Bristol

Bristol

1. City of. a port and industrial city in SW England, mainly in Bristol unitary authority, on the River Avon seven miles from its mouth on the Bristol Channel: a major port, trading with America, in the 17th and 18th centuries; the modern port consists chiefly of docks at Avonmouth and Portishead; noted for the Clifton Suspension Bridge (designed by I K Brunel, 1834) over the Avon gorge; Bristol university (1909) and University of the West of England (1992). Pop.: 420 556 (2001)

2. City of. a unitary authority in SW England, created in 1996 from part of Avon county. Pop.: 391 500 (2003 est.). Area: 110 sq. km (42 sq. miles)

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Bristol (Independent City), Virginia

497 Cumberland St Rm 210
Bristol, VA 24201
Phone: (276) 645-7321
Fax: (276) 821-6097
www.bristolva.org

In southwestern VA on the Tennessee border. Name Origin: Established in 1850 as Goodson, for Samuel Goodson, the founder; incorporated as a town in 1856. Incorporated as a city and renamed Bristol in 1890 for the contiguous town in TN of the same name

Area (sq mi):: 13.16 (land 12.90; water 0.27) Population per square mile: 1343.80
Population 2005: 17,335 State rank: 85 Population change: 2000-20005 -0.20%; 1990-2000 -5.70% Population 2000: 17,367 (White 91.90%; Black or African American 5.60%; Hispanic or Latino 1.00%; Asian 0.40%; Other 1.50%). Foreign born: 1.40%. Median age: 41.30
Income 2000: per capita $17,311; median household $27,389; Population below poverty level: 16.20% Personal per capita income (2000-2003): $23,044-$25,307
Unemployment (2004): 6.10% Unemployment change (from 2000): 2.10% Median travel time to work: 18.00 minutes Working outside county of residence: 53.60%

Cities with population over 10,000:

Bristol (17,308)

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See other counties in Virginia.

Counties USA: A Directory of United States Counties, 3rd Edition. © 2006 by Omnigraphics, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Bristol

 

a city (county borough) in southwestern Great Britain in Gloucestershire on the river Avon not far from its mouth in the Bristol Channel of the Atlantic Ocean. Population, circa 427,200 (1969). It is a major port (with the out-ports of Avonmouth and Portishead) and railroad junction. It is a machine-building center that is noted for its aircraft and jet aviation industry (the factories of the British Aircraft Corporation and of Bristol-Siddeley are located in the northern suburb of Filton). There are food and condiment (sugar, chocolate, and tobacco), chemical, and petroleum refining industries, as well as nonferrous metallurgy (using imported raw materials). It has a university.

It was founded in about the sixth century and from the 12th century has been well known as a major port. During the colonization of North America and the West Indies (in the 17th and the early 18th centuries) Bristol was one of the slave-trading and colonial trading centers (sugar, tobacco, and so forth).

Preserved in Bristol are dwellings from the Middle Ages, the late Romanesque frame hospital of St. Peter (12th century), a cathedral (begun in 1142 and rebuilt in the Gothic style during the 13th to 15th centuries), the Gothic church of St. Mary Redcliffe (from the 13th century to 1475), a stock market (1740-43 by the architect J. Wood) in the classical style, and a single-span suspension bridge (1836-64, with a length of c. 230 m). There is a museum and a city art gallery.

REFERENCE

Bristol and Its Adjoining Counties. Bristol, 1955.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.