Belfast

Chartered as an English settlement in 1613, but grown by an influx of Scottish Presbyterians whose descendants’ disaffection with the Anglican establishment fed into the rebellion of 1798 and the union that followed in 1801. British capital and markets did the rest: by the time it was granted city status in 1888 this was the largest centre of linen manufacture in the world, and by the 1900s its shipyards were building up to a quarter of all United Kingdom tonnage. It stands on the Lagan, reaching the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel.