title: Astrological sign

text: The elemental categories are called triplicities because each classical element is associated with three signs The four astrological elements are also considered as a direct equivalent to Hippocrates' personality types (sanguine = air; choleric = fire; melancholic = earth; phlegmatic = water). A modern approach looks at elements as "the energy substance of experience" and the next table tries to summarize their description through keywords. The elements have grown in importance and some astrologers begin natal chart interpretations by studying the balance of elements in the location of planets (especially the Sun's and Moon's ascendant signs) and the position of angles in the chart.


title: Astrological sign

text: Rulership is the connection between planet and correlated sign and house. The conventional rulerships are as follows: Aries (Mars), Taurus (Venus), Gemini (Mercury), Cancer (Moon), Leo (Sun), Virgo (Mercury), Libra (Venus), Scorpio (Pluto), Sagittarius (Jupiter), Capricorn (Saturn), Aquarius (Uranus), and Pisces (Neptune).


title: Astrological sign

text: A traditional belief of astrology, known as essential dignity, is the idea that the Sun, Moon, and planets are more powerful and effective in some signs than others because the basic nature of both is held to be in harmony. By contrast, they are held to find some signs to be weak or difficult to operate in because their natures are thought to be in conflict. These categories are Dignity, Detriment, Exaltation, and Fall.


title: Astrological sign

text: In traditional astrology, other levels of Dignity are recognised in addition to Rulership. These are known as Exaltation, Triplicity, Terms or bounds, and Face or Decan, which together are known as describing a planet's "Essential dignity", the quality or ability of one's true nature.


title: Astrological sign

text: In addition to essential dignity, the traditional astrologer considers "Accidental dignity" of planets. This is placement by house in the chart under examination. Accidental dignity is the planet's "ability to act." So we might have, for example, Moon in Cancer, dignified by rulership, is placed in the 12th house it would have little scope to express its good nature. The 12th is a cadent house as are the 3rd, 6th and 9th and planets in these houses are considered weak or afflicted. On the other hand, Moon in the 1st, 4th, 7th, or 10th would be more able to act as these are Angular houses. Planets in Succedent houses of the chart (2nd, 5th, 8th, 11th) are generally considered to be of medium ability to act. Besides Accidental Dignity, there are a range of "Accidental Debilities", such as retrogradation, Under the Sun's Beams, Combust, and so forth.


title: Astrological sign

text: Each sign can be divided into three 10° sectors known as decans or decanates, though these have fallen into disuse. The first decanate is said to be most emphatically of its own nature and is ruled by the sign ruler. The next decanate is sub-ruled by the planet ruling the next sign in the same triplicity. The last decanate is sub-ruled by the next in order in the same triplicity.


title: Astrological sign

text: While the element and modality of a sign are together sufficient to define it, they can be grouped to indicate their symbolism. The first four signs, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, and Cancer, form the group of personal signs. The next four signs, Leo, Virgo, Libra, and Scorpio form the group of interpersonal signs. The last four signs of the zodiac, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces, form the group of transpersonal signs.


title: Astrological sign

text: Dane Rudhyar presented the tropical zodiac primary factors, used in the curriculum of the RASA School of Astrology. The tropical zodiac is the zodiac of seasonal factors as opposed to the sidereal zodiac (constellation factors). The primary seasonal factors are based on the changing ratio of sunlight and darkness across the year. The first factor is whether the chosen time falls in the half of the year when daylight is increasing, or the half of the year when darkness is increasing. The second factor is whether the chosen time falls in the half of the year when there is more daylight than darkness, or the half when there is more darkness than daylight. The third factor is which of the four seasons the chosen time falls in, defined by the first two factors. Thus


title: Astrological sign

text: In Indian astrology, there are five elements: fire, earth(Land), air, water, and ether. The master of fire is Mars, while Mercury is of land, Saturn of air, Venus of water, and Jupiter of ether.


title: Astrological sign

text: Jyotish astrology recognises twelve zodiac signs (Rāśi), that correspond to those in Western astrology. The relation of the signs to the elements is the same in the two systems.


title: Astrological sign

text: A nakshatra (Devanagari: नक्षत्र, Sanskrit ', a metaphorical compound of ' 'map/chart', and ' 'guard'), or lunar mansion, is one of the 27 divisions of the sky identified by prominent star(s), as used in Hindu astronomy and astrology (Jyotisha). "Nakshatra" in Sanskrit, Kannada, Tulu and Tamil and Prakrit also, thus, it refers to stars themselves.


title: Astrological sign

text: Chinese astrological signs operate on cycles of years, lunar months, and two-hour periods of the day (also known as "shichen"). A particular feature of the Chinese zodiac is its operation in a 60-year cycle in combination with the Five Phases of Chinese astrology (Wood, Fire, Metal, Water and Earth).


title: Astrological sign

text: Nevertheless, some researches say that there is an obvious relationship between the Chinese 12-year cycle and zodiac constellations: each year of the cycle corresponds to a certain disposal of Jupiter. For example, in the year of Snake Jupiter is in the Sign of Gemini, in the year of Horse Jupiter is in the Sign of Cancer and so on. So the Chinese 12-year calendar is a solar-lunar-jovian calendar.


title: Astrological sign

text: In Chinese astrology, the zodiac of twelve animal signs represents twelve different types of personality. The zodiac traditionally begins with the sign of the Rat, and there are many stories about the Origins of the Chinese Zodiac which explain why this is so. When the twelve zodiac signs are part of the 60-year calendar in combination with the four elements, they are traditionally called the twelve Earthly Branches. The Chinese zodiac follows the lunisolar Chinese calendar and thus the "changeover" days in a month (when one sign changes to another sign) vary each year. The following are the twelve zodiac signs in order.


title: Astrological sign

text: The five elements operate together with the twelve animal signs in a 60-year calendar. The five elements appear in the calendar in both their yin and yang forms and are known as the ten Celestial stems. The yin/yang split seen in the Gregorian calendar means years that end in an even number are Yang (representing masculine, active, and light), those that end with an odd number are Yin (representing feminine, passive and darkness), subject to Chinese New Year having passed.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West Midlands metropolitan county, and approximately 4.3 million in the wider metropolitan area. It is the largest UK metropolitan area outside of London. Birmingham is known as the second city of the United Kingdom.


title: Birmingham

text: Located in the West Midlands region of England, approximately from London, Birmingham is considered to be the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands. Distinctively, Birmingham only has small rivers flowing through it, mainly the River Tame and its tributaries River Rea and River Cole – one of the closest main rivers is the Severn, approximately west of the city centre.


title: Birmingham

text: Historically a market town in Warwickshire in the medieval period, Birmingham grew during the 18th century during the Midlands Enlightenment and during the Industrial Revolution, which saw advances in science, technology and economic development, producing a series of innovations that laid many of the foundations of modern industrial society. By 1791, it was being hailed as "the first manufacturing town in the world". Birmingham's distinctive economic profile, with thousands of small workshops practising a wide variety of specialised and highly skilled trades, encouraged exceptional levels of creativity and innovation; this provided an economic base for prosperity that was to last into the final quarter of the 20th century. The Watt steam engine was invented in Birmingham.


title: Birmingham

text: The resulting high level of social mobility also fostered a culture of political radicalism which, under leaders from Thomas Attwood to Joseph Chamberlain, was to give it a political influence unparalleled in Britain outside London and a pivotal role in the development of British democracy. From the summer of 1940 to the spring of 1943, Birmingham was bombed heavily by the German Luftwaffe in what is known as the Birmingham Blitz. The damage done to the city's infrastructure, in addition to a deliberate policy of demolition and new building by planners, led to extensive urban regeneration in subsequent decades.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham's economy is now dominated by the service sector. The city is a major international commercial centre and an important transport, retail, events and conference hub. Its metropolitan economy is the second-largest in the United Kingdom with a GDP of $121.1bn (2014). Its five universities, including the University of Birmingham, make it the largest centre of higher education in the country outside London. Birmingham's major cultural institutions – the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, the Library of Birmingham and the Barber Institute of Fine Arts – enjoy international reputations, and the city has vibrant and influential grassroots art, music, literary and culinary scenes. The city also successfully hosted the 2022 Commonwealth Games. In 2021, Birmingham was the third most visited city in the UK by people from foreign nations.


title: Birmingham

text: The name "Birmingham" comes from the Old English , meaning the home or settlement of the – a tribe or clan whose name literally means 'Beorma's people' and which may have formed an early unit of Anglo-Saxon administration. Beorma, after whom the tribe was named, could have been its leader at the time of the Anglo-Saxon settlement, a shared ancestor, or a mythical tribal figurehead. Place names ending in are characteristic of primary settlements established during the early phases of Anglo-Saxon colonisation of an area, suggesting that Birmingham was probably in existence by the early 7th century at the latest. Surrounding settlements with names ending in ('farm'), ('woodland clearing'), ('enclosure') and ('open ground') are likely to be secondary settlements created by the later expansion of the Anglo-Saxon population, in some cases possibly on earlier British sites.


title: Birmingham

text: There is evidence of early human activity in the Birmingham area dating back to around 8000 BC, with Stone Age artefacts suggesting seasonal settlements, overnight hunting parties and woodland activities such as tree felling. The many burnt mounds that can still be seen around the city indicate that modern humans first intensively settled and cultivated the area during the Bronze Age, when a substantial but short-lived influx of population occurred between 1700 BC and 1000 BC, possibly caused by conflict or immigration in the surrounding area. During the 1st-century Roman conquest of Britain, the forested country of the Birmingham Plateau formed a barrier to the advancing Roman legions, who built the large Metchley Fort in the area of modern-day Edgbaston in AD 48, and made it the focus of a network of Roman roads.


title: Birmingham

text: The development of Birmingham into a significant urban and commercial centre began in 1166, when the Lord of the Manor Peter de Bermingham obtained a charter to hold a market at his castle, and followed this with the creation of a planned market town and seigneurial borough within his "demesne" or manorial estate, around the site that became the Bull Ring. This established Birmingham as the primary commercial centre for the Birmingham Plateau at a time when the area's economy was expanding rapidly, with population growth nationally leading to the clearance, cultivation and settlement of previously marginal land. Within a century of the charter Birmingham had grown into a prosperous urban centre of merchants and craftsmen. By 1327 it was the third-largest town in Warwickshire, a position it would retain for the next 200 years.


title: Birmingham

text: The principal governing institutions of medieval Birmingham – including the Guild of the Holy Cross and the lordship of the de Birmingham family – collapsed between 1536 and 1547, leaving the town with an unusually high degree of social and economic freedom and initiating a period of transition and growth. By 1700 Birmingham's population had increased fifteen-fold and the town was the fifth-largest in England and Wales.


title: Birmingham

text: The importance of the manufacture of iron goods to Birmingham's economy was recognised as early as 1538, and grew rapidly as the century progressed. Equally significant was the town's emerging role as a centre for the iron merchants who organised finance, supplied raw materials and traded and marketed the industry's products. By the 1600s Birmingham formed the commercial hub of a network of forges and furnaces stretching from South Wales to Cheshire and its merchants were selling finished manufactured goods as far afield as the West Indies. These trading links gave Birmingham's metalworkers access to much wider markets, allowing them to diversify away from lower-skilled trades producing basic goods for local sale, towards a broader range of specialist, higher-skilled and more lucrative activities.


title: Birmingham

text: By the time of the English Civil War Birmingham's booming economy, its expanding population, and its resulting high levels of social mobility and cultural pluralism, had seen it develop new social structures very different from those of more established areas. Relationships were built around pragmatic commercial linkages rather than the rigid paternalism and deference of feudal society, and loyalties to the traditional hierarchies of the established church and aristocracy were weak. The town's reputation for political radicalism and its strongly Parliamentarian sympathies saw it attacked by Royalist forces in the Battle of Birmingham in 1643, and it developed into a centre of Puritanism in the 1630s and as a haven for Nonconformists from the 1660s.


title: Birmingham

text: The 18th century saw this tradition of free-thinking and collaboration blossom into the cultural phenomenon now known as the Midlands Enlightenment. The town developed into a notable centre of literary, musical, artistic and theatrical activity; and its leading citizens – particularly the members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham – became influential participants in the circulation of philosophical and scientific ideas among Europe's intellectual elite. The close relationship between Enlightenment Birmingham's leading thinkers and its major manufacturers – in men like Matthew Boulton and James Keir they were often in fact the same people – made it particularly important for the exchange of knowledge between pure science and the practical world of manufacturing and technology. This created a "chain reaction of innovation", forming a pivotal link between the earlier scientific revolution and the Industrial Revolution that would follow.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham's explosive industrial expansion started earlier than that of the textile-manufacturing towns of the North of England, and was driven by different factors. Instead of the economies of scale of a low-paid, unskilled workforce producing a single bulk commodity such as cotton or wool in large, mechanised units of production, Birmingham's industrial development was built on the adaptability and creativity of a highly paid workforce with a strong division of labour, practising a broad variety of skilled specialist trades and producing a constantly diversifying range of products, in a highly entrepreneurial economy of small, often self-owned workshops. This led to exceptional levels of inventiveness: between 1760 and 1850 – the core years of the Industrial Revolution – Birmingham residents registered over three times as many patents as those of any other British town or city.


title: Birmingham

text: The demand for capital to feed rapid economic expansion also saw Birmingham grow into a major financial centre with extensive international connections. Lloyds Bank was founded in the town in 1765, and Ketley's Building Society, the world's first building society, in 1775. By 1800 the West Midlands had more banking offices per head than any other region in Britain, including London.


title: Birmingham

text: Innovation in 18th-century Birmingham often took the form of incremental series of small-scale improvements to existing products or processes, but also included major developments that lay at the heart of the emergence of industrial society. In 1709 the Birmingham-trained Abraham Darby I moved to Coalbrookdale in Shropshire and built the first blast furnace to successfully smelt iron ore with coke, transforming the quality, volume and scale on which it was possible to produce cast iron. In 1732 Lewis Paul and John Wyatt invented roller spinning, the "one novel idea of the first importance" in the development of the mechanised cotton industry. In 1741 they opened the world's first cotton mill in Birmingham's Upper Priory. In 1746 John Roebuck invented the lead chamber process, enabling the large-scale manufacture of sulphuric acid, and in 1780 James Keir developed a process for the bulk manufacture of alkali, together marking the birth of the modern chemical industry. In 1765 Matthew Boulton opened the Soho Manufactory, pioneering the combination and mechanisation under one roof of previously separate manufacturing activities through a system known as "rational manufacture". As the largest manufacturing unit in Europe, this came to symbolise the emergence of the factory system.


title: Birmingham

text: Most significant, however, was the development in 1776 of the industrial steam engine by James Watt and Matthew Boulton. Freeing for the first time the manufacturing capacity of human society from the limited availability of hand, water and animal power, this was arguably the pivotal moment of the entire industrial revolution and a key factor in the worldwide increases in productivity over the following century.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham rose to national political prominence in the campaign for political reform in the early 19th century, with Thomas Attwood and the Birmingham Political Union bringing the country to the brink of civil war during the Days of May that preceded the passing of the Great Reform Act in 1832. The Union's meetings on Newhall Hill in 1831 and 1832 were the largest political assemblies Britain had ever seen. Lord Durham, who drafted the Act, wrote that "the country owed Reform to Birmingham, and its salvation from revolution". This reputation for having "shaken the fabric of privilege to its base" in 1832 led John Bright to make Birmingham the platform for his successful campaign for the Second Reform Act of 1867, which extended voting rights to the urban working class.


title: Birmingham

text: The original Charter of Incorporation, dated 31 October 1838, was received in Birmingham on 1 November, then read in the Town Hall on 5 November with elections for the first Birmingham Town Council being held on 26 December. Sixteen Aldermen and 48 Councillors were elected and the Borough was divided into 13 wards. William Scholefield became the first Mayor and William Redfern was appointed as Town Clerk. Birmingham Town Police were established the following year.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham's tradition of innovation continued into the 19th century. Birmingham was the terminus for both of the world's first two long-distance railway lines: the 82-mile Grand Junction Railway of 1837 and the 112-mile London and Birmingham Railway of 1838. Birmingham schoolteacher Rowland Hill invented the postage stamp and created the first modern universal postal system in 1839. Alexander Parkes invented the first man-made plastic in the Jewellery Quarter in 1855.


title: Birmingham

text: By the 1820s, an extensive canal system had been constructed, giving greater access to natural resources and fuel for industries. During the Victorian era, the population of Birmingham grew rapidly to well over half a million and Birmingham became the second largest population centre in England. Birmingham was granted city status in 1889 by Queen Victoria. Joseph Chamberlain, mayor of Birmingham and later an MP, and his son Neville Chamberlain, who was Lord Mayor of Birmingham and later the British Prime Minister, are two of the most well-known political figures who have lived in Birmingham. The city established its own university in 1900.


title: Birmingham

text: The city suffered heavy bomb damage during World War II's "Birmingham Blitz". The city was also the scene of two scientific discoveries that were to prove critical to the outcome of the war. Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls first described how a practical nuclear weapon could be constructed in the Frisch–Peierls memorandum of 1940, the same year that the cavity magnetron, the key component of radar and later of microwave ovens, was invented by John Randall and Henry Boot. Details of these two discoveries, together with an outline of the first jet engine invented by Frank Whittle in nearby Rugby, were taken to the United States by the Tizard Mission in September 1940, in a single black box later described by an official American historian as "the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores".


title: Birmingham

text: The city was extensively redeveloped during the 1950s and 1960s. This included the construction of large tower block estates, such as Castle Vale. The Bull Ring was reconstructed and New Street station was redeveloped. In the decades following World War II, the ethnic makeup of Birmingham changed significantly, as it received waves of immigration from the Commonwealth of Nations and beyond. The city's population peaked in 1951 at 1,113,000 residents.


title: Birmingham

text: 21 people were killed and 182 were injured in a series of bomb attacks in 1974, thought to be carried out by the Provisional IRA. The bombings were the worst terror attacks in England up until the 2005 London bombings and consisted of bombs being planted in two pubs in central Birmingham. Six men were convicted, who became known later as the Birmingham Six and sentenced to life imprisonment, who were acquitted after 16 years by the Court of Appeal. The convictions are now considered one of the worst British miscarriages of justice in recent times. The true perpetrators of the attacks are yet to be arrested.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham remained by far Britain's most prosperous provincial city as late as the 1970s, with household incomes exceeding even those of London and the South East, but its economic diversity and capacity for regeneration declined in the decades that followed World War II as Central Government sought to restrict the city's growth and disperse industry and population to the stagnating areas of Wales and Northern England. These measures hindered "the natural self-regeneration of businesses in Birmingham, leaving it top-heavy with the old and infirm", and the city became increasingly dependent on the motor industry. The recession of the early 1980s saw Birmingham's economy collapse, with unprecedented levels of unemployment and outbreaks of social unrest in inner-city districts.


title: Birmingham

text: Recently, many parts of Birmingham have been transformed, with the redevelopment of the Bullring Shopping Centre, the construction of the new Library of Birmingham (the largest public library in Europe) and the regeneration of old industrial areas such as Brindleyplace, The Mailbox and the International Convention Centre. Old streets, buildings and canals have been restored, the pedestrian subways have been removed and the Inner Ring Road has been rationalised. In 1998 Birmingham hosted the 24th G8 summit. The city successfully hosted the 2022 Commonwealth Games.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham City Council is the largest local authority in Europe, in terms of the population it covers with 101 councillors representing 77 wards as of 2018. Its headquarters are at the Council House in Victoria Square. , the council has a Labour Party majority and is led by Ian Ward. Labour replaced the previous no overall control status at the May 2012 elections. The honour and dignity of a Lord Mayoralty was conferred on Birmingham by Letters Patent on 3 June 1896.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham's ten parliamentary constituencies are represented in the House of Commons by two Conservative and eight Labour MPs.


title: Birmingham

text: Originally part of Warwickshire, Birmingham expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, absorbing parts of Worcestershire to the south and Staffordshire to the north and west. The city absorbed Sutton Coldfield in 1974 and became a metropolitan borough in the new West Midlands county.


title: Birmingham

text: A top-level government body, the West Midlands Combined Authority, was formed in April 2016. The WMCA holds devolved powers in transport, development planning, and economic growth. The authority is governed by a directly elected mayor, similar to the Mayor of London.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham is located in the centre of the West Midlands region of England on the Birmingham Plateau – an area of relatively high ground, ranging between above sea level and crossed by Britain's main north–south watershed between the basins of the Rivers Severn and Trent. To the south west of the city lie the Lickey Hills, Clent Hills and Walton Hill, which reach and have extensive views over the city. Birmingham is drained only by minor rivers and brooks, primarily the River Tame and its tributaries the Cole and the Rea.


title: Birmingham

text: The City of Birmingham forms a conurbation with the largely residential borough of Solihull to the south east, and with the city of Wolverhampton and the industrial towns of the Black Country to the north west, which form the West Midlands Built-up Area covering . Surrounding this is Birmingham's metropolitan area – the area to which it is closely economically tied through commuting – which includes the former Mercian capital of Tamworth and the cathedral city of Lichfield in Staffordshire to the north; the industrial city of Coventry and the Warwickshire towns of Nuneaton, Warwick and Leamington Spa to the east; and the Worcestershire towns of Redditch and Bromsgrove to the south west.


title: Birmingham

text: Much of the area now occupied by the city was originally a northern reach of the ancient Forest of Arden, whose former presence can still be felt in the city's dense oak tree-cover and in the large number of districts such as Moseley, Saltley, Yardley, Stirchley and Hockley with names ending in "-ley": the Old English "-" meaning "woodland clearing".


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham is dominated by the Birmingham Fault, which runs diagonally through the city from the Lickey Hills in the south west, passing through Edgbaston and the Bull Ring, to Erdington and Sutton Coldfield in the north east. To the south and east of the fault the ground is largely softer Mercia Mudstone, interspersed with beds of Bunter pebbles and crossed by the valleys of the Rivers Tame, Rea and Cole and their tributaries. To the north and west of the fault, between higher than the surrounding area and underlying much of the city centre, lies a long ridge of harder Keuper Sandstone. The bedrock underlying Birmingham was mostly laid down during the Permian and Triassic periods.


title: Birmingham

text: The area has evidence of glacial deposits, with prominent erratic boulders becoming a tourist attraction in the early 1900's.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham has a temperate maritime climate ("Cfb" according to the Köppen climate classification), like much of the British Isles, with average maximum temperatures in summer (July) being around ; and in winter (January) around . Between 1971 and 2000 the warmest day of the year on average was and the coldest night typically fell to . Some 11.2 days each year rose to a temperature of or above and 51.6 nights reported an air frost. The highest recorded temperature, set on 19 July 2022, was .


title: Birmingham

text: Like most other large cities, Birmingham has a considerable urban heat island effect. During the coldest night recorded, 14 January 1982, the temperature fell to at Birmingham Airport on the city's eastern edge, but just at Edgbaston, near the city centre.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham is a snowy city relative to other large UK conurbations, due to its inland location and comparatively high elevation. Between 1961 and 1990 Birmingham Airport averaged 13.0 days of snow lying annually, compared to 5.33 at London Heathrow. Snow showers often pass through the city via the Cheshire gap on north westerly airstreams, but can also come off the North Sea from north easterly airstreams.


title: Birmingham

text: Extreme weather is rare, but the city has been known to experience tornadoes. On 23 November 1981, during a record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak, two tornadoes touched down within the Birmingham city limits – in Erdington and Selly Oak – with six tornadoes touching down within the boundaries of the wider West Midlands county. More recently, a destructive tornado occurred in July 2005 in the south of the city, damaging homes and businesses in the area.


title: Birmingham

text: There are 571 parks within Birmingham – more than any other European city – totalling over of public open space. The city has over six million trees, and of urban brooks and streams. Sutton Park, which covers in the north of the city, is the largest urban park in Europe and a national nature reserve. Birmingham Botanical Gardens, located close to the city centre, retains the regency landscape of its original design by J. C. Loudon in 1829, while the Winterbourne Botanic Garden in Edgbaston reflects the more informal Arts and Crafts tastes of its Edwardian origins.


title: Birmingham

text: Several green spaces within the borough are designated as green belt, as a portion of the wider West Midlands Green Belt. This is a strategic local government policy used to prevent urban sprawl and preserve greenfield land. Areas included are the aforementioned Sutton Park; land along the borough boundary by the Sutton Coldfield, Walmley and Minworth suburbs; Kingfisher, Sheldon, Woodgate Valley country parks; grounds by the Wake Green football club; Bartley and Frankley reservoirs; and Handsworth cemetery with surrounding golf courses.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham has many areas of wildlife that lie in both informal settings such as the Project Kingfisher and Woodgate Valley Country Park and in a selection of parks such as Lickey Hills Country Park, Pype Hayes Park & Newhall Valley, Handsworth Park, Kings Heath Park, and Cannon Hill Park, the latter also housing the mini zoo, Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park.


title: Birmingham

text: The 2012 mid-year estimate for the population of Birmingham was 1,085,400. This was an increase of 11,200, or 1.0%, since the same time in 2011. Since 2001, the population has grown by 99,500, or 10.1%. Birmingham is the largest local Authority area and city in the UK outside of London. The population density is 10,391 inhabitants per square mile (4,102/km) compared to the 976.9 inhabitants per square mile (377.2/km) for England. Based on the 2011 UK Census, Birmingham's population is projected to reach 1,160,100 by 2021, an increase of 8.0%. This compares with an estimated rate of 9.1% for the previous decade.


title: Birmingham

text: The West Midlands conurbation had a population of 2,441,00 (2011 est.,), and 2,762,700 people live in the West Midlands (county) (2012 est.,).


title: Birmingham

text: According to figures from the 2011 UK Census, 57.9% of the population was White (53.1% White British, 2.1% White Irish, 2.7% Other White), 4.4% of mixed race (2.3% White and Black Caribbean, 0.3% White and Black African, 1.0% White and Asian, 0.8% Other Mixed), 26.6% Asian (13.5% Pakistani, 6.0% Indian, 3.0% Bangladeshi, 1.2% Chinese, 2.9% Other Asian), 8.9% Black (2.8% African, 4.4% Caribbean, 1.7% Other Black), 1.0% Arab and 1.0% of other ethnic heritage. 57% of primary and 52% of secondary pupils are from non-White British families.


title: Birmingham

text: 238,313 Birmingham residents were born overseas, of these, 44% (103,682) have been resident in the UK for less than ten years. Countries new to the twenty most reported countries of birth for Birmingham residents since 2001 include; Iran, Zimbabwe, the Philippines and Nigeria. Established migrants outnumbered newer migrants in all wards except for, Edgbaston, Ladywood, Nechells and Selly Oak.


title: Birmingham

text: In Birmingham, 60.4% of the population was aged between 16 and 74, compared to 66.7% in England as a whole. There are generally more females than males in each single year of age, except for the youngest ages (0–18) and late-30s and late-50s. Females represented 51.6% of the population whilst men represented 48.4%. The differences are most marked in the oldest age group reflecting greater female longevity, where more women were 70 or over. The bulge around the early 20s is due largely to students coming to the city's universities. Children around age ten are a relatively small group, reflecting the decline in birth rates around the turn of the century. There is a large group of children under the age of five reflecting high numbers of births in recent years. Births are up 20% since 2001, increasing from 14,427 to 17,423 in 2011.


title: Birmingham

text: In 2011, of all households in Birmingham, 0.12% were same-sex civil partnership households, compared to the English national average of 0.16%.


title: Birmingham

text: 25.9% of all households owned their accommodation outright, another 29.3% owned their accommodation with a mortgage or loan. These figures were below the national average.


title: Birmingham

text: 45.5% of people said they were in very good health which was below the national average. Another 33.9% said they were in good health, which was also below the national average. 9.1% of people said their day-to-day activities were limited a lot by their health which was higher than the national average.


title: Birmingham

text: The Birmingham Larger Urban Zone, a Eurostat measure of the functional city-region approximated to local government districts, has a population of 2,357,100 in 2004. In addition to Birmingham itself, the LUZ includes the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull and Walsall, along with the districts of Lichfield, Tamworth, North Warwickshire and Bromsgrove.


title: Birmingham

text: Christianity is the largest religion within Birmingham, with 34% of residents identifying as Christians in the 2021 Census. The city's religious profile is highly diverse: outside London, Birmingham has the United Kingdom's largest Muslim, Sikh and Buddhist communities; its second largest Hindu community; and its seventh largest Jewish community. Between the 2001, 2011, and 2021 censuses, the proportion of Christians in Birmingham decreased from 59.1% to 46.1% to 34%, while the proportion of Muslims increased from 14.3% to 21.8% to 29.9% and the proportion of people with no religious affiliation increased from 12.4% to 19.3% to 24.1%. All other religions remained proportionately similar.


title: Birmingham

text: St Philip's Cathedral was upgraded from church status when the Anglican Diocese of Birmingham was created in 1905. There are two other cathedrals: St Chad's, seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham and the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God and St Andrew. The Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Midlands is also based at Birmingham, with a cathedral under construction. The original parish church of Birmingham, St Martin in the Bull Ring, is Grade II* listed. A short distance from Five Ways the Birmingham Oratory was completed in 1910 on the site of Cardinal Newman's original foundation. There are several Christadelphian meeting halls in the city and the Christadelphian Magazine and Publishing Group has its headquarters in Hall Green.


title: Birmingham

text: The oldest surviving synagogue in Birmingham is the 1825 Greek Revival Severn Street Synagogue, now a Freemasons' Lodge hall. It was replaced in 1856 by the Grade II* listed Singers Hill Synagogue. Birmingham Central Mosque, one of the largest in Europe, was constructed in the 1960s. During the late 1990s Ghamkol Shariff Masjid was built in Small Heath. The Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha Sikh Gurdwara was built on Soho Road in Handsworth in the late 1970s and the Theravada Buddhist Dhamma Talaka Peace Pagoda near Edgbaston Reservoir in the 1990s. Winners' Chapel also maintains physical presence in Digbeth.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham grew to prominence as a centre of manufacturing and engineering. The Gun Quarter is a district of the city that was, for many years, a centre of the world's gun-manufacturing industry. The first recorded gun maker in Birmingham was in 1630, and locally made muskets were used in the English Civil War. The Gun Quarter is an industrial area to the north of the city centre, bounded by Steelhouse Lane, Shadwell Street, and Loveday Street, specialising in the production of military firearms and sporting guns. Many buildings in the area are disused but plans are in place for redevelopment including in Shadwell Street and Vesey Street.


title: Birmingham

text: The economy of Birmingham is dominated by the service sector, which accounted for 88% of the city's employment in 2012. Birmingham is the largest centre in Great Britain for employment in public administration, education and health; and after Leeds the second-largest centre outside London for employment in financial and other business services. The wider metropolitan economy is the second-largest in the United Kingdom with a GDP of $121.1 billion (2014 estimate, PPP). Major companies headquartered in Birmingham include the engineering company IMI plc, National Express, Patisserie Valerie, Claire's, and Mitchells & Butlers; including the wider metropolitan area, the city has the largest concentration of major companies outside London and the South East. hosting headquarters for Gymshark and Severn Trent Water. With major facilities such as the National Exhibition Centre and International Convention Centre, Birmingham attracts 42% of the UK's total conference and exhibition trade.


title: Birmingham

text: In 2012, manufacturing accounted for 8% of the employment in Birmingham, a figure below the average for the UK as a whole. Major industrial plants in the city include Jaguar Land Rover in Castle Bromwich and Cadbury in Bournville, with large local producers also supporting a supply chain of precision-based small manufacturers and craft industries. More traditional industries also remain: 40% of the jewellery made in the UK is still produced by the 300 independent manufacturers of the city's Jewellery Quarter, continuing a trade first recorded in Birmingham in 1308.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham's GVA was estimated to be £24.8 billion in 2015, economic growth accelerated each successive year between 2013 and 2015, and with an annual growth of 4.2% in 2015, GVA per head grew at the second-fastest rate of England's eight "Core Cities". The value of manufacturing output in the city declined by 21% in real terms between 1997 and 2010, but the value of financial and insurance activities more than doubled. With 16,281 start-ups registered during 2013, Birmingham has the highest level of entrepreneurial activity outside London, while the number of registered businesses in the city grew by 8.1% during 2016. Birmingham was behind only London and Edinburgh for private sector job creation between 2010 and 2013.


title: Birmingham

text: Economic inequality in Birmingham is greater than in any other major English city, exceeded only by Glasgow in the United Kingdom. Levels of unemployment are among the highest in the country, with 10% of the economically active population unemployed (June 2016). In the inner-city wards of Aston and Washwood Heath, the figure is higher than 30%. Two-fifths of Birmingham's population live in areas classified as in the 10% most deprived parts of England, and overall Birmingham is the most deprived local authority in England in terms of income and employment deprivation. The city's infant mortality rate is high, around 60% worse than the national average. Meanwhile, just 49% of women have jobs, compared to 65% nationally, and only 28% of the working-age population in Birmingham have degree level qualifications in contrast to the average of 34% across other Core Cities.


title: Birmingham

text: According to the 2014 Mercer Quality of Living Survey, Birmingham was placed 51st in the world, which was the second-highest rating in the UK. The city's quality of life rating has continued to improve over the years and Birmingham was ranked 49th in the world in the 2019 survey. This is the first time it has featured in the top 50. The Big City Plan of 2008 aims to move the city into the index's top 20 by 2026. An area of the city has been designated an enterprise zone, with tax relief and simplified planning to lure investment.


title: Birmingham

text: According to 2019 property investment research, Birmingham is rated as the number one location for "The Best Places To Invest in Property in the UK". This was attributed to a 5% increase in house prices and local investment into infrastructure.


title: Birmingham

text: The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's home venue is Symphony Hall. Other notable professional orchestras based in the city include the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia and Ex Cathedra, a Baroque chamber choir and period instrument orchestra. The Orchestra of the Swan is the resident chamber orchestra at Birmingham Town Hall, where weekly recitals have also been given by the City Organist since 1834.


title: Birmingham

text: The Birmingham Triennial Music Festivals took place from 1784 to 1912. Music was specially composed, conducted or performed by Mendelssohn, Gounod, Sullivan, Dvořák, Bantock and Edward Elgar, who wrote four of his most famous choral pieces for Birmingham. Elgar's "The Dream of Gerontius" had its début performance there in 1900. Composers born in the city include Albert William Ketèlbey and Andrew Glover.


title: Birmingham

text: Jazz has been popular in the city since the 1920s, and there are many regular festivals such as the Harmonic Festival, the Mostly Jazz Festival and the annual International Jazz Festival.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham's other city-centre music venues include Arena Birmingham (previously known as the National Indoor Arena and the Barclaycard Arena), which was opened in 1991, O2 Academy on Bristol Street, which opened in September 2009 replacing the O2 Academy in Dale End, the CBSO Centre, opened in 1997, HMV Institute in Digbeth and the Bradshaw Hall at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.


title: Birmingham

text: During the 1960s, Birmingham was the home of a music scene comparable to that of Liverpool. It was "a seething cauldron of musical activity", and the international success of groups such as The Move, The Spencer Davis Group, The Moody Blues, Traffic and the Electric Light Orchestra had a collective influence that stretched into the 1970s and beyond. The city was a centre for early heavy metal music, with pioneering metal bands from the late 1960s and 1970s such as Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and half of Led Zeppelin having come from Birmingham. The next decade saw the influential metal bands Napalm Death and Godflesh emerge from the city. Birmingham was the birthplace of modern bhangra in the 1960s, and by the 1980s had established itself as the global centre of bhangra culture, which has grown into a global phenomenon embraced by members of the Indian diaspora worldwide from Los Angeles to Singapore. The 1970s also saw the rise of reggae and ska in the city with such bands as Steel Pulse, UB40, Musical Youth, The Beat and Beshara, expounding racial unity with politically leftist lyrics and multiracial line-ups, mirroring social currents in Birmingham at that time.


title: Birmingham

text: Other popular bands from Birmingham include Duran Duran, Johnny Foreigner, Fine Young Cannibals, Felt, Broadcast, Ocean Colour Scene, The Streets, The Twang, King Adora, Dexys Midnight Runners, and Magnum. Musicians Jeff Lynne, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward, Geezer Butler, John Lodge, Roy Wood, Joan Armatrading, Toyah Willcox, Denny Laine, Sukshinder Shinda, Apache Indian, Steve Winwood, Jamelia, Oceans Ate Alaska, Fyfe Dangerfield and Laura Mvula all grew up in the city.


title: Birmingham

text: Since 2012 the Digbeth-based B-Town indie music scene has attracted widespread attention, led by bands such as Peace and Swim Deep, with the "NME" comparing Digbeth to London's Shoreditch, and "The Independent" writing in 2012 that "Birmingham is fast becoming the best place in the UK to look to for the most exciting new music."


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham Repertory Theatre is Britain's longest-established producing theatre, presenting a wide variety of work in its three auditoria on Centenary Square and touring nationally and internationally. Other producing theatres in the city include the Blue Orange Theatre in the Jewellery Quarter; the Old Rep, home stage of the Birmingham Stage Company; and @ A. E. Harris, the base of the experimental Stan's Cafe theatre company, located within a working metal fabricators' factory. Touring theatre companies include the politically radical Banner Theatre, the Maverick Theatre Company and Kindle Theatre. The Alexandra Theatre and the Birmingham Hippodrome host large-scale touring productions, while professional drama is performed on a wide range of stages across the city, including the Crescent Theatre, the Custard Factory, the Old Joint Stock Theatre, the Drum in Aston and the "mac" in Cannon Hill Park.


title: Birmingham

text: The Birmingham Royal Ballet is one of the United Kingdom's five major ballet companies and one of three based outside London. It is resident at the Birmingham Hippodrome and tours extensively nationally and internationally. The company's associated ballet school – Elmhurst School for Dance in Edgbaston – is the oldest vocational dance school in the country.


title: Birmingham

text: The Birmingham Opera Company under artistic director Graham Vick has developed an international reputation for its avant-garde productions, which often take place in factories, abandoned buildings and other found spaces around the city. More conventional seasons by Welsh National Opera and other visiting opera companies take place regularly at the Birmingham Hippodrome.


title: Birmingham

text: The first dedicated comedy club outside of London, The Glee Club, was opened in The Arcadian Centre, city centre, in 1994, and continues to host performances by leading regional, national and international acts.


title: Birmingham

text: Literary figures associated with Birmingham include Samuel Johnson who stayed in Birmingham for a short period and was born in nearby Lichfield. Arthur Conan Doyle worked in the Aston area of Birmingham whilst poet Louis MacNeice lived in Birmingham for six years. It was whilst staying in Birmingham that American author Washington Irving produced several of his most famous literary works, such as "Bracebridge Hall" and "The Humorists, A Medley" which are based on Aston Hall, as well as "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle" .


title: Birmingham

text: The poet W. H. Auden grew up in the Harborne area of the city and during the 1930s formed the core of the Auden Group with Birmingham University lecturer Louis MacNeice. Other influential poets associated with Birmingham include Roi Kwabena, who was the city's sixth poet laureate, and Benjamin Zephaniah, who was born in the city.


title: Birmingham

text: The author J. R. R. Tolkien was brought up in the Kings Heath area of Birmingham. The award-winning political playwright David Edgar was born in Birmingham, and the science fiction author John Wyndham spent his early childhood in the Edgbaston area of the city.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham has a vibrant contemporary literary scene, with local authors including David Lodge, Jim Crace, Jonathan Coe, Joel Lane and Judith Cutler. The city's leading contemporary literary publisher is the Tindal Street Press, whose authors include prize-winning novelists Catherine O'Flynn, Clare Morrall and Austin Clarke.


title: Birmingham

text: The Birmingham School of landscape artists emerged with Daniel Bond in the 1760s and was to last into the mid 19th century. Its most important figure was David Cox, whose later works make him an important precursor of impressionism. The influence of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists and the Birmingham School of Art made Birmingham an important centre of Victorian art, particularly within the Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts movements. Major figures included the Pre-Raphaelite and symbolist Edward Burne-Jones; Walter Langley, the first of the Newlyn School painters; and Joseph Southall, leader of the group of artists and craftsmen known as the Birmingham Group.


title: Birmingham

text: The Birmingham Surrealists were among the "harbingers of surrealism" in Britain in the 1930s and the movement's most active members in the 1940s, while more abstract artists associated with the city included Lee Bank-born David Bomberg and CoBrA member William Gear. Birmingham artists were prominent in several post-war developments in art: Peter Phillips was among the central figures in the birth of Pop Art; John Salt was the only major European figure among the pioneers of photo-realism; and the BLK Art Group used painting, collage and multimedia to examine the politics and culture of Black British identity. Contemporary artists from the city include the Turner Prize winner Gillian Wearing and the Turner Prize shortlisted artists Richard Billingham, John Walker, Roger Hiorns, and conceptual artist Pogus Caesar whose work has been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham's role as a manufacturing and printing centre has supported strong local traditions of graphic design and product design. Iconic works by Birmingham designers include the Baskerville font, Ruskin Pottery, the Acme Thunderer whistle, the Art Deco branding of the Odeon Cinemas and the Mini.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham has two major public art collections. Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery is best known for its works by the Pre-Raphaelites, a collection "of outstanding importance". It also holds a significant selection of old masters – including major works by Bellini, Rubens, Canaletto and Claude – and particularly strong collections of 17th-century Italian Baroque painting and English watercolours. Its design holdings include Europe's pre-eminent collections of ceramics and fine metalwork. The Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Edgbaston is one of the finest small art galleries in the world, with a collection of exceptional quality representing Western art from the 13th century to the present day.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham Museums Trust runs other museums in the city including Aston Hall, Blakesley Hall, the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, Soho House and Sarehole Mill. The Birmingham Back to Backs are the last surviving court of back-to-back houses in the city. Cadbury World is a museum showing visitors the stages and steps of chocolate production and the history of chocolate and the company. The Ikon Gallery hosts displays of contemporary art, as does Eastside Projects.


title: Birmingham

text: Thinktank is Birmingham's main science museum, with a giant screen cinema, a planetarium and a collection that includes the "Smethwick Engine", the world's oldest working steam engine. Other science-based museums include the National Sea Life Centre in Brindleyplace, the Lapworth Museum of Geology at the University of Birmingham and the Centre of the Earth environmental education centre in Winson Green.


title: Birmingham

text: Nightlife in Birmingham is mainly concentrated along Broad Street and into Brindleyplace. Although in more recent years, Broad Street has lost its popularity due to the closing of several clubs; the Arcadian now has more popularity in terms of nightlife. Outside the Broad Street area are many stylish and underground venues. The Medicine Bar in the Custard Factory, hmv Institute, Rainbow Pub and Air are large clubs and bars in Digbeth. Around the Chinese Quarter are areas such as the Arcadian and Hurst Street Gay Village, that abound with bars and clubs. Summer Row, The Mailbox, O2 Academy in Bristol Street, Snobs Nightclub, St Philips/Colmore Row, St Paul's Square and the Jewellery Quarter all have a vibrant night life. There are a number of late night pubs in the Irish Quarter. Outside the city centre is Star City entertainment complex on the former site of Nechells Power Station.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham is home to many national, religious and cultural festivals, including a St. George's Day party. The city's largest single-day event is its St. Patrick's Day parade (Europe's second largest, after Dublin). The Nowka Bais is a Bengali boat racing festival which takes place annually in Birmingham. It is a leading cultural event in the West Midlands, United Kingdom attracting not only the Bangladeshi diaspora but a variety of cultures. It is also the largest kind of boat race in the United Kingdom. Other multicultural events include the Bangla Mela and the Vaisakhi Mela. The Birmingham Heritage Festival is a Mardi Gras style event in August. Caribbean and African culture are celebrated with parades and street performances by buskers. The Caribbean-style Birmingham International Carnival takes place in odd-numbered years.


title: Birmingham

text: The UK's largest two-day Gay Pride is Birmingham Pride (LGBT festival), which is typically held over the spring bank holiday weekend in May. The streets of Birmingham's gay district pulsate with a carnival parade, live music, a dance arena with DJs, cabaret stage, women's arena and a community village. Birmingham Pride takes place in the gay village. From 1997 until December 2006, the city hosted an annual arts festival, ArtsFest, the largest free arts festival in the UK at the time.


title: Birmingham

text: The Birmingham Comedy Festival (since 2001; 10 days in October), has been headlined by such acts as Peter Kay, The Fast Show, Jimmy Carr, Lee Evans and Lenny Henry.


title: Birmingham

text: Since 2001, Birmingham has been host to the Frankfurt Christmas Market. Modelled on its German counterpart, it has grown to become the UK's largest outdoor Christmas market and is the largest German market outside of Germany and Austria, attracting over 3.1 million visitors in 2010 and over 5 million visitors in 2011.


title: Birmingham

text: The biennial Birmingham International Dance Festival (BIDF) started in 2008, organised by DanceXchange and involving indoor and outdoor venues across the city.


title: Birmingham

text: Other festivals in the city include the Birmingham International Jazz Festival, and "Party in the Park", originally a festival hosted by local and regional radio stations which died down in 2007 and has now been brought back to life as an unsigned festival for regional unsigned acts to showcase themselves in a one-day music festival for the whole family.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham's development as a commercial town was originally based around its market for agricultural produce, established by royal charter in 1166. Despite the industrialisation of subsequent centuries this role has been retained and the Birmingham Wholesale Markets remain the largest combined wholesale food markets in the country, selling meat, fish, fruit, vegetables and flowers and supplying fresh produce to restaurateurs and independent retailers from as far as away.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham is the only city outside London to have five Michelin starred restaurants: Simpson's in Edgbaston, Carters of Moseley, and Purnell's, Opheem and Adam's in the city centre.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham based breweries included Ansells, Davenport's and Mitchells & Butlers. Aston Manor Brewery is currently the only brewery of any significant size. Many fine Victorian pubs and bars can still be found across the city, whilst there is also a plethora of more modern nightclubs and bars, notably along Broad Street.


title: Birmingham

text: The Wing Yip food empire first began in the city and now has its headquarters in Nechells. The Balti, a type of curry, was invented in the city, which has received much acclaim for the 'Balti Belt' or 'Balti Triangle'. Famous food brands that originated in Birmingham include Typhoo tea, Bird's Custard, Cadbury's chocolate and HP Sauce.


title: Birmingham

text: There is also a thriving independent and artisan food sector in Birmingham, encompassing microbreweries like Two Towers, and collective bakeries such as Loaf. Recent years have seen these businesses increasingly showcased at farmers markets, popular street food events and food festivals including Birmingham Independent Food Fair.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham is home to many entertainment and leisure venues, including Europe's largest leisure and entertainment complex Star City as well as Europe's first out-of-city-centre entertainment and leisure complex Resorts World Birmingham owned by the Genting Group. The Mailbox which caters for more affluent clients is based within the city.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham is chiefly a product of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries; its growth began during the Industrial Revolution. Consequently, relatively few buildings survive from its earlier history and those that do are protected. There are 1,946 listed buildings in Birmingham and thirteen scheduled ancient monuments. Birmingham City Council also operate a locally listing scheme for buildings that do not fully meet the criteria for statutorily listed status.


title: Birmingham

text: Traces of medieval Birmingham can be seen in the oldest churches, notably the original parish church, St Martin in the Bull Ring. A few other buildings from the medieval and Tudor periods survive, among them the "Lad in the Lane" and "The Old Crown", the 15th century "Saracen's Head" public house and Old Grammar School in Kings Norton and Blakesley Hall.


title: Birmingham

text: A number of Georgian buildings survive, including St Philip's Cathedral, Soho House, Perrott's Folly, the Town Hall and much of St Paul's Square. The Victorian era saw extensive building across the city. Major civic buildings such as the Victoria Law Courts (in characteristic red brick and terracotta), the Council House and the Museum & Art Gallery were constructed. St Chad's Cathedral was the first Roman Catholic cathedral to be built in the UK since the Reformation. Across the city, the need to house the industrial workers gave rise to miles of redbrick streets and terraces, many of back-to-back houses, some of which were later to become inner-city slums.


title: Birmingham

text: Postwar redevelopment and anti-Victorianism resulted in the loss of dozens of Victorian buildings like New Street station and the old Central Library, often replaced by brutalist architecture. Sir Herbert Manzoni, City Engineer and Surveyor of Birmingham from 1935 until 1963, believed conservation of old buildings was sentimental and that the city did not have any of worth anyway. In inner-city areas too, much Victorian housing was demolished and redeveloped. Existing communities were relocated to tower block estates like Castle Vale.


title: Birmingham

text: In a partial reaction against the Manzoni years, Birmingham City Council is demolishing some of the brutalist buildings like the Central Library and has an extensive tower block demolition and renovation programme. There has been much redevelopment in the city centre in recent years, including the award-winning Future Systems' Selfridges building in the Bullring Shopping Centre, the Brindleyplace regeneration project, the Millennium Point science and technology centre, and the refurbishment of the iconic Rotunda building. Funding for many of these projects has come from the European Union; the Town Hall for example received £3 million in funding from the European Regional Development Fund.


title: Birmingham

text: Highrise development has slowed since the 1970s and mainly in recent years because of enforcements imposed by the Civil Aviation Authority on the heights of buildings as they could affect aircraft from the Airport (e.g. Beetham Tower).


title: Birmingham

text: People from Birmingham are called Brummies, a term derived from the city's nickname of "Brum", which originates from the city's old name, Brummagem. The Brummie accent and dialect are particularly distinctive.


title: Birmingham

text: Partly due to its central location, Birmingham is a major transport hub on the motorway, railway and canal networks.


title: Birmingham

text: The city is served by the M5, M6, M40 and M42 motorways, and possibly the most well known motorway junction in the United Kingdom: Spaghetti Junction, a colloquial name for the Gravelly Hill Interchange. The M6 passes through the city on the Bromford Viaduct, which at is the longest bridge in the UK. Birmingham introduced a Clean Air Zone from 1 June 2021, which charges polluting vehicles to travel into the city centre.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham Airport, located east of the city centre in the neighbouring borough of Solihull, is the seventh busiest airport by passenger traffic in the UK and the third busiest outside the London area, after Manchester and Edinburgh. It is a major base for Flybe, Jet2, Ryanair and TUI Airways. Airline services operate from Birmingham to many destinations in Europe, Africa, the Americas, Middle East, Asia and Oceania.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham's local public transport network is co-ordinated by Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) which is a branch of the West Midlands Combined Authority.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham has a high level of public transport usage; in 2015, 63% of morning peak trips into Birmingham were made by public transport, with the remaining 37% made by private car. Rail was the most popular public transport mode, accounting for 36.4% of journeys, followed by buses at 26.3% and the Metro at 0.3%.


title: Birmingham

text: There is currently no underground system in Birmingham; it is the largest city in Europe not to have one. In recent years, ideas of an underground system have started to appear, but none so far have been planned in earnest primarily due to the ongoing expansion of the West Midlands Metro tram network being viewed as a higher priority.


title: Birmingham

text: The main railway station in the city is Birmingham New Street, which is the busiest railway station in the UK outside London, both for passenger entries/exits and for passenger interchanges. It is the national hub for CrossCountry, the most extensive long-distance train network in Britain, and a major destination for Avanti West Coast services from London Euston, Glasgow Central and Edinburgh Waverley. Birmingham Moor Street and Birmingham Snow Hill form the northern termini for Chiltern Railways express trains running from London Marylebone. Curzon Street railway station, currently under construction, will be the terminus for trains to the city on High Speed 2, the first phase of which will open around 2030.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham and the surrounding region have a network of local and suburban railways, mostly operated by West Midlands Trains. There are a total of 70 railway stations within the West Midlands county, are within Birmingham's city boundaries. Suburban railway lines in Birmingham include the Cross-City Line, the Chase Line, the Snow Hill Lines and the Birmingham loop. In 2016/17, there were nearly 55 million rail passenger journeys within the TfWM area, a big increase over the 23 million back in 2000/01.


title: Birmingham

text: Historically, Birmingham had a substantial tram system operated by Birmingham Corporation Tramways which was closed in 1953. In 1999, trams returned to the city with the West Midlands Metro (formerly known as the "Midland Metro") which operates a line between Edgbaston Village in Central Birmingham and Wolverhampton via Bilston, Wednesbury and West Bromwich. Expansion of the West Midlands Metro system is underway with extensions to the existing line and new lines being constructed.


title: Birmingham

text: 261 million bus journeys were made in the TfWM area in 2016/17, a decrease from 319 million in 2009/10.


title: Birmingham

text: Bus routes are mainly operated commercially by private companies, although TfWM subsidises some socially necessary services. National Express West Midlands, accounts for nearly 80% of all bus journeys in Birmingham, though there are around 40 other, smaller registered bus companies. The number 11 outer circle bus route, which operates in both clockwise and anti-clockwise directions around the outskirts of the city, is the longest urban bus route in Europe, being over long with 272 bus stops.


title: Birmingham

text: The National Express headquarters are located in Digbeth, in offices above Birmingham Coach Station, which forms the national hub of the company's coach network. The bus division is based in Bordesley Green, just outside of the city centre.


title: Birmingham

text: Until 1974, the other major bus operator in Birmingham was Midland Red who had a number of bus depots both in Birmingham and the wider metropolitan area. After selling the West Midlands-based operations to WMPTE, the company and its successors continued to serve Birmingham on many routes from outside the West Midlands County. However, by April 2022, only two routes remain which are the 110 from Tamworth which is operated by Arriva Midlands and the 144 from Worcester operated by First Worcestershire.


title: Birmingham

text: An extensive canal system still remains in Birmingham from the Industrial Revolution. The city has more miles of canal than Venice, though the canals in Birmingham are a less prominent and essential feature due to the larger size of the city and the fact that few of its buildings are accessed by canal. The canals are mainly used today for leisure purposes; canalside regeneration schemes such as Brindleyplace have turned the canals into a tourist attraction.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham is home to five universities: Aston University, University of Birmingham, Birmingham City University, University College Birmingham and Newman University. The city also hosts major campuses of the University of Law and BPP University, as well as the Open University's West Midlands regional base. In 2011 Birmingham had 78,259 full-time students from all over the world aged 18–74 resident in the city during term time, more than any other city in the United Kingdom outside London. Birmingham has 32,690 research students, also the highest number of any major city outside London.


title: Birmingham

text: The Birmingham Business School, established by Sir William Ashley in 1902, is the oldest graduate-level business school in the United Kingdom. Another top business school in the city includes Aston Business School, one of fewer than 1% of business schools globally to be granted triple accreditation, and Birmingham City Business School. Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, part of Birmingham City University, offers professional training in music and acting.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham is an important centre for religious education. St Mary's College, Oscott is one of the three seminaries of the Catholic Church in England and Wales; Woodbrooke is the only Quaker study centre in Europe; and Queen's College, Edgbaston is an ecumenical theological college serving the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham Metropolitan College is one of the largest further education colleges in the country, with fourteen campuses spread across Birmingham and into the Black Country and Worcestershire. South & City College Birmingham has nine campuses spread throughout the city. Bournville College is based in a £66 million, 4.2 acre campus in Longbridge that opened in 2011. Fircroft College is a residential college based in a former Edwardian mansion in Selly Oak, founded in 1909 around a strong commitment to social justice, with many courses aimed at students with few prior formal qualifications. Queen Alexandra College is a specialist college based in Harborne offering further education to visually impaired or disabled students from all over the United Kingdom.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham City Council is England's largest local education authority, directly or indirectly responsible for 25 nursery schools, 328 primary schools, 77 secondary schools and 29 special schools. and providing around 3,500 adult education courses throughout the year. Most of Birmingham's state schools are community schools run directly by Birmingham City Council in its role as local education authority (LEA), although there are also voluntary aided schools within the state system. Since the 1970s, most secondary schools in Birmingham have been 11-–-16/18 comprehensive schools, while post GCSE students have the choice of continuing their education in either a school's sixth form or at a further education college.


title: Birmingham

text: King Edward's School, Birmingham, founded in 1552 by King Edward VI, is one of the oldest schools in the city, teaching GCSE and IB, with alumni including J R R Tolkien, author of the "Lord of the Rings" books and "The Hobbit". Independent schools in the city include the Birmingham Blue Coat School, King Edward VI High School for Girls and Edgbaston High School for Girls. Bishop Vesey's Grammar School was founded by Bishop Vesey in 1527.


title: Birmingham

text: In Birmingham libraries, leisure centres, parks, play areas, transport, street cleaning and waste collection face cuts among other services. Albert Bore, leader of Birmingham City Council called on the government to change radically how local services are funded and provided. It is claimed government cuts to local authorities have hit Birmingham disproportionately. Child protection services within Birmingham were rated "inadequate" by OFSTED for four years running between 2009 and 2013, with 20 child deaths since 2007 being investigated. In March 2014 the government announced that independent commissioner would be appointed to oversee improvements to children's services within the city.


title: Birmingham

text: The former Birmingham Central Library, opened in 1972, was considered to be the largest municipal library in Europe. Six of its collections were designated by the Arts Council England as being "pre-eminent collections of national and international importance", out of only eight collections to be so recognised in local authority libraries nationwide. A new Library of Birmingham in Centenary Square, replacing Central Library, was opened on 3 September 2013. It was designed by the Dutch architects Mecanoo and has been described as "a kind of public forum ... a memorial, a shrine, to the book and to literature". This library faces cuts, due to reduced funding from Central government.


title: Birmingham

text: There are 41 local libraries in Birmingham, plus a regular mobile library service. The library service has 4 million visitors annually. Due to budget cuts, four of the branch libraries risk closure whilst services may be reduced elsewhere.<ref name="BirminghamMail23/1/2014"></ref>


title: Birmingham

text: Law enforcement in Birmingham is carried out by West Midlands Police, whose headquarters are at Lloyd House in the city centre. With 87.92 recorded offences per 1000 population in 2009–10, Birmingham's crime rate is above the average for England and Wales, but lower than any of England's other major core cities and lower than many smaller cities such as Oxford, Cambridge or Brighton. Fire and rescue services in Birmingham are provided by West Midlands Fire Service and emergency medical care by West Midlands Ambulance Service.


title: Birmingham

text: There are several major National Health Service hospitals in Birmingham. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, adjacent to the Birmingham Medical School in Edgbaston, is one of the largest teaching hospitals in the United Kingdom with over 1,200 beds. It is a major trauma centre offering services to the extended West Midlands region and houses the largest single-floor critical care unit in the world, with 100 beds. The hospital has the largest solid organ transplantation programme in Europe as well as the largest renal transplant programme in the United Kingdom and it is a national specialist centre for liver, heart and lung transplantation, as well as cancer studies. It is the home of the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine for military personnel injured in conflict zones.


title: Birmingham

text: Other general hospitals in the city include Heartlands Hospital in Bordesley Green, Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield and City Hospital in Winson Green. There are also many specialist hospitals, such as Birmingham Children's Hospital, Birmingham Women's Hospital, Birmingham Dental Hospital, and the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham saw the first ever use of radiography in an operation, and the UK's first ever hole-in-the-heart operation was performed at Birmingham Children's Hospital.


title: Birmingham

text: The Birmingham Corporation Water Department was set up in 1876 to supply water to Birmingham, up until 1974 when its responsibilities were transferred to Severn Trent Water. Most of Birmingham's water is supplied by the Elan aqueduct, opened in 1904; water is fed by gravity to Frankley Reservoir, Frankley, and Bartley Reservoir, Bartley Green, from reservoirs in the Elan Valley, Wales.


title: Birmingham

text: Within Birmingham the Tyseley Energy from Waste Plant, a large incineration plant built in 1996 for Veolia, burns some 366,414 tonnes of household waste annually and produces 166,230 MWh of electricity for the National Grid along with 282,013 tonnes of carbon dioxide.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham has played an important part in the history of modern sport. The Football League – the world's first league football competition – was founded by Birmingham resident and Aston Villa director William McGregor, who wrote to fellow club directors in 1888 proposing "that ten or twelve of the most prominent clubs in England combine to arrange home-and-away fixtures each season". The modern game of tennis was developed between 1859 and 1865 by Harry Gem and his friend Augurio Perera at Perera's house in Edgbaston, with the Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Society remaining the oldest tennis club in the world. The Birmingham and District Cricket League is the oldest cricket league in the world, and Birmingham was the host for the first ever Cricket World Cup, a Women's Cricket World Cup in 1973. Birmingham was the first city to be named National City of Sport by the Sports Council. Birmingham was selected ahead of London and Manchester to bid for the 1992 Summer Olympics, but was unsuccessful in the final selection process, which was won by Barcelona.


title: Birmingham

text: Today, the city is home of two of the country's oldest professional football teams: Aston Villa F.C., which was founded in 1874 and plays at Villa Park; and Birmingham City F.C., which was founded in 1875 and plays at St Andrew's. Rivalry between the clubs is fierce and the fixture between the two is called the Second City derby. Aston Villa currently play in the Premier League while Birmingham City currently play in the Championship. West Bromwich Albion also draw support within the Birmingham area, being located at The Hawthorns just outside the city boundaries in Sandwell. Rival football team Coventry City also played briefly at St Andrew's for two seasons between 2019 and 2021 due to an ongoing dispute with their landlords over use of the Coventry Building Society Arena.


title: Birmingham

text: Warwickshire County Cricket Club play at Edgbaston Cricket Ground, which also hosts test cricket and one day internationals and is the largest cricket ground in the United Kingdom after Lord's. Edgbaston was the scene of the highest ever score by a batsman in first-class cricket, when Brian Lara scored 501 not out for Warwickshire in 1994.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham is also home to professional Rugby Union clubs such as Birmingham Moseley and Birmingham & Solihull. The city also has a semiprofessional Rugby League club, the Midlands Hurricanes as well as an amateur club the Birmingham Bulldogs. The city is also home to one of the oldest American football teams in the BAFA National Leagues, the Birmingham Bulls.


title: Birmingham

text: Two major championship golf courses lie on the city's outskirts. The Belfry near Sutton Coldfield is the headquarters of the Professional Golfers' Association and has hosted the Ryder Cup more times than any other venue. The Forest of Arden Hotel and Country Club near Birmingham Airport is also a regular host of tournaments on the PGA European Tour, including the British Masters and the English Open.


title: Birmingham

text: The AEGON Classic is, alongside Wimbledon and Eastbourne, one of only three UK tennis tournaments on the WTA Tour. It is played annually at the Edgbaston Priory Club, which in 2010 announced plans for a multimillion-pound redevelopment, including a new showcase centre court and a museum celebrating the game's Birmingham origins.


title: Birmingham

text: The Alexander Stadium in Perry Barr is the headquarters of UK Athletics, and one of only two British venues to host fixtures in the elite international IAAF Diamond League. It is also the home of Birchfield Harriers, which has many international athletes among its members. The National Indoor Arena hosted the 2007 European Athletics Indoor Championships and the 2003 and 2018 World Indoor Championships, as well as hosting the annual Aviva Indoor Grand Prix – the only British indoor athletics fixture to qualify as an IAAF Indoor Permit Meeting – and a wide variety of other sporting events.


title: Birmingham

text: Professional boxing, hockey, skateboarding, stock-car racing, greyhound racing and speedway also take place within the city.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham hosted the 2022 Commonwealth Games, which took place between 28 July and 8 August 2022. This was the first time that Birmingham has hosted the Commonwealth games and the 22nd Commonwealth games to take place. Birmingham has a wealth of existing sports venues, arenas and conference halls that proved ideal for hosting sport during the Games. Alexander Stadium, which hosted the ceremonies and athletics was renovated, and the capacity was increased to 40,000 seats. The 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham were expected to generate a £526 million boost to the West Midlands regional economy. The official handover to Birmingham took place at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games closing ceremony on 15 April 2018.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham has several major local newspapers – the daily "Birmingham Mail" and the weekly "Birmingham Post" and "Sunday Mercury", all owned by Reach plc. "Forward" is a freesheet produced by Birmingham City Council, which is distributed to homes in the city. Birmingham is also the hub for various national ethnic media, lifestyle magazines, digital news platforms, and the base for two regional Metro editions (East and West Midlands).


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham has three mainstream digital-only news publishers, "I Am Birmingham", "Birmingham Updates" and "Second City".


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham has a long cinematic history; The Electric on Station Street is the oldest working cinema in the UK. Birmingham is the location for several British and international film productions including "Felicia's Journey" of 1999, which used locations in Birmingham that were used in "Take Me High" of 1973 to contrast the changes in the city.


title: Birmingham

text: The BBC has two facilities in the city. The Mailbox, in the city centre, is the national headquarters of BBC English Regions and the headquarters of BBC West Midlands and the BBC Birmingham network production centre. These were previously located at the Pebble Mill Studios in Edgbaston. The BBC Drama Village, based in Selly Oak, is a production facility specialising in television drama.


title: Birmingham

text: Central/ATV studios in Birmingham was the location for the recording of various programmes for ITV, including "Tiswas" and "Crossroads", until the complex was closed in 1997, and Central moved to its current Gas Street studios. Central's output from Birmingham now consists of only the "West" and "East" editions of the regional news programme "ITV News Central".


title: Birmingham

text: The city is served by numerous national and regional radio stations, as well as hyperlocal radio stations. These include Free Radio Birmingham and Greatest Hits Radio Birmingham & The West Midlands, Capital Birmingham, Heart West Midlands, Absolute Radio, and Smooth West Midlands. The city has a community radio scene, with stations including Big City Radio, New Style Radio, Brum Radio, Switch Radio, Scratch Radio, Raaj FM, and Unity FM.


title: Birmingham

text: "The Archers", the world's longest running radio soap, is recorded in Birmingham for BBC Radio 4. BBC Birmingham studios additionally produce shows for BBC Radio WM and BBC Asian Network in the city.


title: Birmingham

text: Birmingham was twinned with Zaporizhzhia, in Ukraine, in the late Soviet Union period. This is noted in Ukrainian, in Birmingham public records, and in a written answer from the Minister of State for Local Government.


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: Born in ward of Tokyo, expressed interest in manga and animation from an early age, and he joined Toei Animation in 1963. During his early years at Animation he worked as an in-between artist and later collaborated with director . Notable films to which contributed at include "Doggie March" and "Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon". He provided key animation to other films at , such as "Puss in Boots" and "Animal Treasure Island", before moving to A-Pro in 1971, where he co-directed "Lupin the Third Part I" alongside . After moving to (later known as Nippon Animation) in 1973, worked as an animator on "World Masterpiece Theater", and directed the television series "Future Boy Conan" (1978). He joined Tokyo Movie Shinsha in 1979 to direct his first feature film "The Castle of Cagliostro" as well as the television series "Sherlock Hound". In the same period, he also started writing and illustrating the manga "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1982–1994), and he also directed the 1984 film adaptation produced by Topcraft.


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: 's works are characterized by the recurrence of themes such as humanity's relationship with nature and technology, the wholesomeness of natural and traditional patterns of living, the importance of art and craftsmanship, and the difficulty of maintaining a pacifist ethic in a violent world. The protagonists of his films are often strong girls or young women, and several of his films present morally ambiguous antagonists with redeeming qualities. 's works have been highly praised and awarded; he was named a Person of Cultural Merit for outstanding cultural contributions in November 2012, and received the Academy Honorary Award for his impact on animation and cinema in November 2014. has frequently been cited as an inspiration for numerous animators, directors, and writers.


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: Hayao Miyazaki was born on January 5, 1941, in the town of Akebono-cho in , Tokyo, the second of four sons. His father, (born 1915), was the director of Miyazaki Airplane, his brother's company, which manufactured rudders for fighter planes during World War II. The business allowed his family to remain affluent during 's early life. Miyazaki's father enjoyed purchasing paintings and demonstrating them to guests, but otherwise had little known artistic understanding. He said that he was in the Imperial Japanese Army around 1940; after declaring to his commanding officer that he wished not to fight because of his wife and young child, he was discharged after a lecture about disloyalty. According to Miyazaki, his father often told him about his exploits, claiming that he continued to attend nightclubs after turning 70. Katsuji Miyazaki died on March 18, 1993. After his death, Miyazaki felt that he had often looked at his father negatively and that he had never said anything "lofty or inspiring". He regretted not having a serious discussion with his father, and felt that he had inherited his "anarchistic feelings and his lack of concern about embracing contradictions".


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: Miyazaki has noted that some of his earliest memories are of "bombed-out cities". In 1944, when he was three years old, Miyazaki's family evacuated to . After the in July 1945, he and his family evacuated to . The bombing left a lasting impression on , then aged four. As a child, Miyazaki suffered from digestive problems, and was told that he would not live beyond 20, making him feel like an outcast. From 1947 to 1955, 's mother Yoshiko suffered from spinal tuberculosis; she spent the first few years in hospital before being nursed from home. Yoshiko was frugal, and described as a strict, intellectual woman who regularly questioned "socially accepted norms". She was closest with Miyazaki, and had a strong influence on him and his later work. Yoshiko Miyazaki died in July 1983 at the age of 72.


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: After graduating from Junior High, attended High School. During his third and final year, 's interest in animation was sparked by "Panda and the Magic Serpent" (1958), Japan's first feature-length animated film in color; he had sneaked out to watch the film instead of studying for his entrance exams. Miyazaki later recounted that he fell in love with the film's heroine, Bai-Niang, and that the film moved him to tears and left a profound impression; he wrote that he was "moved to the depths of [his] soul" and that the "pure, earnest world of the film" affirmed a side of him that "yearned desperately to affirm the world rather than negate it". After graduating from attended Gakushuin University in the department of political economy, majoring in Japanese Industrial Theory. He joined the "Children's Literature Research Club", the "closest thing back then to a comics club"; he was sometimes the sole member of the club. In his free time, would visit his art teacher from middle school and sketch in his studio, where the two would drink and "talk about politics, life, all sorts of things". Around this time, he also drew manga; he never completed any stories, but accumulated thousands of pages of the beginnings of stories. He also frequently approached manga publishers to rent their stories. In 1960, Miyazaki was a bystander during the Anpo protests, having developed an interest after seeing photographs in "Asahi Graph"; by that point, he was too late to participate in the demonstrations. graduated from in 1963 with degrees in political science and economics.


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: In 1963, was employed at Animation; this was the last year the company hired regularly. After gaining employment, he began renting a four-and-a-half "tatami" apartment in Nerima, Tokyo; the rent was . His salary at Toei was . Miyazaki worked as an in-between artist on the theatrical feature anime "Doggie March" and the television anime "Wolf Boy Ken" (both 1963). He also worked on "Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon" (1964). He was a leader in a labor dispute soon after his arrival, and became chief secretary of 's labor union in 1964. later worked as chief animator, concept artist, and scene designer on "The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun" (1968). Throughout the film's production, worked closely with his mentor, , whose approach to animation profoundly influenced 's work. Directed by , with whom would continue to collaborate for the remainder of his career, the film was highly praised, and deemed a pivotal work in the evolution of animation. Miyazaki moved to a residence in Ōizumigakuenchō in April 1969, after the birth of his second son.


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: Under the pseudonym , wrote and illustrated the manga "People of the Desert", published in 26 installments between September 1969 and March 1970 in . He was influenced by illustrated stories such as 's . also provided key animation for "The Wonderful World of Puss 'n Boots" (1969), directed by . He created a 12-chapter manga series as a promotional tie-in for the film; the series ran in the Sunday edition of from January to March 1969. later proposed scenes in the screenplay for "Flying Phantom Ship" (1969), in which military tanks would cause mass hysteria in downtown Tokyo, and was hired to storyboard and animate the scenes. In 1970, Miyazaki moved residence to Tokorozawa. In 1971, he developed structure, characters and designs for 's adaptation of "Animal Treasure Island"; he created the 13-part manga adaptation, printed in from January to March 1971. also provided key animation for "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves".


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: left Nippon Animation in 1979, during the production of "Anne of Green Gables"; he provided scene design and organization on the first fifteen episodes. He moved to Telecom Animation Film, a subsidiary of TMS Entertainment, to direct his first feature anime film, "The Castle of Cagliostro" (1979), a "Lupin III" film. In his role at Telecom, helped train the second wave of employees. directed six episodes of "Sherlock Hound" in 1981, until issues with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate led to a suspension in production; was busy with other projects by the time the issues were resolved, and the remaining episodes were directed by . They were broadcast from November 1984 to May 1985. also wrote the graphic novel "The Journey of Shuna", inspired by the Tibetan folk tale "Prince who became a dog". The novel was published by in June 1983, dramatised for radio broadcast in 1987, and published in English as "Shuna's Journey" in 2022. "Hayao Miyazaki's Daydream Data Notes" was also irregularly published from November 1984 to October 1994 in "Model Graphix"; selections of the stories received radio broadcast in 1995.


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: After the release of "The Castle of Cagliostro", began working on his ideas for an animated film adaptation of Richard Corben's comic book "Rowlf" and pitched the idea to at TMS. In November 1980, a proposal was drawn up to acquire the film rights. Around that time, was also approached for a series of magazine articles by the editorial staff of "Animage". During subsequent conversations, he showed his sketchbooks and discussed basic outlines for envisioned animation projects with editors and , who saw the potential for collaboration on their development into animation. Two projects were proposed: , to be set in the Sengoku period; and the adaptation of Corben's "Rowlf". Both were rejected, as the company was unwilling to fund anime projects not based on existing manga, and the rights for the adaptation of "Rowlf" could not be secured. An agreement was reached that could start developing his sketches and ideas into a manga for the magazine with the proviso that it would never be made into a film. The manga—titled "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind"—ran from February 1982 to March 1994. The story, as re-printed in the volumes, spans seven volumes for a combined total of 1060 pages. drew the episodes primarily in pencil, and it was printed monochrome in sepia-toned ink. Miyazaki resigned from Telecom Animation Film in November 1982.


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: Following the success of "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind", , the founder of , encouraged to work on a film adaptation. initially refused, but agreed on the condition that he could direct. 's imagination was sparked by the mercury poisoning of Minamata Bay and how nature responded and thrived in a poisoned environment, using it to create the film's polluted world. and chose the minor studio Topcraft to animate the film, as they believed its artistic talent could transpose the sophisticated atmosphere of the manga to the film. Pre-production began on May 31, 1983; encountered difficulties in creating the screenplay, with only sixteen chapters of the manga to work with. enlisted experimental and minimalist musician to compose the film's score. "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" was released on March 11, 1984. It grossed ¥1.48 billion at the box office, and made an additional ¥742 million in distribution income. It is often seen as 's pivotal work, cementing his reputation as an animator. It was lauded for its positive portrayal of women, particularly that of main character Nausicaä. Several critics have labeled "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" as possessing anti-war and feminist themes; argues otherwise, stating that he only wishes to entertain. The successful cooperation on the creation of the manga and the film laid the foundation for other collaborative projects. In April 1984, opened his own office in Ward, naming it .


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: In June 1985, and founded the animation production company Studio Ghibli, with funding from . Studio Ghibli's first film, "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" (1986), employed the same production crew of "Nausicaä". 's designs for the film's setting were inspired by Greek architecture and "European urbanistic templates". Some of the architecture in the film was also inspired by a Welsh mining town; witnessed the mining strike upon his first visit to Wales in 1984, and admired the miners' dedication to their work and community. "Laputa" was released on August 2, 1986. It was the highest-grossing animation film of the year in Japan. 's following film, "My Neighbor Totoro", was released alongside Takahata's "Grave of the Fireflies" in April 1988 to ensure Studio Ghibli's financial status. The simultaneous production was chaotic for the artists, as they switched between projects. "My Neighbor Totoro" features the theme of the relationship between the environment and humanity—a contrast to "Nausicaä", which emphasises technology's negative effect on nature. While the film received critical acclaim, it was commercially unsuccessful at the box office. However, merchandising was successful, and the film was labelled as a cult classic.


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: In 1987, Studio Ghibli acquired the rights to create a film adaptation of 's novel "Kiki's Delivery Service". 's work on "My Neighbor Totoro" prevented him from directing the adaptation; was chosen as director, and was hired as script writer. 's dissatisfaction of 's first draft led him to make changes to the project, ultimately taking the role of director. was unhappy with the differences between the book and the screenplay. and visited and invited her to the studio; she allowed the project to continue. The film was originally intended to be a 60-minute special, but expanded into a feature film after completed the storyboards and screenplay. "Kiki's Delivery Service" premiered on July 29, 1989. It earned ¥2.15 billion at the box office, and was the highest-grossing film in Japan in 1989.


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: From March to May 1989, 's manga was published in the magazine "". began production on a 45-minute in-flight film for Japan Airlines based on the manga; ultimately extended the film into the feature-length film, titled "Porco Rosso", as expectations grew. Due to the end of production on 's "Only Yesterday" (1991), initially managed the production of "Porco Rosso" independently. The outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars in 1991 affected , prompting a more sombre tone for the film; would later refer to the film as "foolish", as its mature tones were unsuitable for children. The film featured anti-war themes, which would later revisit. The airline remained a major investor in the film, resulting in its initial premiere as an in-flight film, prior to its theatrical release on July 18, 1992. The film was critically and commercially successful, remaining the highest-grossing animated film in Japan for several years.


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: Studio Ghibli set up its headquarters in , Tokyo in August 1992. In November 1992, two television spots directed by were broadcast by Nippon Television Network (NTV): , a 90-second spot loosely based on the illustrated story by and , and commissioned to celebrate NTV's fortieth anniversary; and , aired as one 15-second and four 5-second spots, centered on an undefinable creature which ultimately became NTV's mascot. designed the storyboards and wrote the screenplay for "Whisper of the Heart" (1995), directed by .


title: Hayao Miyazaki

text: began work on the initial storyboards for "Princess Mononoke" in August 1994, based on preliminary thoughts and sketches from the late 1970s. While experiencing writer's block during production, accepted a request for the creation of "On Your Mark", a music video for the song of the same name by Chage and Aska. In the production of the video, experimented with computer animation to supplement traditional animation, a technique he would soon revisit for "Princess" . "On Your Mark" premiered as a short before "Whisper of the Heart". Despite the video's popularity, said that it was not given "100 percent" focus.