Belfast metropolitan area

Belfast Metropolitan Area
Belfast Metropolitan Area
Metropolitan Area
	Belfast Metropolitan Area Location in Northern Ireland
	Coordinates: 54°35′49″N 5°55′48″W / 54.597°N 5.930°W
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	UTC+0 (GMT)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-1 (BST (WEST))
Area code	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 1,217,162 in 2017, combining the Belfast, Lisburn, Newtownabbey, North Down, Castlereagh and Carrickfergus districts. This equates to 65.1% of Northern Ireland's population.

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.^[1] The Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area had a population of 579,276 in 2001.^[2]

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.^{[citation needed]} 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^[2]	Population (2001 Census)^[2]
1	Belfast Urban Area	863,000
2	Lisburn Urban Area	130,000
3	Newtownabbey Urban Area	93,350
4	Bangor	70,000
5	Castlereagh Urban Area	70,000
6	Carrickfergus	40,000
7	Holywood Urban Area	21,000
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	1,217,162

2001 census

At the 2001 census, the demographic characteristics of the people living in Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area (BMUA) were as follows:^[3]

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
55.5% were from a Protestant background, 40.5% were from a Catholic 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.