Belfast Metropolitan Area

Belfast Metropolitan Area
Metropolitan Area
Belfast Metropolitan Area Location in Northern Ireland
Coordinates:
Sovereign State	United Kingdom
Constituent Country	Northern Ireland
District	Belfast Lisburn Bangor, County Down North Down Newtownabbey Castlereagh
County	County Antrim / County Down
Government
• UK Parliament	Belfast North Belfast South Belfast East Belfast West Lagan Valley East Antrim South Antrim Strangford North Down
• EU Parliament	Northern Ireland
Area
• Total	370 sq mi (960 km2)
Time zone	GMT (UTC+0)
• Summer (DST)	BST (WEST) (UTC-1)
Area code(s)	028

The Belfast Metropolitan Area is a grouping of council areas which include commuter towns and overspill from Belfast, Northern Ireland with a population of 579,276 and 670,447 in 2011, this is combining the Belfast, Carrickfergus, North Down, Lisburn and Castlereagh districts along with the town of Newtownabbey.

Overview

The area was first officially classified as a Metropolitan Area in the late 1990s when the British government began to prepare for a cohesive plan that would include the Belfast Region. Six local government districts – Belfast, Castlereagh, Carrickfergus, Lisburn, Newtownabbey and North Down, were identified as the key areas within the Metropolitan Area. The continuous built-up area centred on Belfast, which is contained within these six districts, is defined as the Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area.

The Area is made up of established towns, their overspill and the general con-joining of settlements as Belfast expands. Established towns include Carrickfergus, Bangor, Lisburn and Holywood. Many of these towns were established and important long before Belfast rose to prominence; Carrickfergus, for example, was the Norman capital of the northern part of Ireland. Bangor had been an important centre of Christianity and learning from its foundation in 555 AD. The recent re-classification of Lisburn as a city does not change its position within the Metropolitan Area.

Places in the conurbation

Rank	Urban Area	Population (2001 Census)
1	Belfast Urban Area	276,605
2	Lisburn Urban Area	71,403
3	Newtownabbey Urban Area	62,022
4	Bangor	58,368
5	Castlereagh Urban Area	54,636
6	Carrickfergus	27,192
7	Holywood Urban Area	12,027
8	Carryduff	6,564
9	Greenisland	5,067
10	Groomsport & Crawfordsburn	1,401
11	Helen's Bay	1,356
12	Milltown	1,356
13	Seahill	1,179
Total	Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area	579,276

2001 census

At the 2001 census, the demographic characteristics of the people living in Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area (BMUA) were as follows:

• 22.0% were aged under 16 years and 19.2% were aged 60 and over
• 47.4% of the population were male and 52.6% were female
• 40.5% were from a Catholic background, 55.5% were from a Protestant background.
• 4.3% of people aged 16–74 were unemployed

Population maps

In the 2011 UK Census, the distributions of population, religion, national identity and proportion of immigrants within the Belfast Metropolitan Area, were as follows.

Error creating thumbnail: File with dimensions greater than 25 MP Population density  Error creating thumbnail: File with dimensions greater than 25 MP Percentage who were Catholic or brought up Catholic  Error creating thumbnail: File with dimensions greater than 25 MP Most commonly stated national identity  Error creating thumbnail: File with dimensions greater than 25 MP Percentage born outside the UK and the Republic of Ireland

See also

• Districts of Belfast
• Greater Dublin
• Derry Urban Area
• Greater Cork
• List of conurbations in the United Kingdom
• Dublin-Belfast corridor (population under three million)