Glasgow

:For other uses, see Glasgow (disambiguation)

The City

Known as the commercial capital of Scotland, the City of Glasgow is a bustling, cosmopolitan city. At the 2001 Census the city had a population of 629,501 making it the largest city in Scotland. This is down from its 1960s peak of 1.1 million (mostly due to boundary changes rather than population decline per se and also due to the mass building of towns or 'overspil' in the surrounding suburbs during the 1960s and 1970s), while approximately 2.1 million people live in Greater Glasgow : A 15 mile radius of the city centre known as the city of Glasgow and the greater metropolitan area. The surrounding region of Strathclyde (from the Gaelic for 'valley of the River Clyde') has a population of over 2.6 million, over half of the whole Scottish population.

Related Topics:
City of Glasgow - Greater Glasgow - Strathclyde

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The city's name comes from the older Gaelic glas cu (compare modern Gaelic Glaschu), meaning green hollow. The "dear green place" (Glaschu) has been misquoted as a Gaelic translation for the city, but this was actually Daniel Defoe's description of the city when he visited in the early 18th century; he also claimed that Glasgow was "the paradise of Scotland and one of the cleanliest and best built cities in

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Britain." Another writer of the time said of the River Clyde: "I have never seen before any river which for natural beauty can stand competition with the Clyde. Never did a stream glide more gracefully to the ocean or through a fairer region." At that time, the city's population numbered approximately 12,000, and its structures largely consisted of attractive, compact wooden buildings, none of which remain today.

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