Bristol is a city and one of the forty-seven counties of England, United Kingdom. Located in the Southwest region, it is bordered on the northeast by Gloucestershire, on the south and south-west by Somerset and on the north-west by the Bristol Canal, and is one of the two administrative centers of south-west England. Since its inception, its prosperity has been linked to its commercial port, which gave rise to the center of the city. Bristol is the eighth city of England and the eleventh of the United Kingdom in population. For half a century it was the second city in population after London, a position that lost by the rapid rise of Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham in the late 1780.
In the world there are 34 other cities called "Bristol", mostly in the United States, but also in Peru, Canada, Jamaica and Costa Rica, all commemorating the original. The city was awarded the title European Green Capital 2015 and was named by the newspaper The Sunday Times as the best place in Great Britain to live in 2014 and 2017.