Newcastle upon Tyne, England, United Kingdom

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Newcastle upon Tyne, often simply Newcastle, is the most populous city and metropolitan borough in North East England. It forms the core of the Tyneside conurbation. The city is situated on the River Tyne's northern bank, approximately 8.5 miles from the North Sea.

Newcastle developed around a Roman settlement called Pons Aelius and the settlement later took the name of a castle built in 1080 by William the Conqueror's eldest son, Robert Curthose. Historically, Newcastle's economy was dependent on its port. In particular, its status as one of the world's largest ship building and repair centres.

Today, the city's economy is diverse with major economic output in science, finance, retail, education, tourism, and nightlife. Newcastle is one of the UK Core Cities, as well as part of the Eurocities network.

Famous landmarks in Newcastle include the Tyne Bridge; the Swing Bridge; the Millennium Bridge; Newcastle Castle; Grey's Monument; and the Theatre Royal. Culturally, Newcastle is famed for its nightlife; bakery chain Greggs; and Newcastle United Football Club.

Newcastle was part of the county of Northumberland until 1400, when it became a county of itself. The city and the surrounding area created the new metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear in 1974. Newcastle is locally governed by Newcastle City Council.

Economy Newcastle played a major role during the 19th century Industrial Revolution, and was a leading centre for coal mining, shipbuilding, engineering, munitions and manufacturing. Heavy industries in Newcastle declined in the second half of the 20th century; with office, service and retail employment now becoming the city's staples.

Newcastle is the commercial, educational and the cultural hub of North East England. Today, Newcastle's economy contributes around £13 billion to the UK GVA. This figure is mostly produced by corporate activity in Newcastle's Central Business District, located in the centre of the city (bounded by the Haymarket, Central Station and the Quayside areas).

The city's thriving nightlife is estimated to be worth £340 million per year, and consequently is seen as a major contributor to Newcastle's economy.

The UK's first biotechnology village, the Centre for Life, is located by Central Station. The village is the first step in the City Council's plans to transform Newcastle into a science city.

Economy: Retail In 2010, Newcastle was positioned ninth in the retail centre expenditure league of the UK. There are several major shopping areas in Newcastle City Centre. The largest of these is the Eldon Square Shopping Centre, one of the largest city centre shopping complexes in the UK. It incorporates a Debenhams store as well as other major stores including Apple, Hollister and Guess. It also houses one of the largest John Lewis & Partners stores in the UK. This John Lewis branch was formerly known as Bainbridge, established in 1838, often cited as the world's first department store.

The main shopping street in the city is Northumberland Street. In a 2004 report, it was ranked as the most expensive shopping street in the UK for rent, outside London. It is home to two major department stores including the first and largest Fenwick department store, which houses some of the most luxurious designer labels, and one of the largest Marks and Spencer stores outside London. Both stores have entrances into Eldon Square Shopping Centre.

Other shopping destinations in Newcastle include Grainger Street and the area around Grey's Monument, the relatively modern Eldon Garden and Monument Mall complexes, Central Arcade and the traditional Grainger Market. On Blackett Street can be found the silversmith Reid & Sons which was established in the city in 1788. Outside the city centre, the largest suburban shopping areas are Gosforth and Byker. The largest Tesco store in the United Kingdom is located in Kingston Park on the edge of Newcastle. Close to Newcastle, the largest indoor shopping centre in Europe, the MetroCentre, is located in Gateshead.

Sport: Football Football club Newcastle United has been based at St James' Park since the club was established in 1892, although any traces of the original structure are now long gone as the stadium now holds more than 52,000 seated spectators, being England's seventh largest football stadium. The city also has non-League football clubs, Newcastle Benfield, West Allotment Celtic, Team Northumbria and Heaton Stannington.

There is a women's football team, Newcastle United Women's Football Club, founded in 1989. Newcastle United W.F.C. currently has 40 ladies aged between 16 and 29 years signed or associated with the club, and plays in the FA Women's Premier League (North).

The 2012 London Olympic committee selected Newcastle as one of the UK host venue cities, with the stadium St James' Park hosting 9 matches in both the men's and women's football.

Athletics Newcastle hosts the start of the annual Great North Run, the world's largest half-marathon in which participants race over the Tyne Bridge into Gateshead and then towards the finish line 13.1 miles (21.1 km) away on the coast at South Shields. Another athletic event is the 5.9-mile (9.5 km) Blaydon Race (a road race from Newcastle to Blaydon), which has taken place on 9 June annually since 1981, to commemorate the celebrated Blaydon Races horse racing.

Sport: Rugby The Newcastle Falcons are the only rugby union team in North East England to have played in the Premiership Rugby. They play at Kingston Park Stadium in the northern suburb of Kingston Park. 1996 Pilkington Shield winners Medicals RFC are also based in Newcastle.

Newcastle upon Tyne was one of the 11 host cities for the 2015 Rugby World Cup. St James' Park hosted three matches; • South Africa v. Scotland (3 October 2015) • New Zealand v. Tonga (9 October 2015) • Samoa v. Scotland (10 October 2015)

Newcastle Thunder (formerly Gateshead Thunder) are a professional rugby league club based in the city who now also play at Kingston Park Stadium. They currently play in the Kingstone Press League 1. Since 2015, the Super League Magic Weekend has been played annually in the city at St James' Park.

Horse racing Newcastle has a horse racing course at Gosforth Park.

Basketball The city is home to the Newcastle Eagles professional basketball team who play their home games at the new Sport Central complex at Northumbria University. The Eagles are the most successful team in the history of the British Basketball League (BBL).

Motorsports The city's speedway team Newcastle Diamonds were based at Brough Park in Byker, a venue that is also home to greyhound racing.

Ice hockey The Newcastle Warriors were a professional ice hockey team that played the 1995–96 season in the British Hockey League. The Newcastle Vipers were also a professional ice hockey team in the British National League from 2002 and then the Elite Ice Hockey League between 2005 and 2011 (when the team folded).

Transport: Air Newcastle International Airport is situated on the northern outskirts of the city at Woolsington, near to Ponteland. It is the largest and busiest airport in North East England and the second largest and busiest in Northern England (behind Manchester), handling over five million passengers per year. It is also the tenth-largest, and the fastest growing regional airport in the UK, expecting to reach 10 million passengers by 2016, and 15 million by 2030. As of 2007, Newcastle Airport operates flights to 90 destinations worldwide. The airport is serviced by numerous airlines including British Airways, Jet2, easyJet, Emirates, Ryanair, Air France, TUI Airways, Loganair, KLM and Eurowings.

The airport is connected to Central Newcastle by the Tyne and Wear Metro, with an average journey between Central Station Metro station and Newcastle Airport Metro station taking approximately 20 minutes.

Transport: Rail Newcastle Central Station is a principal stop on the East Coast Main Line and Cross Country Route.

Train operator London North Eastern Railway provides a half-hourly frequency of trains to London King's Cross, with a variable journey time of between two and three hours, and north to Scotland with all trains calling at Edinburgh Waverley and a small number of trains extended to Glasgow Central, Aberdeen and Inverness. CrossCountry links Newcastle with destinations in Yorkshire, the Midlands and the South West. TransPennine Express operates services to the North West. Northern Trains provide local and regional services. Additionally, ScotRail offer an infrequent service to Glasgow Central.

In 2014, work was completed on refurbishing the station's historic entrance. Glazing was placed over the historic arches and the Victorian architecture was enhanced; transforming the 19th century public portico. The station is one of only six Grade One listed railway stations in the UK. Opened in 1850 by Queen Victoria, it was the first covered railway station in the world and was much copied across the UK. It has a neoclassical façade, originally designed by the architect John Dobson, and was constructed in collaboration with Robert Stephenson. The station sightlines towards the Castle Keep, whilst showcasing the curvature of the station's arched roof. The first services were operated by the North Eastern Railway company.

The other mainline station in Newcastle is Manors, exclusively served by Northern Trains.

Transport: Metro The city is served by the Tyne and Wear Metro, a system of suburban and underground railways covering much of Newcastle and the surrounding metropolitan boroughs. It was opened in five phases between 1980 and 1984, and was Britain's first urban light rail transit system. The network was developed from a combination of existing and newly built tracks and stations, with deep-level tunnels constructed through Central Newcastle. A bridge was built across the Tyne, between Newcastle and Gateshead, and opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1981. Extensions to the network were opened in 1991 and 2002. It is operated directly by Nexus, carrying over 37 million passengers a year. In 2004, the company Marconi designed and constructed the mobile radio system to the underground Metro system. The Metro system was the first in the UK to have mobile phone antennae installed in the tunnels.

The Metro consists of two lines. The Green line begins at Newcastle Airport, goes through Central Newcastle and into the City of Sunderland, terminating at South Hylton. The yellow line starts at St James, runs north of the river alongside Byker towards Whitley Bay, before returning to Central Newcastle, then connecting to Gateshead Interchange before finally terminating at South Shields.

The system is currently undergoing a period of refurbishment and modernisation, entitled 'Metro: All Change.' The programme has replaced all ticket machines and introduced ticket gates at the busiest stations – part of the transition to smart ticketing. All Metro trains are being completely refurbished and most stations are undergoing improvement works (or in some cases complete reconstruction, for example North Shields). In addition; tracks, signalling and overhead wires are also being overhauled. Longer-term plans include the procurement of an entirely new fleet of trains and further extensions to the system. Proposed routes include to Newcastle's west end, to the Cobalt Business Park in North Tyneside, to the Metrocentre in Gateshead and to additional locations in Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland. Several of the proposed routes would require trams as opposed to the current light rail trains.

Transport: Road Major roads in the area include the A1 (Newcastle Gateshead Western Bypass), stretching north to Edinburgh and south to London; the A19 heading south past Sunderland and Middlesbrough to York and Doncaster; the A69 heading west to Carlisle; the A696, which becomes the A68 heads past Newcastle Airport and up through central Northumberland and central Scottish Borders, the A167, the old "Great North Road", heading south to Gateshead, Chester-le-Street, Durham and Darlington; and the A1058 "Coast Road", which runs from Jesmond to the east coast between Tynemouth and Cullercoats. Many of these designations are recent—upon completion of the Western Bypass, and its designation as the new line of the A1, the roads between this and the A1's former alignment through the Tyne Tunnel were renumbered, with many city centre roads changing from a 6-prefix to their present 1-prefix numbers. In November 2011 the capacity of the Tyne Tunnel was increased when a project to build a second road tunnel and refurbish the first tunnel was completed.

Transport: Bus Bus services in Newcastle upon Tyne and the surrounding boroughs part are coordinated by the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive. Stagecoach North East is the primary bus operator in the city, running city services between both the West and East ends, with some services extending out to the MetroCentre, Killingworth, Wallsend and Ponteland. Go North East provides the majority of services to and from the south of the Tyne, linking Newcastle with Gateshead, South Tyneside, Sunderland, and County Durham. Arriva North East runs numerous services to the north of city, North Tyneside and Northumberland. Additionally, QuayLink connects Newcastle and Gateshead to the Quayside. Newcastle Central coach station is the city's main hub for long-distance services, such as those operated by National Express.

Other major bus departure points are Pilgrim Street (for buses running south of the Tyne via Gateshead), and Blackett Street/Monument for services to the East and West of the city. Many bus services also pass Newcastle Central Station, a major interchange for rail and metro services.

Transport: Cycling Newcastle is accessible by several mostly traffic-free cycle routes that lead to the edges of the city centre, where cyclists can continue into the city by road, using no car lanes. The traffic-free C2C cycle route runs along the north bank of the River Tyne, enabling cyclists to travel off-road to North Shields and Tynemouth in the east, and westwards towards Hexham.

Suburban cycle routes exist, which use converted trackbeds of former industrial wagonways and industrial railways. A network on Tyneside's suburban Victorian waggonways is being developed. A network of signed on-road cycle routes is being established, including some designated on-road cycle lanes that will lead from the city centre to the suburbs of Gosforth, Heaton and Wallsend.

Newcastle has a growing culture of bicycle usage. Newcastle is also home to a cycling campaign, called the 'Newcastle Cycling Campaign.' The ideal of the organisation is to model other European cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen. The aims of the organisation, within the constitution are: To raise the profile of cycling, especially utility cycling around the city; to educate decision makers over the benefits of cycling; to promote equality.

Following guidelines set in the National Cycling strategy, Newcastle first developed its cycling strategy in 1998. As of 2012, the city council's social aims and objectives for cycling include: highlighting the usage of cycling to cut city congestion and educating that cycling promotes healthy living The authority also has infrastructure aims and objectives which include: developing on road cycle networks on quieter streets; making safer routes on busier streets; innovating and implementing contraflows on one way streets; developing the existing off-road cycle route networks and improve signage; joining up routes that are partially or completely isolated; Increase the number of cycle parking facilities; working with employers to integrate cycling into workplace travel plans; link the local networks to national networks.

Water DFDS Seaways runs a ferry service to IJmuiden, near Amsterdam in The Netherlands, from Newcastle International Ferry Terminal (located in North Shields). The DFDS ferry service to Gothenburg, Sweden, ceased at the end of October 2006 and their service to Bergen and Stavanger, Norway was terminated in late 2008. The company cited high fuel prices and new competition from low-cost air services as the cause. However, since summer 2007, Thomson cruise lines have included Newcastle as a departure port on its Norwegian and Fjords cruise.