time, a large percentage also emigrated to the United States or moved to the industrial centres of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands.
In her poetical illustration "Liverpool" (1832), which celebrates the city's worldwide commerce, Letitia Elizabeth Landon refers specifically to the Macgregor Laird expedition to the Niger River, at that time in progress. This is accompanied by a painting by Samuel Austin, Liverpool, from the Mersey.
Britain was a major market for cotton imported from the Deep South of the United States, which fed the textile industry in the country. Given the crucial place cotton held in the city's economy, during the American Civil War Liverpool was, in the words of historian Sven Beckert, "the most pro-Confederate place in the world outside the Confederacy itself". Liverpool merchants helped to bring out cotton from ports blockaded by the Union Navy, built ships of war for the Confederacy, and supplied the South with military equipment and credit.
During the war, the Confederate Navy ship, the CSS Alabama, was built at Birkenhead on the Mersey, and the CSS Shenandoah surrendered there (being the final surrender at the end of the war). The city was also the centre of Confederate purchases of war materiel, including arms and ammunition, uniforms, and naval supplies to be smuggled by British blockade runners to the South.
For periods during the 19th century, the wealth of Liverpool exceeded that of London, and Liverpool's Custom House was the single largest contributor to the British Exchequer. Liverpool was the only British city ever to have its own Whitehall office. During this century, at least 40% of the world's entire trade passed through Liverpool.
In the early 19th century, Liverpool played a major role in the Antarctic sealing industry, in recognition of which Liverpool Beach in the South Shetland Islands is named after the city.
As early as 1851, the city was described as "the New York of Europe". During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Liverpool was attracting immigrants from across Europe. This resulted in the construction of a diverse array of religious buildings in the city for the new ethnic and religious groups, many of which are still in use today. The Deutsche Kirche, Greek Orthodox Church of St Nicholas, Gustav Adolf Church and Princes Road Synagogue were all established in the 1800s to serve Liverpool's growing German, Greek, Nordic and Jewish communities, respectively. One of Liverpool's oldest surviving churches, St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church, served the Polish community in its final years as a place of worship.
The 20th century saw Liverpool's established rank as a global economic powerhouse challenged. Its strategic location as an international seaport made it particularly vulnerable in two World wars. Economic depressions (both in the United Kingdom and across the world), changing housing patterns and containerisation in the maritime industry contributed to a downtrend in the city's productivity and prosperity. Despite this, the city's influence on global popular culture excelled and by the end of the century, the continuing process of urban renewal paved the way for the redefined modern city of the 21st century.
The period after the Great War was marked by social unrest, as society grappled with the massive war losses of young men, as well as trying to re-integrate veterans into civilian life and the economy. Unemployment and poor living standards greeted many ex-servicemen. Union organising and strikes took place in numerous locations, including a police strike in Liverpool among the City Police. Numerous colonial soldiers and sailors from Africa and India, who had served with the British Armed Forces, settled in Liverpool and other port cities. In June 1919, they were subject to attack by whites in racial riots; residents in the port included Swedish immigrants, and both groups had to compete with native people from Liverpool for jobs and housing. In this period, race riots also took place in other port cities.
The Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 resulted in mass council housing being built across Liverpool during the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1920s and 1930s, as much as 15% of the city's population (around 140,000 people) was relocated from the inner-city to new purpose built, lower density suburban housing estates, based on the belief that this would improve their standard of living, though the overall benefits have been contested. Numerous private homes were also built during this era. During the Great Depression of the early 1930s, unemployment peaked at around 30% in the city. Liverpool was the site of Britain's first provincial airport, operating from 1930.
During the Second World War, the critical strategic importance of Liverpool was recognised by both Hitler and Churchill. The city was heavily bombed by the Germans, suffering a blitz second only to London's. The pivotal Battle of the Atlantic was planned, fought and won from Liverpool.
The Luftwaffe made 80 air raids on Merseyside, killing 2,500 people and causing damage to almost half the homes in the metropolitan area. Significant rebuilding followed the war, including massive housing estates and the Seaforth Dock, the largest dock project in Britain. Since 1952, Liverpool has been twinned with Cologne, Germany, a city that also suffered severe aerial bombing during the war. In the 1950s and 1960s, much of the immediate reconstruction that took place in the city centre proved to be deeply unpopular. The historic portions of the city that had survived German bombing suffered extensive destruction during urban renewal. It has been argued that the so-called "Shankland Plan" of the 1960s, named after the town planner Graeme Shankland, led to compromised town planning and vast road-building schemes that devastated and divided inner city neighbourhoods. Concrete brutalist architecture, compromised visions, botched projects and grand designs that were never realised became the subject of condemnation. Historian Raphael Samuel labelled Graeme Shankland "the butcher of Liverpool".
A West Indian black community has existed in the city since the first two decades of the 20th century. Like most British cities and industrialised towns, Liverpool became home to Commonwealth immigrants, beginning after World War I with colonial soldiers and sailors who had served in the area. More immigrants arrived after World War II, mostly settling in older inner-city areas such as Toxteth, where housing was less expensive. The black population of Liverpool was recorded at 1.90% in 2011. In the 2021 Census, 5.2% described themselves as black African, Caribbean, mixed white and black African, mixed white and Caribbean or 'other black'.
In the 1960s, Liverpool was the centre of the "Merseybeat" sound whose best-known band is the Beatles. Liverpool Airport was renamed after Beatle and Liverpudlian John Lennon in 2002, the first British airport to be named in honour of an individual.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Liverpool”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.