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England Yorkshire  Leeds

Guide to Leeds history, family history, and genealogy:' parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

History
Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. Historically in Yorkshire's West Riding, the history of Leeds can be traced to the 5th century when the name referred to a wooded area of the Kingdom of Elmet. The name has been applied to many administrative entities over the centuries. It changed from being the appellation of a small manorial borough in the 13th century, through several incarnations, to being the name attached to the present metropolitan borough. In the 17th and 18th centuries Leeds became a major center for the production and trading of wool.

Leeds is located on the valley of the River Aire in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is 190 miles (310 km) north-northwest of central London. The city center is less than twenty miles (32 km) from the Yorkshire Dales National Park which has some of the most spectacular scenery and countryside in the UK. Inner and southern areas of Leeds lie on a layer of coal measure sandstones forming the Yorkshire Coalfield. To the north parts are built on older sandstone and gritstones and to the east it extends into the magnesian limestone belt.

During the Industrial Revolution, Leeds developed into a major mill town; wool was the dominant industry but flax, engineering, iron foundries, printing, and other industries were important.[6] From being a compact market town in the valley of the River Aire in the 16th century Leeds expanded and absorbed the surrounding villages to become a populous urban center by the mid-20th century. The main built-up area sub-division has a population of 474,632 (2011) and the City of Leeds metropolitan borough, of which it is a part, has a population of around 757,700 (2011) making it the third largest city in the United Kingdom.

Today, Leeds has the most diverse economy of all the UK's main employment centers and has seen the fastest rate of private sector jobs growth of any UK city and has the highest ratio of public to private sector jobs of all the UK's Core Cities. The city has the third largest jobs total by local authority area with 480,000 in employment and self-employment at the beginning of 2015. Leeds is also ranked as a gamma world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network;[9] and is considered the cultural, financial and commercial heart of the West Yorkshire Urban Area. Leeds is served by four universities, and has the fourth largest student population in the country and has the country's fourth largest urban economy.