Belfast

Sister cities

• Guadalajara
• Bonn
• Hefei

History

The name Belfast is derived from the Irish (), "mouth of the Farset", a river which name comes from Irish fearsaid, meaning a sandbar or tidal ford. This was formed where the Farset flowed into the Lagan (until culverted in the late 18th century) along what is now High Street. It was at this low-water crossing, under or near the current Queen's Bridge, that the early settlement developed. The compilers of Ulster Scots dialects use various transcriptions for the local pronunciations of "Belfast" including Bilfawst, Bilfaust or Baelfawst. As a legacy of emigration, Belfast has lent its name to more than a dozen settlements in the United States with the largest being Belfast, Maine, as well as one each in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. The site of Belfast has been occupied since at least the Neolithic. The Giant's Ring, a 5,000-year-old henge, is located near the city, and remains of Iron Age hill forts can still be seen on the surrounding hills. At the beginning of the 14th century, Papal tax rolls recorded two churches: the "Chapel of Dundela" at Knock (Irish , meaning "hill") in the east, connected by some accounts to the 7th-century evangelist St. Colmcille,and, the "Chapel of the Ford", which may have been a successor to a much older parish church on the present Shankill (Seanchill, "Old Church") Road, or possibly to St. Patrick in the mid 5th century. In the early 13th century, the Normans established a settlement at the ford comprising a fort, a parish church (now St. George's), and a watermill. This fort became the original Belfast Castle. Seized in the 14th century by the O'Neills of Clandeboye, it was retaken, demolished, and rebuilt several times until, at the end of the 16th century, the Irish power was broken in scorched-earth Nine…

Most-observed species

• European Robin

  Erithacus rubecula (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,041
• Common Wood-Pigeon

  Columba palumbus Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  3,714
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  3,655
• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  3,565
• Black-headed Gull

  Chroicocephalus ridibundus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  3,385
• Hooded Crow

  Corvus cornix Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  3,304
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  3,186
• Herring Gull

  Larus argentatus Pontoppidan, 1763 · Aves
  3,158