Southampton is the largest city on the south coast of England. It is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest. The city lies roughly in the centre of the coast, at the northern-most point of Southampton Water where it is joined by the River Test and River Itchen, with the River Hamble joining to the south of the urban area. The city is situated approximately halfway between Bournemouth and Portsmouth.
The local authority is Southampton City Council, which is a unitary authority. The city is part of the ceremonial county of Hampshire.
Southampton has one of the largest container ports in Europe and handles almost half of the UK's deep sea trade from major economies in the Far East and China.
The cities cruise industry is currently the busiest in Europe, handling 1.7 million cruise passengers a year.
The city represents the core of the Greater Southampton region. The city's name is sometimes abbreviated in writing to "So'ton" or "Soton", and a resident of Southampton is called a Sotonian.
Southampton is probably most famous for being the home of the RMS Titanic, the Spitfire and more recently a number of the largest cruise liners in the world.
Southampton’s position on a peninsula of land between the Rivers Test and Itchen saw it prosper in saxon times as a port of trade and departure to compliment the nearby capital of Winchester. By the medieval period success came the need to protect the city from attackers. Southampton built an extensive network of heavy impregnable city walls, much of which can still be seen today.
As with most cities there are several council estates such as those in the Weston, Thornhill and Townhill Park districts. Overall, the city is ranked 96th most deprived out of all 354 Local Authorities in England, fairly low for a city of its size, although higher than most of Southern England. Southampton was heavily bombed during the Second World War and as a result of the effort to rehouse those displaced, many modernist tower blocks were built.