York

The Romans founded Eboracum in AD 71 as a legionary fortress on high ground between the Ouse and the Foss, and it became the capital of the province of Britannia Inferior. Its headquarters lies beneath the minster, and in 306 Constantine the Great was proclaimed emperor by the troops here. Under the Anglo-Saxons, as Eoforwic, it was a royal and church centre: a wooden church was built for the baptism of King Edwin of Northumbria in 627. Vikings took the city in 866 and renamed it Jórvík, and it became a busy trading town with a mint and workshops around Coppergate, with a population second only to London.

The people of York rebelled two years after the Norman Conquest, and William the Conqueror built castles to hold the city; in 1190, 150 of its Jews died in the timber keep during a massacre. Around 1080 Archbishop Thomas began the cathedral that became the present minster, finished in 1472. The city prospered as the centre of the northern church and as a wool-trading town, and its walls and gateways took their present form. Parliament besieged the city in 1644, during the Civil War.

The railway promoter George Hudson brought the railway in 1839, and York became a major railway centre and the headquarters of the North Eastern Railway. Rowntree's, founded in 1862, and Terry's made it a chocolate city, and by 1900 railways and confectionery were its two great industries. German bombing in the Baedeker Blitz gutted several historic buildings. As the old industries declined, tourism grew: the National Railway Museum opened in 1975 and the Jorvik Viking Centre in 1984. Terry's factory closed in 2005, and floods in 2000 and 2015 tested the city's river defences.

York's identity rests on its long history and its church. The minster is the mother church of the northern province and the seat of the Archbishop of York, and the medieval guilds' cycle of mystery plays, one of four virtually complete in England, is still revived at intervals in the streets, the minster and the Museum Gardens. The National Centre for Early Music, in the former church of St Margaret on Walmgate, hosts the York Early Music Festival, and the Theatre Royal, the Grand Opera House and the Joseph Rowntree Theatre provide drama.

Racing has been a part of city life since the racecourse opened on the Knavesmire in 1731; the Ebor Festival each August includes a handicap first run in 1843. The Jorvik Viking Festival celebrates the city's Norse past each February, and the St Nicholas Fair and other Christmas events fill the streets in the run-up to Christmas. York also has a strong pub culture: a 2016 count by local real-ale campaigners found 328 different real ales on sale in more than 200 pubs.

Civic tradition runs deep. York has had a Lord Mayor since 1370, one of only five in the UK with the title "The Right Honourable", and the city keeps a ceremonial Sheriff. The universities of York and York St John bring a large student population, and in 2016 York became a sister city of Nanjing in China.

About 203,000 people lived in the City of York council area at the 2021 census, which includes surrounding villages and the town of Haxby; the built-up area of the city itself had about 142,000. The population is overwhelmingly White British, and Christianity remains the largest religion, reported by about 44 per cent of residents in 2021.

The economy of chocolate and railways that sustained York into the 1950s has largely gone. The railway carriage works, which employed thousands, closed in the 1990s, and Terry's chocolate factory, maker of the Chocolate Orange, shut in 2005. Nestlé still makes KitKat and Yorkie bars at the former Rowntree's works, but tourism, the universities, insurance, BT and other services now provide most jobs. Visitors crowd the walled centre year-round.

Residents live mostly in the suburbs and villages beyond the walls, from Acomb and Holgate in the west to Heworth, Fulford and Heslington, home to the university, in the east and south. Much land around the city is too flood-prone to build on, and the ings, or flood meadows, along the Ouse are often under water in winter. Traffic is restricted in the centre, and park-and-ride sites and cycling routes along the river carry many people into town.

York ham is the city's best-known food: a mild-flavoured, dry-cured ham with delicate pink colouring, described as saltier but milder than other European dry-cured hams. Folklore has it that the oak construction of the minster provided the sawdust for smoking it. The Shambles Market, between the Shambles and Parliament Street, has food and produce stalls.

Chocolate is part of the city's story. Rowntree's and Terry's employed thousands, the KitKat and Yorkie are still made here by Nestlé, and York's Chocolate Story, a visitor attraction that opened in 2012, tells the history. A chocolate festival is held in spring and a food and drink festival each September in Parliament Street and the market squares.

Tea and beer complete the picture. Bettys Café Tea Rooms in St Helen's Square, the York branch of the Harrogate company founded by the Swiss confectioner Frederick Belmont, is an institution, and its basement bar was a favourite of wartime airmen. Old inns such as the Golden Fleece and Ye Olde Starre Inne serve real ale, and every September the Knavesmire hosts Yorkshire's largest beer festival. Fossgate, Walmgate and Micklegate hold many of the city's independent restaurants.