Leeds
Details
- Names
Leeds
Leddes
Leedes
Liedes
Loidis
- Place Type
- inhabited place
- Description
- Yorkshire's second largest city. It lies along the River Aire about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of Manchester. Leeds originated as an Anglo-Saxon township on the north bank of the Aire. It developed a thriving cloth-finishing and weaving industry, its noteworthy wool trade having begun with monks of Kirkstall abbey. It was consolidated during reign of Edward III. It grew as a local market center and was incorporated in 1626. Expanded with coalfields, railways, and textile machinery during the Industrial Revolution; modern industries include electronics, paper, engineering, and chemicals. A Victorian church here contains a Saxon cross fragment.
- Authority
- Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- Source
- Bartholomew Gazetteer of Britain (1986); Blue Guide: England (1980); Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer (1961); Domesday Book (1985); Encyclopaedia Britannica (1988); Gazetteer of Great Britain (1999); NGA/NIMA database (2003-); Oxford: English Place Names (1960); Times Atlas of World History (1993); Times Atlas of the World (1994); USBGN: Foreign Gazetteers; Webster's Geographical Dictionary (1984);
- Born
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