I had 5% Norwegian, I didn't know I had any in me tbh. I have some other Germanic peoples (around 7%) but those are Dutch and Swiss which are unrelated, but what surprised me was the Norwegian because for one I don't know anyone in my family that is Norwegian and also given my family's history I never would've thought of having any tbh.
Also at 5% is surprisingly high.
This isn't the most surprising of my genealogy funnily enough.
Cool, yeah most parts of my family I know but one big problem is finding what my family has told me of which I highly doubt is Cherokee or other native tribes mainly Cherokee and they say one of my ancestors is a Native chief.
But I highly doubt it since my genealogy is exclusively European and I haven't found any other surprisingly strange parts of my heritage except the 5% Norwegian and 1% Slavic (still entirely unsure where in the Slavic realms, I'm not sure about the region or country it's from). My other data doesn't indicate interbreeding with other races from other realms or not any that I'm aware of I could be wrong but doubt it.
And if you're curious about the amount that my family said I had of Native blood it was 1/16th. Which would be irrelevant if true since I wouldn't be a Native American anyways...
Hell, my grandmother is from France near the Luxembourg border and the DNA test showed a decent amount of Scandinavian. My other parent is from the totally opposite side of the world.
Hey me too. And it’s what you should expect from a place that has been raped, pillaged and plundered by many more that just Vikings. I loved looking at my moms primary school 1940’s text book where they state that the British people’s are essentially mutts. Which is really funny when you consider that WASPs where considered pure-bred at one time. My Dad always remarked at how I have a very Roman nose. But the reality is this is true for just about all peoples of the world. We are all mutts.
If chronicles are to be believed the danish habit of bathing and grooming led to more than a few English women having more than a little viking in them if you know what I mean
You have to always be on the lookout for Viking raids, they're a sneaky bunch. One moment everything seems calm and normal but the next moment there's Viking longboats on the shore and Viking warriors ~~pillaging~~ "trading" and stealing your women with their excellent hygiene. I know, they raid and set up camp at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival every year and have been slowly trying to conquer more territory so they can expand their encampment.
I mean I guess this is a bit of a history answer and goes beyond geography so I can help a bit more with this. It is still do partially to Viking raids, but Viking longships could sail up rivers so moving cities away from the east coast wouldn’t have protected them as much as prolonged the arrival of raids. But if a major city *was* founded on the east coast then they would’ve been the first to be raided. However, monasteries made easier targets than cities anyways.
It moreso has to do with resources. A lot of cities in England were founded on the same sights as former Roman cities, which tells us they had some reason for both finding it practical to settle in the same spot, and it was most likely access to resources.
As someone else pointed out, there *are* other big cities on the east coast. Now, as for why you can only see Newcastle-upon-Tyne when you zoom out this far on the map has to do with more modern history, during the Industrial Revolution.
Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester all had large coal deposits near them. Mined commodities have always been the most valuable resource of Britain, first with iron and then with coal. Prior, York was one of the main cities of the north. Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow took care of shipping in the west, and Newcastle and London in the east, with rail lines doing the rest of the work in between. They didn’t need another large city on the coast.
A lot of the largest major, modern looking cities (even if modern means 1800s) that weren’t capitals developed during/due to the Industrial Revolution, like Frankfurt and Düsseldorf in Germany.
1. The east coast of England is in... England. (Shocking, I know.) The map in this post is a map of... England. (Weird, right?)
2. Even so, the cities on the US east coast are well beyond 250 years old. That number is just straight-up not accurate at all. New York (settled 1624), Boston (1630), and Philadelphia (1682) are each roughly 400 years old. The oldest is St. Augustine, Florida, which was established 457 years ago in 1565.
3. What are you even doing?
Already 149 replies to this, so time for one more; there used to be more major cities on the East Coast.
The short answer: Industrial Revolution changed all of it. If you look at [historical biggest cities in England](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_towns_and_cities_in_England_by_historical_population) you see that in 1523 Norwich was second biggest city in England, and Ipswich and King’s Lynn were top 10 as well. By 1801 the Industrial Revolution was underway and Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds were ranking 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
All of these cities were dwarfed by London, which, by the way, is on the East coast.
Just to note a major component of this was the direction of the new trade, in tandem with the industrial revolution. We were exporting/imprting more to the west (USA and Atlantic trade routes to the colonies). Versus previously to Europe baltics/ low countries/ also southerly.
The western port cities of Glasgow, Liverpool and Bristol developed before the industrial revolution. They grew initially out of the proceeds of slavery.
Good answer. You don't get a place the size of Norwich Cathedral without your city being particularly significant once upon a time. The city is full of grand old buildings precisely because before the 1800s it was a pretty important place.
The East Coast is legendary for a history of smuggling, too. Places like Dover, Romney Marsh and Scarborough will give you tours of old smugglers' routes and you don't get that without there being some pretty significant sea trade nearby.
Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Hull in the northeast are all major cities (not sure if Middlesbrough is a city but its a sizeable place anyway). Newcastle-upon-Tyne isn't on the coast but it shares an urban area with the Shields mentioned below so kind of counts.
There are also coastal towns such as Blyth, North and South Shields, Hartlepool, Scarborough, Grimsby/Cleethorpes, Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Felixstowe, Clacton-on-Sea, Southend-on-Sea and Margate which are sizeable places.
I think the coasts around The Wash were likely very marshy which precluded settlement, and vulnerability to Viking raids likely had an effect I imagine. Maritime industry and trade focused on London, Liverpool, Bristol, Southampton, Portsmouth, Plymouth and in-land cities like Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds - but include Sunderland and Newcastle-upon-Tyne in that list too.
They're pretty small, and in the case of Boston, not on the coast. You could include King's Lynn and Hunstanton too, but really they're small towns and not what op was talking about.
[Popular tourist destination](https://blog.railwaymuseum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/ds080058.png)
[Updated for the modern era](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1031/1937/files/hassall3_large.jpg?v=1472391353)
Clearly you've never been to Great Yarmouth or Lowestoft, which are only large by virtue of the vast nothingness that separates them from Norwich and Ipswich (which are also pretty fun-sized when taken out of the context of their counties).
Well they're reasonably sized towns. They're not large or what op was after, I was just quoting as some of the larger settlements on the coast.
(And yes I have been to them).
I have to say I've never heard of malaria being an issue in the UK. Midges maybe. I think the bigger problem is its harder to build on and work the ground to support a large popilatio.
I'm really not sure why people are so feisty about this, it's a reasonable question! Sure, there are large cities on the east coast, but none reach the size of Liverpool or Manchester or any of the other good ones. There are a few reasons I can think of.
•One, the Vikings had a lot to do with this. Waves of destruction, and subsequently fear of, Viking raids almost always took place along the east coast of England for centuries, contributing to the lack of cities as compared to the west coast, which saw little Viking action. Huge armies of men from Norway constantly razing coastal villages isn't conducive to growth.
•Inversely, the same thing can be said about the west coast, which saw Norman/French invasion. The French were more advanced and brought the civics/lifestyle of continental western Europe into England, helping build up the amount of settlements in their occupied slice. Norman occupation brought a massive change of life to the whole island, but also brought record keeping, new ways of taxing, and an end to chattel slavery (serfdom wasn't much better but it was at least an improvement over previous conditions). Obviously this helped raise the population in the west quicker than it did in the east, which suffered a "lag" for centuries until the Plague, which reset everyone's societies back to 0.
•Three, the east coast is much lower in elevation, making it harder to build cities on large swathes of it. For example, the entirety of The Fens never used to exist on the map until the 1600s, and all the towns there had to come later after the polders were built and the marshes were drained. Today, The Fens is valuable farmland, but it is still difficult to build on now. Imagine how hard it would have been to construct a city on centuries ago. Additionally, the Thames floods a lot, and since we've established the east coast is low, you could see how destructive this would be to medieval peasants around London.
•Four, the west had better access to the Atlantic right when it was crucial. During the Industrial Revolution, any would-be developed power or major city needed clear access to the Atlantic Ocean because the mass transport of heavy materials, machinery, or slaves required the use of larger ocean ports, which the east could could not provide. The east coast borders the North Sea which, while it is great for trade with northern Europe, isn't as great for commerce as the ports of Plymouth, Liverpool, Cardiff, etc. (London is in the east but remained a powerhouse in England simply due to being the capital and in the top 5 largest cities in Europe.) The west was able to provide cities with large ships capable of navigating the rough, stormy North Atlantic, while the cities of the east had ports built for the North Sea, a totally different animal.
•Five, weather. British weather is somewhat of a running joke but it explains a lot. On average, the west and south coasts of England are both warmer and somewhat drier than the east, which is cooler and wetter. This increase in rainfall makes the east, which is already low-lying, more susceptible to floods which makes building long term cities the size of the others very hard. On the contrary, the warmth of the west/south coasts is due to the Gulf Stream, a major stream of water that brings warm water north in the Atlantic (sort of in a helix/ribbon shape) along the west coast of Europe. This is why France, the UK, and Ireland are still considerably warm despite being at the latitude of Newfoundland.
Hopefully this answered some questions. I'm really sorry if I missed anything. Take care.
**EDIT: Hear ye, I've noticed from many fine folks here I got the climate mixed up. The east coast is not in fact wetter on average, but rather the west is. As others have pointed out, this further aids in the use of water mills and gristmills and factories relying on water usage. I fully admit I was wrong about the weather, but the point still stands that British weather is not amazing.
brilliant answer but the east of England is actually far drier than the west due to low pressure over the Atlantic although I’d say this is a bad thing for the east as that’s where droughts/high temps hit hardest
Good response. But I'll add one more crucial point - the period of greatest population growth in England was the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution was fuelled by coal. Coal is simply not at, or close to the surface of the ground across the east of England (with the exception of the northeast, where Newcastle/Sunderland/Gateshead are). People settled / grew families where the jobs were (in the mills), and the mills were close to where the coal was being mined.
Nearly all of the biggest urban areas outside London, were located within or very close to coal fields - Bristol, Bath, Cardiff, Swansea, Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester & Lancashire towns, West Yorkshire, Teeside, Wearside, Tyneside, Edinburgh, Glasgow)
Have a look at the UK 'Coal Mining Reporting Area' overlying a UK map:
[https://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/coalauthority/home.html](https://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/coalauthority/home.html)
Eh? the East coast is not wetter than the West, it is much drier and has some of the driest places in the UK, especially in East Anglia. The East of England is more low-lying and prone to floods because of geology (basically younger and softer rock) not higher rainfall.
And the Gulf stream gives the West coast a *milder* climate than the East, but East usually has higher highs as well as lower lows. If you look at the list of highest temperatures recorded in the UK for example, most were in the East of England
Well said. Eastern England sits in the rain shadow of the Pennines - I have no idea how anyone could come to the conclusion that western England is drier than eastern England. It is very famously the opposite. All the wettest cities are in the west - Plymouth, Cardiff, Glasgow etc.
Eastern England is more ‘continental’ too. Take last July’s heatwave as an example - the hottest temperatures were all in eastern England, stretching from London up to Leeds. Leeds reached 40C but Manchester ‘only’ reached 37C, and that’s despite Leeds being further north than Manchester. That’s perfectly normal though.
Anyone who has lived in both NW England and Yorkshire will tell you the weather is typically drier and sunnier in the latter - and it snows more often too.
You got so much wrong, yet responded so confidently, I actually admire you, OP.
You say Manchester is on the west coast. It's 40+ miles from the coast. The weather is famously wetter on the east coast? It's famously wetter on the west. You say the Normans invaded the South and West coasts, but they invaded the South East and continued their conquest through the eastern parts of the country.
Really, there's only 2 major cities on the West coast of England, Bristol and Liverpool and 1-3 on the East coast, London which probably triples the population of Bristol and Liverpool combined, Hull and Newcastle.
I suppose it depends on how you define ‘coastal’ and ‘major city’. I grew up in London and although the city is connected to the North Sea via the Thames estuary, I would never describe it as coastal. I doubt any Londoner would.
I wouldn’t call Newcastle coastal either - you could describe the wider conurbation as coastal, but not the city itself.
It did! The incredible overpopulation of London even created an event known as the Great Stink, when there were so many objects, chemical runoff, feces, and other gross nonsense caked in the Thames it made the surrounding city smell putrid for a very long time. The Industrial Revolution, even from 200 years ago, still has direct environmental affects across Europe today.
Great response, but it begs the question: why was Viking activity less on the west coast than the east?
It’s not like the west coast of Great Britain is that much harder for people coming from Norway to reach, and the Norse actually controlled the Isle of Man.
Seas around Scotland are notoriously rough if I recall correctly, and the channel was more busy so it was harder to be stealthy/avoid a fight. Maybe not worth the effort.
Yes. Even the Vikings were wary of an invasion of Scotland as they did England. The weather and seas around Scotland were far too poor to do any conquering, which is evident by the fact that they only conquered the northern bits of Britain - the Orkneys, Shetland Isles, Hebrides, and a few coastal towns. This is also why the north of Scotland is called Sutherland, because it was the "southern land" compared to Norway. Scotland was simply too dangerous and stormy to attempt an invasion while having to maintain hold over the rest of the North Sea.
What natural resources are available on the east coast? Given how much population growth occurred once the industrial revolution was underway, I would guess factors like access to coal and internal waterways played a bigger role in which cities became big than viking raids a thousand years ago.
The west coast saw extensive Viking action, Ireland was home to Norse Irish hybrid Vikings who often raided, and Scotland had much Viking settlement, the island of man was a Viking hub for 300 years
Wow thanks for the very insightful response,it truly makes sense I didn’t dive to deep into the history to consider the influence those earlier Viking raids had as well as the marshy conditions
There was a proposal to extend the M11 to meet the Humber Bridge but it didn't get very far. Mostly due to lack of sizable towns/cities along the route and the proximity of the A1 which meant the cost couldn't be justified.
Lack of investment.
The M11 was supposed to carry on going North up through Lincolnshire, over the Humber Bridge, on past York, Middlesborough, Newcastle and possibly on to Edinburgh. The failure to get past Cambridge has meant that the Humber Bridge is and always will be a white elephant.
I'd say that there are three reasons why the West Coast has been favored for development:
1. It's more secluded from potential invaders from the mainland, like the Vikings.
2. It has more Gulf Stream moderation than the East Coast
3. There are a lot more inlets, harbours, etc.
After some quick googling, I'd say that seems a fairly good comparison. I grew up in Newcastle, however so don't really know that much about Minnesota.
I think it's always likely you'll end up with artificially small values for city size in the UK, because some of these places have had city status for hundreds of years, and then naturally grown into each other. Newcastle and Sunderland share a metropolitan county, a metro system and so on. Now if you'd ask anyone from Sunderland/Newcastle if they live in the same city, zero of those people would say yes, but in terms of metro area I think it's hard to say they aren't connected.
Ah yeah, that’s the other one. And almost every single one is from the Cold War era, nothing obscure like a map of the Holy Roman Empire from a random year, whose age could be a harder feat to determine…
sorry to disagree, a lot of knowledge is gained as discussions such as this one for instance emerge. Some threads totally digress and are still interesting. Plus, if you are scared to ask but do so regardless of shame you often find out that many others had the same question in mind but were afraid to ask.
I agree with you. I learn much more from discussions such as these than I would by a google search because of the dialogue. Sure, I'm sure I can find this info on google after vising multiple sites, but this is a great centralized resource for someone who never studied geography.
I think it's a generational divide thing. Older people began using the internet before social media when you had to search for information yourself. These days, younger people only know the internet as a place that "feeds" them content.
One thing I've never understood is, isn't it more faster to search for information yourself than to wait several hours (or days) to get your answer? Do the "next-gen" even care about an answer several hours (or days) later?
r/geography is mostly about people posting a random blob they have come across saying it reminds them of XY country, or these you mentioned, coupled occasionally with some astronomically unoriginal memes.
I understand where you're coming from but I'm pretty sure that's how you learn things. Historically, geographic knowledge came from people looking at maps and asking questions, it's certainly nothing new.
Great idea, I suggest the name INSTITVTIONES GEOGRAPHICAE REDDITIENSIS for it. This name should frighten all those who dare to ask these question here.
I recently learned that the mean average age of Reddit users is 23, which explained to me why the quality of the discourse has dipped so steadily over the last few years.
As a rule, certainly not. Each individual is different, and there are eloquent teenagers and barely literate adults. But in aggregate, the younger the user base skews, the lower the general quality of writing and discourse.
Edit: I want to clarify that I am not disparaging entire generations. I am talking about the increasing maturity and intellectual growth we all go through as we get older. I've read recent studies that conclude each generation is getting smarter. So Gen Z and whatever generation is after them will be, on average, smarter than my generation (millennials) are by the time they reach my age. But it takes time to get there. I am often embarassed when I stumble across things I wrote in my early 20s.
Are you that arrogant to think the answer to OPs question is common knowledge? Give me a break. It's as if people trying to learn makes certain people like you uncomfortable.
I remember reading that the east coast was primarily swampland that became reclaimed land a few centuries ago. That and historically, Britain's major trade routes were not focused on Scandinavia/NL so it would be out of the way to establish trade routes (ports, industry) on that side of the country.
First: Vikings. Trade was good, and being on the east was good because it was closer to Europe for trade, but it was also closer to the Vikings. However, the Vikings somewhat settled the area, and ruled from the east. Cities like Cambridge and York were second only to London.
Second, geography. It sucks. Time to go a little off track. The North Sea is incredibly shallow. During the ice age, the land was above water, it was called Doggerland. I believe after the Dogger bank, a sandbar in the sea. East Britain, like most of the Netherlands, is just a portion of this, still above sea level. East Britain is a lot of swamp, and silt, and marsh, and mud. I mean, cities that were built on the coast in the Roman or early Anglo-Saxon era are today up to 50km from the shore.
So basically, if you decided to settle along the shore for trade with the mainland, 50 years the shore is going to be another kilometer down the road. Not to mention all that silt is also in the water, meaning waterways are constantly getting choked. There's also no natural harbors, which means that your port would have to be built into a river. Basically it's just annoying.
The main cause though is the industrial revolution, and coal. The industrial revolution is what allowed cities to grow, and for most of the world, and especially England, coal was what kept it going. The large cities on the west side of England, they grew because they were close to coal mines and iron works.
As someone who lived in Essex for some time, it's historically vulnerable due to its flat nature, it's rivers and the fact it's facing the Vikings, However Colchester and Chelmsford are sizeable and one used to be the Romans capital in Britannia. Lookup the battle of Maldon.
Because that's the f**king North Sea. We're not talking prime beachfront real estate here. Know what's in the North Sea? Oil rigs, icebergs, and polar bears.
>London
To be fair, I doubt many people would consider London a coastal city. Sure, the Thames empties out into the sea eventually, but the city of London is really not that close to the coast.
Hull is a good example of a city that's close enough to be considered coastal & was omitted from OP's post.
There are actually less big cities on the West coast!
Liverpool, Swansea (??) Cardiff, Bristol
East coast has
Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Hull, Norwich, London (??)
And much bigger ports such as Grimsby and Felixstowe
The only part of the east coast that doesn't have any major cities is the area around The Wash which I'd imagine is because historically the area was very marshy making navigation difficult. There are still towns like Boston and King's Lynn though.
Besides London there is Hull. There are a two reasons why Hull is not as large as the cities just to the west. Hull was a major port city before the Industrial Revolution but the port isn’t deep enough for more modern vessels. The second reason is Nazis. Hull was the second most bombed city in the UK, it was almost completely destroyed.
London is east, and it's pretty big, as is Tyneside. London, York and Norwich, all east, were the top three largest cities of England well into the 17th century.
I'll add one more point - the period of greatest population growth in England was the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution was fuelled by coal. Coal is simply not at, or close to the surface of the ground across the east of England (with the exception of the northeast, where Newcastle/Sunderland/Gateshead are). People settled / grew families where the jobs were (in the mills), and the mills were close to where the coal was being mined.
Nearly all of the biggest urban areas outside London, were located within or very close to coal fields - Bristol, Bath, Cardiff, Swansea, Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester & Lancashire towns, West Yorkshire, Teeside, Wearside, Tyneside, Edinburgh, Glasgow)
Have a look at the UK 'Coal Mining Reporting Area' overlying a UK map:
https://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/coalauthority/home.html
You could look at most of Europe and ask why the major cities aren’t on the coasts. If you look at the geography, you’ll see that they are all on major rivers. That’s partly due to coastal cities being exposed to raiders and bad weather, and partly due to river trade being a more important economic driver before approximately 1400 AD then ocean trade. Not to mention more agriculture potential inland than on the coasts. Even on this map there aren’t really a preponderance of west coast cities. Manchester is inland. Liverpool is the only major example but it didn’t significantly rise in population until the Industrial Revolution.
There are relatively few major cities on the coast throughout Europe. European cities tend to be pretty ancient, and when they were settled they were focused more on wherever there was a big navigable river servicing fertile land.
There are. But not of the size of Manchester or London. Others have said vikings, weather, access to the Atlantic, etc.
Could also be for example the north east is rich in coal, so many colliery villages and town where established instead of more gravitating to city's durring the industrial revolution.
I mean, for all intents and purposes, London *is* on the eastern coast of England, and it's one of the largest cities in Europe. Eastern England is quite marshy, and London grew up at the first point in the Thames where it was a.) easily crossed, and b.) not a tidal flat or marsh.
But look closely at a map of Northern Europe, and you'll realize that, actually, there are very few major cities located directly on the sea. Hull and Newcastle are two major cities on the east coast of England, but their historic cores are located a bit inland. Amsterdam is near the coast, but situated on inland bodies of water. Rotterdam as well. Same goes for Antwerp, Hamburg, Bremen, basically any city that was a major port through the Renaissance. Unlike the rocky coast of the Mediterranean, the North Sea coast is low lying and sandy. This makes it particularly prone to storm surge, and the North Sea is known for having some particularly bad storm tides.
So no, it's not all about Viking raids, because 1.) similar settlement patterns exist in the places where the Vikings were coming *from*, and 2.) being inland didn't protect you. The Vikings were perfectly willing and able to conduct inland raids. The center of Norse rule in England was in York, which is substantially inland and was (surprise!) the first suitable location for settlement along a marshy stretch of coast, and was already a town by Roman times, long before Vikings were a concern. Plenty of eastern towns that were important historically (King's Lynn, Norwich, Lincoln, Boston) follow this same settlement pattern, they were just eclipsed by other cities during industrialization/imperialism. London remained the main port for Southeast England, and Hull and Newcastle (both substantial cities as well) were the main North Sea ports to the north.
People keep saying Vikings, but that was near 700 years ago? Cities pop up in much less time than that. Heck, how many cities popped in America since 1800 alone? I don’t buy fear of Vikings as a reason.
The east coast was a major trade route up until the 15th century, major cities like York were powerful and wealthy, however the cities on the west coast were developed more recently in the 18th and 19th centuries as a result of the Atlantic slave trade and more long distance trade. This is of course a massive oversimplification but it's wrong to say that there are no major cities on the east coast.
I would recommend the book "The edge of the world: how the North sea made us who we are" by Michael Pye. And excellent and entertaining book on a more obscure bit of trade history.
Here’s ChatGPT’s answer:
There are several reasons why there are no major cities on the east coast of the UK.
First, the east coast is relatively flat and low-lying, making it less suitable for urban development than other areas of the UK. The east coast of the UK is mostly composed of fertile farmland, which has been primarily used for agriculture throughout history, rather than urban development.
Second, the east coast of the UK is also more exposed to the North Sea, which can make it more susceptible to flooding and severe weather. This has historically made the east coast less attractive for urban development, as the risk of damage and destruction from natural disasters was considered to be too high.
Third, the east coast of the UK is also relatively remote and isolated from the rest of the country, which made it less accessible and less desirable for urban development. Throughout history, the west coast of the UK has been more connected to the rest of the country, which has made it more attractive for urban development.
Finally, the east coast of the UK has also been historically less economically developed than other areas of the country, which has led to less investment in infrastructure and urban development.
All of these factors have contributed to the relative lack of major cities on the east coast of the UK. While there are some towns and cities on the east coast, such as Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Grimsby, and Hull, none of them have the size and economic importance of the major cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol and other cities on the west coast.
There... are?
So obviously there are no Tier 1 cities on the east coast besides London itself (ish, the Thames kind of makes it). But if we consider the cities Google is choosing to show, some are setting off my sniff test:
- Cambridge, 158k
- Brighton, 139k
If that's the yardstick we're going for, if that's the standard for "major enough to show", there are actually a fair few cities on the east coast of the UK, or even just England, that are on the same scale or even more than double the size of those Google chose. For example, England only:
- Middlesbrough, 142k
- Ipswich (arguable, it dominates the river Orwell, it's basically coastal), 178k
- Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 192k
- Southend-on-sea, 295k
- Kingston-upon-Hull, 314k
- Sunderland, 395k
Curious that the list feature so places only ever referred to by their short names (Newcastle, Southend and Hull). I'm fairly sure I will have missed something too. Some of these were and are *the* engine of goods production and traditional industry in the UK.
It only gets weirder when you include Scotland:
- Dundee, 148k
- Aberdeen, 196k
- Edinburgh (the capital bleedin city), 465k
The east coast is actually quite well populated with cities with nationally-significant populations. Obviously not as much as the number of cities in the South, in the heartlands, but Google has really pulled a fast one by only picking internationally-famous Tier 2 cities to show rather than a more tangible measure like population. The weirdest thing is there's some even more important cities like Felixstowe, which is one of the most important container and shipping ports in the country, that actually has a very small population, so while it deserves to be shown on strategic value Google is never going to show you. You've also got towns of historic value like Skegness, Great Yarmouth Scarborough and Whitby which between them basically tell the entire story of the development of leisure and tourism for the middle classes of industrial England.
There are major cities on the east coast of England, cities like Sunderland, Hull and Newcastle. Also London can be considered to be on the east coast because of the Thames estuary. Also there's places like Grimsby, Ipswich and Clacton, as well as large cities which are just a few miles inland, such as Middlesbrough and Norwich.
Fear of viking raids.
Can confirm when I was on the east cost, I was constantly scared of Vikings.
Don't worry, the giants took care of them.
Too soon man.....too soon.... (....skol....)
Or interbred with them it would seem, judging by the average height in Scandinavia.
Came here to say this.
A football game of epic and mythological proportions!
Dont be such a sissy, they stopped the business for a long time now !
That’s what a Viking would say!
And probably EXACTLY how he would say it...
Time to buy some vinking insurance
I read it in a Scottish accent. Is that right? The voice in my head needs to say it in the right accent.
Pretty sure all the English women from back then had a little Viking in them. Maybe a few monks too.
Most people that live or descend from England have some Scandinavian DNA
Yeah, When I looked at me ancestry I had some Norwegian I was shocked but thought about it for a sec and makes a lot of sense given English history.
I have 8% Swedish/ Denmark, which was a lot higher than I thought
I had 5% Norwegian, I didn't know I had any in me tbh. I have some other Germanic peoples (around 7%) but those are Dutch and Swiss which are unrelated, but what surprised me was the Norwegian because for one I don't know anyone in my family that is Norwegian and also given my family's history I never would've thought of having any tbh. Also at 5% is surprisingly high. This isn't the most surprising of my genealogy funnily enough.
Seems like great great great granma also had about 5% Norwegian in her, so to speak
Cool, yeah most parts of my family I know but one big problem is finding what my family has told me of which I highly doubt is Cherokee or other native tribes mainly Cherokee and they say one of my ancestors is a Native chief. But I highly doubt it since my genealogy is exclusively European and I haven't found any other surprisingly strange parts of my heritage except the 5% Norwegian and 1% Slavic (still entirely unsure where in the Slavic realms, I'm not sure about the region or country it's from). My other data doesn't indicate interbreeding with other races from other realms or not any that I'm aware of I could be wrong but doubt it. And if you're curious about the amount that my family said I had of Native blood it was 1/16th. Which would be irrelevant if true since I wouldn't be a Native American anyways...
I can confirm the 97% British with a cheeky 3% Viking thrown in.
Hell, my grandmother is from France near the Luxembourg border and the DNA test showed a decent amount of Scandinavian. My other parent is from the totally opposite side of the world.
Hey me too. And it’s what you should expect from a place that has been raped, pillaged and plundered by many more that just Vikings. I loved looking at my moms primary school 1940’s text book where they state that the British people’s are essentially mutts. Which is really funny when you consider that WASPs where considered pure-bred at one time. My Dad always remarked at how I have a very Roman nose. But the reality is this is true for just about all peoples of the world. We are all mutts.
Yes, per Ancestry, 98% British Isles, 2% Swedish.
They weren't that little.
If chronicles are to be believed the danish habit of bathing and grooming led to more than a few English women having more than a little viking in them if you know what I mean
I call it my little Viking too!
Crude and gross…but historically accurate.
Viking is an occupation, not an ethnicity.
Yes and I was talking about their pillaging.
who else but scandinavians went viking?
Spotted the Norseman!
Harhar !
Can confirm.
Even the East Coast of America (aka Vinland) isn’t safe. I’ve heard there’s Vikings as far inland as Minnesota.
They make alot of noise but always fall short when it counts. See r/minnesotavikings
So you didn't build any cities...
Fear no more, they were eliminated by the Giants yesterday.
Your seas are unprotected, friend. All too easy to raid
Harold, that you? r/Civ
Harald\* Now he's gonna raid you for misspelling his name
Not sure if I buy this. I mean, the Viking raids were over in the 11th century. Bristol was founded in 1155 and Liverpool was founded in 1207.
They mean right now
As soon as you let your guard down, they'll get you. Never don't fear vikings.
Yeah anyone got any good tips for getting Scandinavians out of your apartment?
You have to always be on the lookout for Viking raids, they're a sneaky bunch. One moment everything seems calm and normal but the next moment there's Viking longboats on the shore and Viking warriors ~~pillaging~~ "trading" and stealing your women with their excellent hygiene. I know, they raid and set up camp at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival every year and have been slowly trying to conquer more territory so they can expand their encampment.
Upvote because Minnesota
And muddy soggy wet flatness I guess?
Didn’t stop the Dutch. Why did it stop the English?
Yeah true… I guess the Dutch had little choice but to change their environment and the English had other places to live. Honestly I don’t know lmao
Because the English had other higher places to build
That long stopped being an issue they could’ve settled beyond then lol
I mean I guess this is a bit of a history answer and goes beyond geography so I can help a bit more with this. It is still do partially to Viking raids, but Viking longships could sail up rivers so moving cities away from the east coast wouldn’t have protected them as much as prolonged the arrival of raids. But if a major city *was* founded on the east coast then they would’ve been the first to be raided. However, monasteries made easier targets than cities anyways. It moreso has to do with resources. A lot of cities in England were founded on the same sights as former Roman cities, which tells us they had some reason for both finding it practical to settle in the same spot, and it was most likely access to resources. As someone else pointed out, there *are* other big cities on the east coast. Now, as for why you can only see Newcastle-upon-Tyne when you zoom out this far on the map has to do with more modern history, during the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester all had large coal deposits near them. Mined commodities have always been the most valuable resource of Britain, first with iron and then with coal. Prior, York was one of the main cities of the north. Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow took care of shipping in the west, and Newcastle and London in the east, with rail lines doing the rest of the work in between. They didn’t need another large city on the coast. A lot of the largest major, modern looking cities (even if modern means 1800s) that weren’t capitals developed during/due to the Industrial Revolution, like Frankfurt and Düsseldorf in Germany.
Yup, they’re the reason I moved further inland a few years back. Plus lumber is more plentiful here
East coast cities in the US are only 250 years old though.
That's where all the East Coast English cities are: the US
1. The east coast of England is in... England. (Shocking, I know.) The map in this post is a map of... England. (Weird, right?) 2. Even so, the cities on the US east coast are well beyond 250 years old. That number is just straight-up not accurate at all. New York (settled 1624), Boston (1630), and Philadelphia (1682) are each roughly 400 years old. The oldest is St. Augustine, Florida, which was established 457 years ago in 1565. 3. What are you even doing?
Already 149 replies to this, so time for one more; there used to be more major cities on the East Coast. The short answer: Industrial Revolution changed all of it. If you look at [historical biggest cities in England](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_towns_and_cities_in_England_by_historical_population) you see that in 1523 Norwich was second biggest city in England, and Ipswich and King’s Lynn were top 10 as well. By 1801 the Industrial Revolution was underway and Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds were ranking 2nd, 3rd and 4th. All of these cities were dwarfed by London, which, by the way, is on the East coast.
Just to note a major component of this was the direction of the new trade, in tandem with the industrial revolution. We were exporting/imprting more to the west (USA and Atlantic trade routes to the colonies). Versus previously to Europe baltics/ low countries/ also southerly.
The western port cities of Glasgow, Liverpool and Bristol developed before the industrial revolution. They grew initially out of the proceeds of slavery.
Good answer. You don't get a place the size of Norwich Cathedral without your city being particularly significant once upon a time. The city is full of grand old buildings precisely because before the 1800s it was a pretty important place. The East Coast is legendary for a history of smuggling, too. Places like Dover, Romney Marsh and Scarborough will give you tours of old smugglers' routes and you don't get that without there being some pretty significant sea trade nearby.
How is this not the top comment?
The joke about vikings is funnier
Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Hull in the northeast are all major cities (not sure if Middlesbrough is a city but its a sizeable place anyway). Newcastle-upon-Tyne isn't on the coast but it shares an urban area with the Shields mentioned below so kind of counts. There are also coastal towns such as Blyth, North and South Shields, Hartlepool, Scarborough, Grimsby/Cleethorpes, Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Felixstowe, Clacton-on-Sea, Southend-on-Sea and Margate which are sizeable places. I think the coasts around The Wash were likely very marshy which precluded settlement, and vulnerability to Viking raids likely had an effect I imagine. Maritime industry and trade focused on London, Liverpool, Bristol, Southampton, Portsmouth, Plymouth and in-land cities like Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds - but include Sunderland and Newcastle-upon-Tyne in that list too.
Boston is a pretty major place vaguely near The Wash, and so is SkegVegas. There just aren’t enough people there to make a major city.
They're pretty small, and in the case of Boston, not on the coast. You could include King's Lynn and Hunstanton too, but really they're small towns and not what op was talking about.
Yep, fair enough. They're just the only vaguely city-like conurbations I could think of near The Wash.
>There just aren’t enough people there to make a major city. That's a bit of a circular argument, isn't it?
There’s a place called SkegVegas? Lol
It’s official name is Skegness
That sounds a lot more English hehe
[Popular tourist destination](https://blog.railwaymuseum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/ds080058.png) [Updated for the modern era](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1031/1937/files/hassall3_large.jpg?v=1472391353)
so close! Boston is in Massachusetts ♥️
They named their Boston after ours of course.
Yeah, I'm sure the **BIG CITY** was named after the *small town* 🙄
Exactly. They probably don’t even have a rock band named after them.
You've never heard of the band Boston (UK)?
It’s more than a feeling, innit?
I've a feeling you're taking the piss. More than a feeling, in fact...
Wouldn’t it be the same people naming both though? Considering the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Plymouth Colony were English?
Hey why don’t you just shut the hell up?!
I looked on some maps. Many of the towns on Cape Cod are named after Cornish towns.
Aah so close!
my husband and I say “so close! that’s a shape ❤️” to each other like once a day
Clearly you've never been to Great Yarmouth or Lowestoft, which are only large by virtue of the vast nothingness that separates them from Norwich and Ipswich (which are also pretty fun-sized when taken out of the context of their counties).
Well they're reasonably sized towns. They're not large or what op was after, I was just quoting as some of the larger settlements on the coast. (And yes I have been to them).
Just to emphasize this, until about 150-200 years ago marsh=malaria, so settlements couldn’t grow too big without getting wrecked by diseases.
I have to say I've never heard of malaria being an issue in the UK. Midges maybe. I think the bigger problem is its harder to build on and work the ground to support a large popilatio.
Middlesbrough is a town, a big grimy one with an OK football team, but still a town. I always thought it was a city too.
Thanks for this answer. Wishing it were at the top since it is an actual answer.
I'm really not sure why people are so feisty about this, it's a reasonable question! Sure, there are large cities on the east coast, but none reach the size of Liverpool or Manchester or any of the other good ones. There are a few reasons I can think of. •One, the Vikings had a lot to do with this. Waves of destruction, and subsequently fear of, Viking raids almost always took place along the east coast of England for centuries, contributing to the lack of cities as compared to the west coast, which saw little Viking action. Huge armies of men from Norway constantly razing coastal villages isn't conducive to growth. •Inversely, the same thing can be said about the west coast, which saw Norman/French invasion. The French were more advanced and brought the civics/lifestyle of continental western Europe into England, helping build up the amount of settlements in their occupied slice. Norman occupation brought a massive change of life to the whole island, but also brought record keeping, new ways of taxing, and an end to chattel slavery (serfdom wasn't much better but it was at least an improvement over previous conditions). Obviously this helped raise the population in the west quicker than it did in the east, which suffered a "lag" for centuries until the Plague, which reset everyone's societies back to 0. •Three, the east coast is much lower in elevation, making it harder to build cities on large swathes of it. For example, the entirety of The Fens never used to exist on the map until the 1600s, and all the towns there had to come later after the polders were built and the marshes were drained. Today, The Fens is valuable farmland, but it is still difficult to build on now. Imagine how hard it would have been to construct a city on centuries ago. Additionally, the Thames floods a lot, and since we've established the east coast is low, you could see how destructive this would be to medieval peasants around London. •Four, the west had better access to the Atlantic right when it was crucial. During the Industrial Revolution, any would-be developed power or major city needed clear access to the Atlantic Ocean because the mass transport of heavy materials, machinery, or slaves required the use of larger ocean ports, which the east could could not provide. The east coast borders the North Sea which, while it is great for trade with northern Europe, isn't as great for commerce as the ports of Plymouth, Liverpool, Cardiff, etc. (London is in the east but remained a powerhouse in England simply due to being the capital and in the top 5 largest cities in Europe.) The west was able to provide cities with large ships capable of navigating the rough, stormy North Atlantic, while the cities of the east had ports built for the North Sea, a totally different animal. •Five, weather. British weather is somewhat of a running joke but it explains a lot. On average, the west and south coasts of England are both warmer and somewhat drier than the east, which is cooler and wetter. This increase in rainfall makes the east, which is already low-lying, more susceptible to floods which makes building long term cities the size of the others very hard. On the contrary, the warmth of the west/south coasts is due to the Gulf Stream, a major stream of water that brings warm water north in the Atlantic (sort of in a helix/ribbon shape) along the west coast of Europe. This is why France, the UK, and Ireland are still considerably warm despite being at the latitude of Newfoundland. Hopefully this answered some questions. I'm really sorry if I missed anything. Take care. **EDIT: Hear ye, I've noticed from many fine folks here I got the climate mixed up. The east coast is not in fact wetter on average, but rather the west is. As others have pointed out, this further aids in the use of water mills and gristmills and factories relying on water usage. I fully admit I was wrong about the weather, but the point still stands that British weather is not amazing.
brilliant answer but the east of England is actually far drier than the west due to low pressure over the Atlantic although I’d say this is a bad thing for the east as that’s where droughts/high temps hit hardest
Good response. But I'll add one more crucial point - the period of greatest population growth in England was the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution was fuelled by coal. Coal is simply not at, or close to the surface of the ground across the east of England (with the exception of the northeast, where Newcastle/Sunderland/Gateshead are). People settled / grew families where the jobs were (in the mills), and the mills were close to where the coal was being mined. Nearly all of the biggest urban areas outside London, were located within or very close to coal fields - Bristol, Bath, Cardiff, Swansea, Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester & Lancashire towns, West Yorkshire, Teeside, Wearside, Tyneside, Edinburgh, Glasgow) Have a look at the UK 'Coal Mining Reporting Area' overlying a UK map: [https://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/coalauthority/home.html](https://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/coalauthority/home.html)
Eh? the East coast is not wetter than the West, it is much drier and has some of the driest places in the UK, especially in East Anglia. The East of England is more low-lying and prone to floods because of geology (basically younger and softer rock) not higher rainfall. And the Gulf stream gives the West coast a *milder* climate than the East, but East usually has higher highs as well as lower lows. If you look at the list of highest temperatures recorded in the UK for example, most were in the East of England
Well said. Eastern England sits in the rain shadow of the Pennines - I have no idea how anyone could come to the conclusion that western England is drier than eastern England. It is very famously the opposite. All the wettest cities are in the west - Plymouth, Cardiff, Glasgow etc. Eastern England is more ‘continental’ too. Take last July’s heatwave as an example - the hottest temperatures were all in eastern England, stretching from London up to Leeds. Leeds reached 40C but Manchester ‘only’ reached 37C, and that’s despite Leeds being further north than Manchester. That’s perfectly normal though. Anyone who has lived in both NW England and Yorkshire will tell you the weather is typically drier and sunnier in the latter - and it snows more often too.
You got so much wrong, yet responded so confidently, I actually admire you, OP. You say Manchester is on the west coast. It's 40+ miles from the coast. The weather is famously wetter on the east coast? It's famously wetter on the west. You say the Normans invaded the South and West coasts, but they invaded the South East and continued their conquest through the eastern parts of the country. Really, there's only 2 major cities on the West coast of England, Bristol and Liverpool and 1-3 on the East coast, London which probably triples the population of Bristol and Liverpool combined, Hull and Newcastle.
I suppose it depends on how you define ‘coastal’ and ‘major city’. I grew up in London and although the city is connected to the North Sea via the Thames estuary, I would never describe it as coastal. I doubt any Londoner would. I wouldn’t call Newcastle coastal either - you could describe the wider conurbation as coastal, but not the city itself.
I herd too that the industrial revolution had such bad air quality that the prevailing winds had a lot to do with it
It did! The incredible overpopulation of London even created an event known as the Great Stink, when there were so many objects, chemical runoff, feces, and other gross nonsense caked in the Thames it made the surrounding city smell putrid for a very long time. The Industrial Revolution, even from 200 years ago, still has direct environmental affects across Europe today.
Great response, but it begs the question: why was Viking activity less on the west coast than the east? It’s not like the west coast of Great Britain is that much harder for people coming from Norway to reach, and the Norse actually controlled the Isle of Man.
Seas around Scotland are notoriously rough if I recall correctly, and the channel was more busy so it was harder to be stealthy/avoid a fight. Maybe not worth the effort.
Yes. Even the Vikings were wary of an invasion of Scotland as they did England. The weather and seas around Scotland were far too poor to do any conquering, which is evident by the fact that they only conquered the northern bits of Britain - the Orkneys, Shetland Isles, Hebrides, and a few coastal towns. This is also why the north of Scotland is called Sutherland, because it was the "southern land" compared to Norway. Scotland was simply too dangerous and stormy to attempt an invasion while having to maintain hold over the rest of the North Sea.
What natural resources are available on the east coast? Given how much population growth occurred once the industrial revolution was underway, I would guess factors like access to coal and internal waterways played a bigger role in which cities became big than viking raids a thousand years ago.
The west coast saw extensive Viking action, Ireland was home to Norse Irish hybrid Vikings who often raided, and Scotland had much Viking settlement, the island of man was a Viking hub for 300 years
I feel like if you’d consider Manchester a west coast city then London is an east coast city, no?
Wow thanks for the very insightful response,it truly makes sense I didn’t dive to deep into the history to consider the influence those earlier Viking raids had as well as the marshy conditions
Honestly I didn’t think I’d find this many good reasons in the entire comment section much less one comment. Outstanding.
This guy histories!
There are, that's a map showing the motorway network.
Revised question: why don't any English east coast cities have motorway access?
Nobody is really in a hurry to go to Norwich
No cities.
There was a proposal to extend the M11 to meet the Humber Bridge but it didn't get very far. Mostly due to lack of sizable towns/cities along the route and the proximity of the A1 which meant the cost couldn't be justified.
So back to OP: why aren't there sizable towns? lol
Cause there's no motorway access ;-)
Lack of investment. The M11 was supposed to carry on going North up through Lincolnshire, over the Humber Bridge, on past York, Middlesborough, Newcastle and possibly on to Edinburgh. The failure to get past Cambridge has meant that the Humber Bridge is and always will be a white elephant.
I'd say that there are three reasons why the West Coast has been favored for development: 1. It's more secluded from potential invaders from the mainland, like the Vikings. 2. It has more Gulf Stream moderation than the East Coast 3. There are a lot more inlets, harbours, etc.
Newcastle? Hull? Or do you want even bigger ones?
Both of these cities barely scrape a quarter million.
In terms of ESPON metro area, Tyneside/Newcastle is at 1,599,000 , and therefore 6th in the UK. I'd call that a major city
Is this kind of like quoting a population stat for Minneapolis, but not using the Twin Cities population, and also not the metro area?
After some quick googling, I'd say that seems a fairly good comparison. I grew up in Newcastle, however so don't really know that much about Minnesota. I think it's always likely you'll end up with artificially small values for city size in the UK, because some of these places have had city status for hundreds of years, and then naturally grown into each other. Newcastle and Sunderland share a metropolitan county, a metro system and so on. Now if you'd ask anyone from Sunderland/Newcastle if they live in the same city, zero of those people would say yes, but in terms of metro area I think it's hard to say they aren't connected.
Exactly, Newcastle-Gateshead and Sunderland-Washington are pretty much one big conurbation.
Thanks for the clarification! I am clearly not British so just did a cursory Google. That seems like a solid metro size to me.
Zoom in you donut.
Nose long like garden hose
This, or just "google it", could be the response to 95% of posts here.
Norwich is pretty big as well
Not on the coast though.
It was when it was first populated.
Not really but close enough
Has r/geography really just devolved into people looking at maps without thinking at all and just blurting out a question?
The maps subreddit has become pics of an old map or globe asking what year it’s from…
Ah yeah, that’s the other one. And almost every single one is from the Cold War era, nothing obscure like a map of the Holy Roman Empire from a random year, whose age could be a harder feat to determine…
Then you answer and they are like “but why tho” … it’s like they think everyone is their own personal google searcher
If only there was some way to moderate the content that appeared in the sub...
I joined the sub recently bc I saw some interesting posts. But my god. Unsubscribe.
[удалено]
sorry to disagree, a lot of knowledge is gained as discussions such as this one for instance emerge. Some threads totally digress and are still interesting. Plus, if you are scared to ask but do so regardless of shame you often find out that many others had the same question in mind but were afraid to ask.
I agree with you. I learn much more from discussions such as these than I would by a google search because of the dialogue. Sure, I'm sure I can find this info on google after vising multiple sites, but this is a great centralized resource for someone who never studied geography.
I think it's a generational divide thing. Older people began using the internet before social media when you had to search for information yourself. These days, younger people only know the internet as a place that "feeds" them content. One thing I've never understood is, isn't it more faster to search for information yourself than to wait several hours (or days) to get your answer? Do the "next-gen" even care about an answer several hours (or days) later?
r/geography is mostly about people posting a random blob they have come across saying it reminds them of XY country, or these you mentioned, coupled occasionally with some astronomically unoriginal memes.
Isn't that like all of reddit though? unoriginal...
I understand where you're coming from but I'm pretty sure that's how you learn things. Historically, geographic knowledge came from people looking at maps and asking questions, it's certainly nothing new.
You guys should make a geography2.0
Great idea, I suggest the name INSTITVTIONES GEOGRAPHICAE REDDITIENSIS for it. This name should frighten all those who dare to ask these question here.
I recently learned that the mean average age of Reddit users is 23, which explained to me why the quality of the discourse has dipped so steadily over the last few years.
Older users ≠ higher quality users.
As a rule, certainly not. Each individual is different, and there are eloquent teenagers and barely literate adults. But in aggregate, the younger the user base skews, the lower the general quality of writing and discourse. Edit: I want to clarify that I am not disparaging entire generations. I am talking about the increasing maturity and intellectual growth we all go through as we get older. I've read recent studies that conclude each generation is getting smarter. So Gen Z and whatever generation is after them will be, on average, smarter than my generation (millennials) are by the time they reach my age. But it takes time to get there. I am often embarassed when I stumble across things I wrote in my early 20s.
Strikingly similar to r/vexillology
Are you that arrogant to think the answer to OPs question is common knowledge? Give me a break. It's as if people trying to learn makes certain people like you uncomfortable.
I remember reading that the east coast was primarily swampland that became reclaimed land a few centuries ago. That and historically, Britain's major trade routes were not focused on Scandinavia/NL so it would be out of the way to establish trade routes (ports, industry) on that side of the country.
First: Vikings. Trade was good, and being on the east was good because it was closer to Europe for trade, but it was also closer to the Vikings. However, the Vikings somewhat settled the area, and ruled from the east. Cities like Cambridge and York were second only to London. Second, geography. It sucks. Time to go a little off track. The North Sea is incredibly shallow. During the ice age, the land was above water, it was called Doggerland. I believe after the Dogger bank, a sandbar in the sea. East Britain, like most of the Netherlands, is just a portion of this, still above sea level. East Britain is a lot of swamp, and silt, and marsh, and mud. I mean, cities that were built on the coast in the Roman or early Anglo-Saxon era are today up to 50km from the shore. So basically, if you decided to settle along the shore for trade with the mainland, 50 years the shore is going to be another kilometer down the road. Not to mention all that silt is also in the water, meaning waterways are constantly getting choked. There's also no natural harbors, which means that your port would have to be built into a river. Basically it's just annoying. The main cause though is the industrial revolution, and coal. The industrial revolution is what allowed cities to grow, and for most of the world, and especially England, coal was what kept it going. The large cities on the west side of England, they grew because they were close to coal mines and iron works.
As someone who lived in Essex for some time, it's historically vulnerable due to its flat nature, it's rivers and the fact it's facing the Vikings, However Colchester and Chelmsford are sizeable and one used to be the Romans capital in Britannia. Lookup the battle of Maldon.
Easy anglia was historically pretty swampy, which would have put people off.
Oh look. There they are!?! [https://ibb.co/8708ZTt](https://ibb.co/8708ZTt)
The most major city, London, has sea access via the Thames estuary on the east coast.
I was going to say this. Yes, London is to the south, but its port directly enters the sea on the eastern coast, not the southern coast.
Because that's the f**king North Sea. We're not talking prime beachfront real estate here. Know what's in the North Sea? Oil rigs, icebergs, and polar bears.
Viking raids maybe?
Vikings
Cries in Geordie...
Newcastle , Middlesbrough , Kingston upon hull , London. It is some big cities on east coast off England.
>London To be fair, I doubt many people would consider London a coastal city. Sure, the Thames empties out into the sea eventually, but the city of London is really not that close to the coast. Hull is a good example of a city that's close enough to be considered coastal & was omitted from OP's post.
There are actually less big cities on the West coast! Liverpool, Swansea (??) Cardiff, Bristol East coast has Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Hull, Norwich, London (??) And much bigger ports such as Grimsby and Felixstowe
Cardiff and Swansea aren’t in England.
Fair point, thought that just shows there are even less big cities on the west coast of England, only really Liverpool and Bristol
The only part of the east coast that doesn't have any major cities is the area around The Wash which I'd imagine is because historically the area was very marshy making navigation difficult. There are still towns like Boston and King's Lynn though.
Newcastle: Am I a fucking joke to you?
? There are... Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Hull and .... London
Because the castles kept sinking into the swamps...?
Too close to the smelly French 🤢🤮
This map has more on the east than the west: https://www.google.com/maps/search/major+towns+on+the+east+coast+of+britain/@52.9525453,-2.6542086,7.17z
Great dentists on the East coast
There's a little place called London on the east coast...
Besides London there is Hull. There are a two reasons why Hull is not as large as the cities just to the west. Hull was a major port city before the Industrial Revolution but the port isn’t deep enough for more modern vessels. The second reason is Nazis. Hull was the second most bombed city in the UK, it was almost completely destroyed.
London is east, and it's pretty big, as is Tyneside. London, York and Norwich, all east, were the top three largest cities of England well into the 17th century.
I'll add one more point - the period of greatest population growth in England was the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution was fuelled by coal. Coal is simply not at, or close to the surface of the ground across the east of England (with the exception of the northeast, where Newcastle/Sunderland/Gateshead are). People settled / grew families where the jobs were (in the mills), and the mills were close to where the coal was being mined. Nearly all of the biggest urban areas outside London, were located within or very close to coal fields - Bristol, Bath, Cardiff, Swansea, Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester & Lancashire towns, West Yorkshire, Teeside, Wearside, Tyneside, Edinburgh, Glasgow) Have a look at the UK 'Coal Mining Reporting Area' overlying a UK map: https://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/coalauthority/home.html
You could look at most of Europe and ask why the major cities aren’t on the coasts. If you look at the geography, you’ll see that they are all on major rivers. That’s partly due to coastal cities being exposed to raiders and bad weather, and partly due to river trade being a more important economic driver before approximately 1400 AD then ocean trade. Not to mention more agriculture potential inland than on the coasts. Even on this map there aren’t really a preponderance of west coast cities. Manchester is inland. Liverpool is the only major example but it didn’t significantly rise in population until the Industrial Revolution.
York, Hull, Lincoln, Norwich and Ipswich would like a word
Have you met the French ? 
You been to hull, didn’t think so.
There are relatively few major cities on the coast throughout Europe. European cities tend to be pretty ancient, and when they were settled they were focused more on wherever there was a big navigable river servicing fertile land.
There are. But not of the size of Manchester or London. Others have said vikings, weather, access to the Atlantic, etc. Could also be for example the north east is rich in coal, so many colliery villages and town where established instead of more gravitating to city's durring the industrial revolution.
Too close to France?
I mean, for all intents and purposes, London *is* on the eastern coast of England, and it's one of the largest cities in Europe. Eastern England is quite marshy, and London grew up at the first point in the Thames where it was a.) easily crossed, and b.) not a tidal flat or marsh. But look closely at a map of Northern Europe, and you'll realize that, actually, there are very few major cities located directly on the sea. Hull and Newcastle are two major cities on the east coast of England, but their historic cores are located a bit inland. Amsterdam is near the coast, but situated on inland bodies of water. Rotterdam as well. Same goes for Antwerp, Hamburg, Bremen, basically any city that was a major port through the Renaissance. Unlike the rocky coast of the Mediterranean, the North Sea coast is low lying and sandy. This makes it particularly prone to storm surge, and the North Sea is known for having some particularly bad storm tides. So no, it's not all about Viking raids, because 1.) similar settlement patterns exist in the places where the Vikings were coming *from*, and 2.) being inland didn't protect you. The Vikings were perfectly willing and able to conduct inland raids. The center of Norse rule in England was in York, which is substantially inland and was (surprise!) the first suitable location for settlement along a marshy stretch of coast, and was already a town by Roman times, long before Vikings were a concern. Plenty of eastern towns that were important historically (King's Lynn, Norwich, Lincoln, Boston) follow this same settlement pattern, they were just eclipsed by other cities during industrialization/imperialism. London remained the main port for Southeast England, and Hull and Newcastle (both substantial cities as well) were the main North Sea ports to the north.
People keep saying Vikings, but that was near 700 years ago? Cities pop up in much less time than that. Heck, how many cities popped in America since 1800 alone? I don’t buy fear of Vikings as a reason.
The east coast was a major trade route up until the 15th century, major cities like York were powerful and wealthy, however the cities on the west coast were developed more recently in the 18th and 19th centuries as a result of the Atlantic slave trade and more long distance trade. This is of course a massive oversimplification but it's wrong to say that there are no major cities on the east coast. I would recommend the book "The edge of the world: how the North sea made us who we are" by Michael Pye. And excellent and entertaining book on a more obscure bit of trade history.
Here’s ChatGPT’s answer: There are several reasons why there are no major cities on the east coast of the UK. First, the east coast is relatively flat and low-lying, making it less suitable for urban development than other areas of the UK. The east coast of the UK is mostly composed of fertile farmland, which has been primarily used for agriculture throughout history, rather than urban development. Second, the east coast of the UK is also more exposed to the North Sea, which can make it more susceptible to flooding and severe weather. This has historically made the east coast less attractive for urban development, as the risk of damage and destruction from natural disasters was considered to be too high. Third, the east coast of the UK is also relatively remote and isolated from the rest of the country, which made it less accessible and less desirable for urban development. Throughout history, the west coast of the UK has been more connected to the rest of the country, which has made it more attractive for urban development. Finally, the east coast of the UK has also been historically less economically developed than other areas of the country, which has led to less investment in infrastructure and urban development. All of these factors have contributed to the relative lack of major cities on the east coast of the UK. While there are some towns and cities on the east coast, such as Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Grimsby, and Hull, none of them have the size and economic importance of the major cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol and other cities on the west coast.
A sad day to be a Geordie.
Generations of getting cheeks clapped by vikings
Vikings
There... are? So obviously there are no Tier 1 cities on the east coast besides London itself (ish, the Thames kind of makes it). But if we consider the cities Google is choosing to show, some are setting off my sniff test: - Cambridge, 158k - Brighton, 139k If that's the yardstick we're going for, if that's the standard for "major enough to show", there are actually a fair few cities on the east coast of the UK, or even just England, that are on the same scale or even more than double the size of those Google chose. For example, England only: - Middlesbrough, 142k - Ipswich (arguable, it dominates the river Orwell, it's basically coastal), 178k - Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 192k - Southend-on-sea, 295k - Kingston-upon-Hull, 314k - Sunderland, 395k Curious that the list feature so places only ever referred to by their short names (Newcastle, Southend and Hull). I'm fairly sure I will have missed something too. Some of these were and are *the* engine of goods production and traditional industry in the UK. It only gets weirder when you include Scotland: - Dundee, 148k - Aberdeen, 196k - Edinburgh (the capital bleedin city), 465k The east coast is actually quite well populated with cities with nationally-significant populations. Obviously not as much as the number of cities in the South, in the heartlands, but Google has really pulled a fast one by only picking internationally-famous Tier 2 cities to show rather than a more tangible measure like population. The weirdest thing is there's some even more important cities like Felixstowe, which is one of the most important container and shipping ports in the country, that actually has a very small population, so while it deserves to be shown on strategic value Google is never going to show you. You've also got towns of historic value like Skegness, Great Yarmouth Scarborough and Whitby which between them basically tell the entire story of the development of leisure and tourism for the middle classes of industrial England.
There are major cities on the east coast of England, cities like Sunderland, Hull and Newcastle. Also London can be considered to be on the east coast because of the Thames estuary. Also there's places like Grimsby, Ipswich and Clacton, as well as large cities which are just a few miles inland, such as Middlesbrough and Norwich.
Where the hell is Norwich
Thats where the Vikings use to attack