City of Sunderland in the context of "River Wear"

The Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead is a metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, England. It includes Gateshead, Rowlands Gill, Whickham, Blaydon, Ryton, Felling, Birtley, Pelaw, Dunston and Low Fell. The borough forms part of the Tyneside conurbation, centred on Newcastle upon Tyne. At the 2021 census, the borough had a population of 196,154.

It is bordered by the local authority areas of Newcastle upon Tyne to the north, Northumberland to the west, County Durham to the south, Sunderland to the south-east, and South Tyneside to the east. The council is a member of the North East Combined Authority.

Wearside (/ˈwɪərsaɪd/) is a built-up area in County Durham and Tyne and Wear, England. It is named after the River Wear which flows through it and traditionally all in the County of Durham.

In the 2011 census, its official name was the Sunderland Built-up area since Sunderland is its largest part, the urban area extends to the surrounding City of Sunderland district, small parts of County Durham district and a small part of the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead.

South Tyneside is a metropolitan borough in the county of Tyne and Wear, England. It is bordered by all four other boroughs in Tyne and Wear: Gateshead to the west, Sunderland in the south, North Tyneside to the north and Newcastle upon Tyne to the north-west; the border county of Northumberland lies further north. The borough was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of the County Borough of South Shields with the municipal borough of Jarrow and the urban districts of Boldon and Hebburn from County Durham.

Part of the Tyneside conurbation, the sixth largest in the United Kingdom, South Tyneside has a geographical area of 24.88 sq mi (64.4 km) and an estimated population of 153,700 (mid-year 2010), measured at the 2011 Census as 148,127. It is bordered to the east by the North Sea and to the north by the River Tyne. A green belt of 9.13 sq mi (23.6 km) is at its southern boundary.

Felling is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead in Tyne and Wear, England. Historically part of County Durham, the town became part of the metropolitan borough of Gateshead in 1974. It lies on the B1426 Sunderland Road and the A184 Felling bypass, less than 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Gateshead, 1 mile (1.6 km) south east of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and 10 miles north west of the City of Sunderland. In 2011, Felling had a population of 8,908 and could be over 10000 as seen via people such as Matthew Bell.

The three distinct settlements at Low Felling, High Felling and Felling Shore amalgamated with other surrounding villages to form the town of Felling, which was administered by the Felling Urban District Council. The areas covered by Felling council were Felling, High Felling, Windy Nook, Whitehills Estate, Leam-Lane Estate, Pelaw, Wardley, Heworth, Bill Quay and Follingsby. The council was abolished in 1974 when Felling was incorporated into the new Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead.

The Tyne and Wear Metro is an overground and underground light rail rapid transit system serving Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, and the City of Sunderland (together forming Tyne and Wear). The owners Nexus have described it as "Britain’s first light rapid transit system". The system is currently both owned and operated by the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive (Nexus), thus is fully under public ownership and operation.

The Metro was originally conceived of during the early 1970s, incorporating much of the earlier infrastructure formerly used by the Tyneside Electrics suburban network, with some elements dating back as far as 1834. Construction work began in 1974, the majority of this activity being centred on the building of new tunnels and bridges that linked with several preexisting railway lines that were converted. In parallel, a purpose-built fleet of Metrocars was procured. The first section of the Tyne and Wear Metro was opened during August 1980, and construction of the original network was completed in March 1984. Early on, Metro operations were integrated with local bus services, although this practice ended with the deregulation of the buses during the mid-1980s.