It is the second-largest city on the island of Ireland after Dublin , with an estimated population of , in , [ 2 ] and a metropolitan area population of , First chartered as an English settlement in , the town's early growth was driven by an influx of Scottish Presbyterians. Their descendants' disaffection with Ireland 's Anglican establishment contributed to the rebellion of , and to the union with Great Britain in β later regarded as a key to the town's industrial transformation.
When granted city status in , Belfast was the world's largest centre of linen manufacture, and by the s her shipyards were building up to a quarter of total United Kingdom tonnage. Sectarian tensions accompanied the growth of an Irish Catholic population drawn by mill and factory employment from western districts. Heightened by division over Ireland's future in the United Kingdom , these twice erupted in periods of sustained violence: in β22 , as Belfast emerged as the capital of the six northeast counties retaining the British connection, and over three decades from the late s during which the British Army was continually deployed on the streets.
A legacy of conflict is the barrier-reinforced separation of Protestant and Catholic working-class districts. Since the Good Friday Agreement , the electoral balance in the once unionist -controlled city has shifted, albeit with no overall majority, in favour of Irish nationalists.
At the same time, new immigrants are adding to the growing number of residents unwilling to identify with either of the two communal traditions. Belfast has seen significant services sector growth, with important contributions from financial technology fintech , from tourism and, with facilities in the redeveloped Harbour Estate , from film. Post Brexit , Belfast and Northern Ireland remain, uniquely, within both the British domestic and European Single trading areas for goods.
It supports two universities: on the north-side of the city centre, Ulster University , and on the southside the longer established Queens University. It was at this crossing, located under or close to the current Queen's Bridge, that the early settlement developed. The compilers of Ulster-Scots use various transcriptions of local pronunciations of "Belfast" with which they sometimes are also content [ 10 ] [ 11 ] including Bilfawst , [ 12 ] [ 13 ] Bilfaust [ 14 ] or Baelfawst.
