Leicester in the context of "List of urban areas in the United Kingdom"

The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England. It comprises the eastern half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It consists of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire (except for North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire), Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, and Rutland. The region has a land area of 15,623 km (6,032 sq mi), with an estimated population 5,063,164 in 2024. With a sufficiency-level world city ranking, Nottingham is the only settlement in the region to be classified by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.

The main cities in the region are Derby, Leicester, Lincoln and Nottingham. The largest towns in these counties are Boston, Chesterfield, Coalville, Corby, Glossop, Grantham, Kettering, Loughborough, Newark-on-Trent, Northampton, Mansfield, Oakham, Swadlincote and Wellingborough.

Leicestershire (/ˈlɛstərʃɪər, -ʃər/ LEST-ər-sheer, -⁠shər) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the north, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire to the south-east, Warwickshire to the south-west, and Staffordshire to the west. The city of Leicester is the largest settlement.

The county has an area of 2,156 km (832 sq mi) and an estimated population of 1,133,921 in 2024. Leicester is located in the centre of the county and is by far the largest settlement; its urban area includes the towns of Wigston and Oadby immediately to the south-east. The rest of the county is largely rural, and its settlements include the university town of Loughborough in the north, Melton Mowbray in the north-east, Hinckley in the south-west, and Coalville in the north-west. For local government purposes Leicestershire comprises a non-metropolitan county, with seven districts, and the unitary authority area of Leicester.

The Fosse Way was a Roman road built in Britain during the first and second centuries AD that linked Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter) in the southwest and Lindum Colonia (Lincoln) to the northeast, via Lindinis (Ilchester), Aquae Sulis (Bath), Corinium (Cirencester), and Ratae Corieltauvorum (Leicester). Much of its route is still used by modern roads, lanes and byways.

The Midlands is the central part of England, to the south of Northern England, to the north of southern England, to the east of Wales, and to the west of the North Sea. The Midlands comprises the ceremonial counties of Derbyshire, Herefordshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands and Worcestershire. For statistical purposes, the Midlands is divided into two statistical regions: the West Midlands and East Midlands. These had a combined population of 10.9 million at the 2021 census, and an area of 28,622 km (11,051 square miles). The northern part of Lincolnshire is part of the Yorkshire and the Humber statistical region, and not part of the Midlands.

The modern region also corresponds broadly to the early-medieval kingdom of Mercia. The Midlands became important in the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, which led to one of its parts being named the Black Country. Culturally, the Midlands is distinct, but contains elements from both Northern and Southern England in the North-South divide. The Midlands' largest city, Birmingham, is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom. Other cities include Coventry, Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Wolverhampton, and Worcester.

Peter Stafford Bellwood (born Leicester, England, 1943) is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. He is well known for his Early Farming Dispersal Hypothesis and his Out of Taiwan model regarding the spread of Austronesian languages.

Rugby is a market town in eastern Warwickshire, England, close to the River Avon. At the 2021 census, its population was 78,117, making it the second-largest town in Warwickshire. It is the main settlement within the larger Borough of Rugby, which had a population of 114,400 in 2021.

Rugby is situated on the eastern edge of Warwickshire, near to the borders with Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. It is the most easterly town within the West Midlands region, with the nearby county borders also marking the regional boundary with the East Midlands. It is 83 miles (134 km) north of London, 30 miles (48 km) east-south-east of Birmingham, 11.5 miles (18.5 km) east of Coventry, 18 miles (29 km) north-west of Northampton and 19 miles (31 km) south-south-west of Leicester.

Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, 1st Earl of Chester (c. 1208 – 4 August 1265), also known as Simon V de Montfort, was an English nobleman of French origin and a member of the English peerage, who led the baronial opposition to the rule of King Henry III, culminating in the Second Barons' War. Following his initial victories over royal forces, he became de facto ruler of England, and played a major role in the constitutional development of England.

During his rule, Montfort called two famous parliaments: the Oxford Parliament stripped Henry of his unlimited authority, while the second included ordinary citizens from the towns. For this reason, Montfort is regarded today as one of the progenitors of modern parliamentary democracy. As Earl of Leicester he expelled Jews from that city; as he became ruler of England he also cancelled debts owed to Jews through violent seizures of records. Montfort's party massacred the Jews of London, Worcester and Derby, killing scores of Jews from Winchester to Lincoln. After a rule of just over a year, Montfort was killed by forces loyal to the king in the Battle of Evesham.

Roman brick is a type of brick used in ancient Roman architecture and spread by the Romans to the lands they conquered, or a modern adaptation inspired by the ancient prototypes. Both types are characteristically longer and flatter than standard modern bricks.

Thomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) was the founder of the travel agency Thomas Cook & Son. He was born into a poor family in Derbyshire and left school at the age of ten to start work as a gardener's boy. He served an apprenticeship as a cabinet maker before becoming an itinerant Baptist preacher. He was a supporter of the temperance movement and his first foray into tourism was a railway excursion to Loughborough for members of the Leicester Temperance Society in 1841. Following the success of this excursion, Cook, by now settled with his family in Leicester, began to organise tours further afield in the British Isles and, eventually, to the United States, Egypt and the Holy Land. In 1872, he went into business with his son as Thomas Cook & Son, with a head office in London. Following his retirement in 1878, he returned to Leicester and took an interest in the Baptist church and charitable work until his death. Cook is credited with having, through his all-inclusive tours, made travel and tourism accessible to a wider public.