title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool experiences a temperate maritime climate (Köppen: "Cfb"), like much of the British Isles, with relatively mild summers, cool winters and rainfall spread fairly evenly throughout the year. Rainfall and Temperature records have been kept at Bidston since 1867, but records for atmospheric pressure go back as far as at least 1846. Bidston closed down in 2002 but the Met Office also has a weather station at Crosby. Since records began in 1867, temperatures have ranged from on 21 December 2010 to on 2 August 1990, although Liverpool Airport recorded a temperature of on 19 July 2006.


title: Liverpool

text: The lowest amount of sunshine on record was 16.5 hours in December 1927 whereas the most was 314.5 hours in July 2013.


title: Liverpool

text: Tornado activity or funnel cloud formation is very rare in and around the Liverpool area and tornadoes that do form are usually weak. Recent tornadoes or funnel clouds in Merseyside have been seen in 1998 and 2014.


title: Liverpool

text: During the period 1981–2010, Crosby recorded an average of 32.8 days of air frost per year, which is low for the United Kingdom. Snow is fairly common during the winter although heavy snow is rare. Snow generally falls between November and March but can occasionally fall earlier and later. In recent times, the earliest snowfall was on 1 October 2008 while the latest occurred on 15 May 2012. Although historically, the earliest snowfall occurred on 10 September 1908 and the latest on 2 June 1975.


title: Liverpool

text: Rainfall, although light, is quite a common occurrence in Liverpool, with the wettest month on record being August 1956, which recorded of rain and the driest being February 1932, with . The driest year on record was 1991, with of rainfall and the wettest was 1872, with .


title: Liverpool

text: In 2010 Liverpool City Council and the Primary Care Trust Commissioned The Mersey Forest to complete "A Green Infrastructure Strategy" for the city.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool is a core urban element of a green belt region that extends into the wider surrounding counties, which is in place to reduce urban sprawl, prevent the towns in the conurbation from further convergence, protect the identity of outlying communities, encourage brownfield reuse, and preserve nearby countryside. This is achieved by restricting inappropriate development within the designated areas and imposing stricter conditions on permitted building.


title: Liverpool

text: Due to being already highly built up, the city contains limited portions of protected green belt area within greenfield throughout the borough, at Fazakerley, Croxteth Hall and country park and Craven Wood, Woodfields Park and nearby golf courses in Netherley, small greenfield tracts east of the Speke area by the St Ambrose primary school, and the small hamlet of Oglet and the surrounding area south of Liverpool Airport.


title: Liverpool

text: The green belt was first drawn up in 1983 under Merseyside County Council and the size in the city amounts to .


title: Liverpool

text: At the 2011 UK Census the recorded population of Liverpool was 466,415, a 6.1% increase on the figure of 439,473 recorded in the 2001 census. The population of the central Liverpool local authority peaked in the 1930s with 846,101 recorded in the 1931 census, before suburbanisation and the establishment of new towns in the region. As with many British cities including London and Manchester, the city centre covered by the Liverpool council area had experienced negative population growth since the 1931 census. Much of the population loss was as a result of large-scale resettlement programmes to nearby areas introduced in the aftermath of the Second World War, with satellite towns such as Kirkby, Skelmersdale and Runcorn seeing a corresponding rise in their populations (Kirkby being the fastest growing town in Britain during the 1960s).


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool's population is younger than that of England as a whole, with 42.5 per cent of its population under the age of 30, compared to an English average of 37.699999999999996 per cent. , 66 per cent of the population was of working age.


title: Liverpool

text: As many as 75 percent (estimated) of Liverpool's population has Irish ancestry. The city therefore has claim of the British city with the strongest Irish heritage alongside Glasgow.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool is the largest local authority by population, GDP and area in Merseyside. Liverpool is typically grouped with the wider Merseyside area for the purpose of defining its metropolitan footprint, and there are several methodologies. Liverpool is defined as a standalone NUTS3 area by the ONS for statistical purpose, and makes up part of the NUTS2 area "Merseyside" along with East Merseyside (Knowsley, St Helens and Halton), Sefton and the Wirral. The population of this area was 1,513,306 based on 2014 estimates.


title: Liverpool

text: The "Liverpool Urban Area" is a term used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to denote the urban area around the city to the east of the River Mersey. The contiguous built-up area extends beyond the area administered by Liverpool City Council into adjoining local authority areas, particularly parts of Sefton and Knowsley. As defined by ONS, the area extends as far east as Haydock and St. Helens. Unlike the Metropolitan area, the Urban Area does not include The Wirral or its contiguous areas. The population of this area as of 2011 was 864,211.


title: Liverpool

text: The "Liverpool City Region" is an economic partnership between local authorities in Merseyside under the umbrella of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority as defined by the Mersey Partnership. The area covers Merseyside and the Borough of Halton and has an estimated population between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000 and.


title: Liverpool

text: In 2006 ESPON (now (European Observation Network for Territorial Development and Cohesion) released a study defining a "Liverpool/Birkenhead Metropolitan area" as a functional urban area consisting of contiguous urban areas, labour pool, and commuter "Travel To Work Areas". The analysis grouped the Merseyside metropolitan county with the borough of Halton, Wigan in Greater Manchester, the city of Chester as well as number of towns in Lancashire and Cheshire including Ormskirk and Warrington, estimating the polynuclear metropolitan area to have a population of 2,241,000 people.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool and Manchester are sometimes considered as one large polynuclear metropolitan area, or megalopolis.


title: Liverpool

text: According to data from the 2011 census, 84.8 per cent of Liverpool's population was White British, 1.4 per cent White Irish, 2.6 per cent White Other, 4.1 per cent Asian or Asian British (including 1.1 per cent British Indian and 1.7 per cent British Chinese), 2.6 per cent Black or Black British (including 1.8 per cent Black African) and 2.5 per cent mixed-race. 1.8 per cent of respondents were from other ethnic groups.


title: Liverpool

text: According to a 2014 survey, the ten most popular surnames of Liverpool (With surname origin), followed with their population are;


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool is home to Britain's oldest Black community, dating to at least the 1730s. Some Liverpudlians can trace their black ancestry in the city back ten generations. Early Black settlers in the city included seamen, the children of traders sent to be educated, and freed slaves, since slaves entering the country after 1722 were deemed free men. Since the 20th century, Liverpool is also noted for its large African-Caribbean, Ghanaian, and Somali communities, formed of more recent African-descended immigrants and their subsequent generations.


title: Liverpool

text: The city is also home to the oldest Chinese community in Europe; the first residents of the city's Chinatown arrived as seamen in the 19th century. The traditional Chinese gateway erected in Liverpool's Chinatown is the largest gateway outside China. Liverpool also has a long-standing Filipino community. Lita Roza, a singer from Liverpool who was the first woman to achieve a UK number one hit, had Filipino ancestry.


title: Liverpool

text: The city is also known for its large Irish and Welsh populations. In 1813, 10 per cent of Liverpool's population was Welsh, leading to the city becoming known as "the capital of North Wales."


title: Liverpool

text: During, and in the decades following, the Great Irish Famine in the mid-19th century, up to two million Irish people travelled to Liverpool within one decade, with many subsequently departing for the United States. By 1851, more than 20 per cent of the population of Liverpool was Irish. At the 2001 Census, 1.17 per cent of the population were Welsh-born and 0.75 per cent were born in the Republic of Ireland, while 0.54 per cent were born in Northern Ireland, but many more Liverpudlians are of legacy Welsh or Irish ancestry.


title: Liverpool

text: Other contemporary ethnicities include Indian, Latin American, Malaysian, and Yemeni communities, which number several thousand each.


title: Liverpool

text: The thousands of migrants and sailors passing through Liverpool resulted in a religious diversity that is still apparent today. This is reflected in the equally diverse collection of religious buildings, including two Christian cathedrals.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool is known to be England's 'most Catholic city', with a Catholic population much larger than in other parts of England. This is mainly due to high historic Irish migration to the city and their descendants since.


title: Liverpool

text: The parish church of Liverpool is the Anglican Our Lady and St Nicholas, colloquially known as "the sailors church", which has existed near the waterfront since 1257. It regularly plays host to Catholic masses. Other notable churches include the Greek Orthodox Church of St Nicholas (built in the Neo-Byzantine architecture style), and the Gustav Adolf Church (the Swedish Seamen's Church, reminiscent of Nordic styles).


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool's wealth as a port city enabled the construction of two enormous cathedrals in the 20th century. The Anglican Cathedral, which was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and plays host to the annual Liverpool Shakespeare Festival, has one of the longest naves, largest organs and heaviest and highest peals of bells in the world. The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral, on Mount Pleasant next to Liverpool Science Park, was initially planned to be even larger. Of Sir Edwin Lutyens's original design, only the crypt was completed. The cathedral was eventually built to a simpler design by Sir Frederick Gibberd. While this is on a smaller scale than Lutyens' original design it still incorporates the largest panel of stained glass in the world. The road running between the two cathedrals is called Hope Street, a coincidence which pleases believers. The cathedral has traditionally colloquially been referred to as "Paddy's Wigwam" due to its shape.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool contains several synagogues, of which the Grade I listed Moorish Revival Princes Road Synagogue is architecturally the most notable. Princes Road is widely considered to be the most magnificent of Britain's Moorish Revival synagogues and one of the finest buildings in Liverpool. Liverpool has a thriving Jewish community with a further two orthodox Synagogues, one in the Allerton district of the city and a second in the Childwall district of the city where a significant Jewish community reside. A third orthodox Synagogue in the Greenbank Park area of L17 has recently closed and is a listed 1930s structure. There is also a Lubavitch Chabad House and a reform Synagogue. Liverpool has had a Jewish community since the mid-18th century. The Jewish population of Liverpool is around 5,000. The Liverpool Talmudical College existed from 1914 until 1990, when its classes moved to the Childwall Synagogue.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool also has a Hindu community, with a Mandir on Edge Lane, Edge Hill. The Shri Radha Krishna Temple from the Hindu Cultural Organisation in Liverpool is located there. Liverpool also has the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Wavertree and a Baháʼí Centre in the same area.


title: Liverpool

text: The city had the earliest mosque in England, and possibly the UK, founded in 1887 by William Abdullah Quilliam, a lawyer who had converted to Islam, and set up the Liverpool Muslim Institute in a terraced house on West Derby Road. The building was used as a house of worship until 1908, when it was sold to the City Council and converted into offices. Plans have been accepted to re-convert the building where the mosque once stood into a museum. There are three mosques in Liverpool: the largest and main one, Al-Rahma mosque, in the Toxteth area of the city and a mosque recently opened in the Mossley Hill district of the city. The third mosque was also recently opened in Toxteth and is on Granby Street.


title: Liverpool

text: Natives of the city of Liverpool are referred to as Liverpudlians, and colloquially as "Scousers", a reference to "scouse", a form of stew. The word "Scouse" has also become synonymous with the Liverpool accent and dialect. Many people "self-identify" as Liverpudlians or Scousers without actually being born or living within the city boundaries of Liverpool.


title: Liverpool

text: The economy of Liverpool is one of the largest within the United Kingdom, sitting at the centre of one of the two core economies within the North West of England. In 2006, the city's GVA was £7,626 million, providing a per capita figure of £17,489, which was above the North West average. Liverpool's economy has seen strong growth since the mid-1990s, with its GVA increasing 71.8% between 1995 and 2006 and employment increasing 12% between 1998 and 2006. GDP per capita was estimated to stand at $32,121 in 2014, and total GDP at $65.8 billion.


title: Liverpool

text: In common with much of the rest of the UK today, Liverpool's economy is dominated by service sector industries, both public and private. In 2007, over 60% of all employment in the city was in the public administration, education, health, banking, finance and insurance sectors. Over recent years there has also been significant growth in the knowledge economy of Liverpool with the establishment of the Liverpool Knowledge Quarter in sectors such as media and life sciences. Liverpool's rich architectural base has also helped the city become the second most filmed city in the UK outside London, including doubling for Chicago, London, Moscow, New York, Paris and Rome.


title: Liverpool

text: Another important component of Liverpool's economy are the tourism and leisure sectors. Liverpool is the sixth most visited UK city and one of the 100 most visited cities in the world by international tourists. In 2008, during the city's European Capital of Culture celebrations, overnight visitors brought £188m into the local economy, while tourism as a whole is worth approximately £1.3bn a year to Liverpool. The city's new cruise liner terminal, which is situated close to the Pier Head, also makes Liverpool one of the few places in the world where cruise ships are able to berth right in the centre of the city. Other recent developments in Liverpool such as the Echo Arena and Liverpool One have made Liverpool an important leisure centre with the latter helping to lift Liverpool into the top five retail destinations in the UK.


title: Liverpool

text: Historically, the economy of Liverpool was centred on the city's port and manufacturing base, although a smaller proportion of total employment is today derived from the port. Nonetheless the city remains one of the most important ports in the United Kingdom, handling over 32.2m tonnes of cargo in 2008. A new multimillion-pound expansion to the Port of Liverpool, Liverpool2, is scheduled to be operational from the end of 2015, and is projected to greatly increase the volume of cargo which Liverpool is able to handle. Liverpool is also home to the UK headquarters of many shipping lines including Japanese firm NYK and Danish firm Maersk Line, whilst shipping firm Atlantic Container Line has recently invested significant amounts in expanding its Liverpool operations, with a new headquarters currently under construction. Future plans to redevelop the city's northern dock system, in a project known as Liverpool Waters, could see £5.5bn invested in the city over the next 50 years, creating 17,000 new jobs.


title: Liverpool

text: Car manufacturing also takes place in the city at the Jaguar Land Rover Halewood plant where the Range Rover Evoque model is assembled. In 2016 it was reported that The Beatles contribute £82 million a year to Liverpool's economy and help sustain 2,335 jobs.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool's history means that there are a considerable variety of architectural styles found within the city, ranging from 16th century Tudor buildings to modern-day contemporary architecture. The majority of buildings in the city date from the late-18th century onwards, the period during which the city grew into one of the foremost powers in the British Empire. There are over 2,500 listed buildings in Liverpool, of which 27 are Grade I listed and 85 are Grade II* listed. The city also has a greater number of public sculptures than any other location in the United Kingdom aside from Westminster and more Georgian houses than the city of Bath. This richness of architecture has subsequently seen Liverpool described by English Heritage, as England's finest Victorian city.


title: Liverpool

text: The value of Liverpool's architecture and design was recognised in 2004, when several areas throughout the city were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Known as the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City, the sites were added in recognition of the city's role in the development of international trade and docking technology. However this status was revoked in July 2021, when UNESCO resolved that recent and proposed developments, such as the Bramley-Moore Dock stadium and Liverpool Waters projects, had resulted in the "serious deterioration" of the area's significance.


title: Liverpool

text: As a major British port, the docks in Liverpool have historically been central to the city's development. Several major docking firsts have occurred in the city including the construction of the world's first enclosed wet dock (the Old Dock) in 1715 and the first ever hydraulic lifting cranes. The best-known dock in Liverpool is the Royal Albert Dock, Liverpool, which was constructed in 1846 and today comprises the largest single collection of Grade I listed buildings anywhere in Britain. Built under the guidance of Jesse Hartley, it was considered to be one of the most advanced docks anywhere in the world upon completion and is often attributed with helping the city to become one of the most important ports in the world. The Albert Dock houses restaurants, bars, shops, two hotels as well as the Merseyside Maritime Museum, International Slavery Museum, Tate Liverpool and The Beatles Story. North of the city centre is Stanley Dock, home to the Stanley Dock Tobacco Warehouse, which was at the time of its construction in 1901, the world's largest building in terms of area and today stands as the world's largest brick-work building.


title: Liverpool

text: One of the most famous locations in Liverpool is the Pier Head, renowned for the trio of buildings – the Royal Liver Building, the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building – which sit upon it. Collectively referred to as the "Three Graces", these buildings stand as a testament to the great wealth in the city during the late 19th and early 20th century. Built-in a variety of architectural styles, they are recognised as being the symbol of Maritime Liverpool and are regarded by many as contributing to one of the most impressive waterfronts in the world.


title: Liverpool

text: In recent years, several areas along Liverpool's waterfront have undergone significant redevelopment. Amongst the notable recent developments are the Museum of Liverpool, the construction of the Liverpool Arena and BT Convention Centre on Kings Dock, Alexandra Tower and 1 Princes Dock on Prince's Dock and Liverpool Marina around Coburg and Brunswick Docks. The Wheel of Liverpool opened on 25 March 2010.


title: Liverpool

text: However, plans to redevelop parts of the Liverpool have been marred by controversy. In December 2016, a newly formed company called North Point Global Ltd. was given the rights to develop part of the docks under the "New Chinatown" banner. Though heavily advertised in Liverpool, Hong Kong and Chinese cities with glossy advertisements and videos, the "New Chinatown" development failed to materialise. In January 2018, the "Liverpool Echo" and "Asia Times" revealed that the site remained sans any construction, North Point Global as well as its subcontractor "Bilt" had both declared bankruptcy, and the small investors (mostly middle class couples) who had already paid money for the apartments had lost most of their savings in them. Five similar development projects, mostly targeting individual Chinese and Hong Kong based citizens, were suspended due to financial misappropriations.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool's historic position as one of the most important trading ports in the world has meant that over time many grand buildings have been constructed in the city as headquarters for shipping firms, insurance companies, banks and other large firms. The great wealth this brought, then allowed for the development of grand civic buildings, which were designed to allow the local administrators to 'run the city with pride'.


title: Liverpool

text: The commercial district is centred on the Castle Street, Dale Street and Old Hall Street areas of the city, with many of the area's roads still following their medieval layout. Having developed over a period of three centuries the area is regarded as one of the most important architectural locations in the city, as recognised by its inclusion in Liverpool's former World Heritage site.


title: Liverpool

text: The oldest building in the area is the Grade I listed Liverpool Town Hall, which is located at the top of Castle Street and dates from 1754. Often regarded as the city's finest piece of Georgian architecture, the building is known as one of the most extravagantly decorated civic buildings anywhere in Britain. Also on Castle Street is the Grade I listed Bank of England Building, constructed between 1845 and 1848, as one of only three provincial branches of the national bank. Amongst the other buildings in the area are the Tower Buildings, Albion House (the former White Star Line headquarters), the Municipal Buildings and Oriel Chambers, which is considered to be one of the earliest Modernist style buildings ever built.


title: Liverpool

text: The area around William Brown Street is referred to as the city's 'Cultural Quarter', owing to the presence of numerous civic buildings, including the William Brown Library, Walker Art Gallery, Picton Reading Rooms and World Museum Liverpool. The area is dominated by neo-classical architecture, of which the most prominent, St George's Hall, is widely regarded as the best example of a neo-classical building anywhere in Europe. A Grade I listed building, it was constructed between 1840 and 1855 to serve a variety of civic functions in the city and its doors are inscribed with "S.P.Q.L." (Latin "senatus populusque Liverpudliensis"), meaning "the senate and people of Liverpool". William Brown Street is also home to numerous public monuments and sculptures, including Wellington's Column and the Steble Fountain. Many others are located around the area, particularly in St John's Gardens, which was specifically developed for this purpose. The William Brown Street area has been likened to a modern recreation of the Roman Forum.


title: Liverpool

text: While the majority of Liverpool's architecture dates from the mid-18th century onwards, there are several buildings that pre-date this time. One of the oldest surviving buildings is Speke Hall, a Tudor manor house located in the south of the city, which was completed in 1598. The building is one of the few remaining timber framed Tudor houses left in the north of England and is particularly noted for its Victorian interiors, which was added in the mid-19th century.


title: Liverpool

text: In addition to Speke Hall, many of the city's other oldest surviving buildings are also former manor houses including Croxteth Hall and Woolton Hall, which were completed in 1702 and 1704 respectively.


title: Liverpool

text: The oldest building within the city centre is the Grade I listed Bluecoat Chambers, which was built between 1717 and 1718. Constructed in British Queen Anne style, the building was influenced in part by the work of Christopher Wren and was originally the home of the Bluecoat School (who later moved to a larger site in Wavertree in the south of the city). Since 1908 it has acted as a centre for arts in Liverpool.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool is noted for having two Cathedrals, each of which imposes over the landscape around it. The Anglican Cathedral, which was constructed between 1904 and 1978, is the largest Cathedral in Britain and the fifth largest in the world. Designed and built in Gothic style, it is regarded as one of the greatest buildings to have been constructed during the 20th century and was described by former British Poet Laureate, John Betjeman, as 'one of the great buildings of the world'. The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral was constructed between 1962 and 1967 and is known as one of the first Cathedrals to break the traditional longitudinal design.


title: Liverpool

text: In recent years, many parts of Liverpool's city centre have undergone significant redevelopment and regeneration after years of decline. The largest of these developments has been Liverpool One, which has seen almost £1 billion invested in the redevelopment of of land, providing new retail, commercial, residential and leisure space. Around the north of the city centre several new skyscrapers have also been constructed including the RIBA award-winning Unity Buildings and West Tower, which at 140m is Liverpool's tallest building. Many redevelopment schemes are also in progress including Central Village / Circus, the Lime Street gateway, and the highly ambitious Liverpool Waters.


title: Liverpool

text: There are many other notable buildings in Liverpool, including the art deco former terminal building of Speke Airport, the University of Liverpool's Victoria Building, (which provided the inspiration for the term "Red Brick University"), and the Adelphi Hotel, which was in that past considered to be one of the finest hotels anywhere in the world.


title: Liverpool

text: The English Heritage National Register of Historic Parks describes Merseyside's as collectively the "most important in the country". The city of Liverpool has ten listed parks and cemeteries, including two Grade I and five Grade II*, more than any other English city apart from London.


title: Liverpool

text: Transport in Liverpool is primarily centred on the city's road and rail networks, both of which are extensive and provide links across the United Kingdom. Liverpool has an extensive local public transport network, which is managed by Merseytravel, and includes buses, trains and ferries. Additionally, the city also has an international airport and a major port, both of which provides links to locations outside the country.


title: Liverpool

text: As a major city, Liverpool has direct road links with many other areas within England. To the east, the M62 motorway connects Liverpool with Hull and along the route provides links to several large cities, including Manchester, Leeds and Bradford. The M62 also provides a connection to both the M6 and M1 motorways, providing indirect links to more distant areas including Birmingham, London, Nottingham, Preston and Sheffield. To the west of the city, the Kingsway and Queensway Tunnels connect Liverpool with the Wirral Peninsula, including Birkenhead, and Wallasey. The A41 road and M53 motorway, which both begin in Birkenhead, link to Cheshire and Shropshire and via the A55, to North Wales. To the south, Liverpool is connected to Widnes and Warrington via the A562 and across the River Mersey to Runcorn, via the Silver Jubilee and Mersey Gateway bridges.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool is served by two separate rail networks. The local rail network is managed and run by Merseyrail and provides links throughout Merseyside and beyond (see Local travel below), while the national network, which is managed by Network Rail, provides Liverpool with connections to major towns and cities across England. The city's primary main line station is Lime Street station, which is the terminus for several lines into the city, with numerous destinations including London (in 2 hours 8 minutes with Pendolino trains), Birmingham, Newcastle upon Tyne, Manchester, Preston, Leeds, Scarborough, Sheffield, Nottingham and Norwich. In the south of the city, Liverpool South Parkway provides a connection to the city's airport.


title: Liverpool

text: The Port of Liverpool is one of Britain's largest ports, providing passenger ferry services across the Irish Sea to Belfast, Dublin and the Isle of Man. Services are provided by several companies, including the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, P&O Ferries and Stena Line. In 2007, a new cruise terminal was opened in Liverpool, located alongside the Pier Head in the city centre.


title: Liverpool

text: November 2016 saw the official opening of Liverpool2, an extension to the port that allows post-Panamax vessels to dock in Liverpool.


title: Liverpool

text: Leeds and Liverpool Canal runs into Liverpool city centre via Liverpool Canal Link at Pier Head since 2009.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool Cruise Terminal in the city centre provides long-distance passenger cruises, Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines MS Black Watch and Cruise & Maritime Voyages MS Magellan using the terminal to depart to Iceland, France, Spain and Norway.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool John Lennon Airport, which is located in the south of the city, provides Liverpool with direct air connections across the United Kingdom and Europe. In 2008, the airport handled over 5.3 million passengers and today offers services to 68 destinations, including Berlin, Rome, Milan, Paris, Barcelona and Zürich. The airport is primarily served by low-cost airlines, notably Ryanair and Easyjet, although it does provide additional charter services in the summer.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool's local rail network is one of the busiest and most extensive in the country. The network consists of three lines: the Northern Line, which runs to Southport, Ormskirk, Kirkby and Hunts Cross; the Wirral Line, which runs through the Mersey Railway Tunnel and has branches to New Brighton, West Kirby, Chester and Ellesmere Port; and the City Line, which begins at Lime Street, providing links to St Helens, Wigan, Preston, Warrington and Manchester.


title: Liverpool

text: The network is predominantly electric. Electrification of the City Line was completed in 2015. The two lines operated by Merseyrail are the busiest British urban commuter networks outside London, covering of track, with an average of 110,000 passenger journeys per weekday. Services are operated by the Merseyrail franchise and managed by Merseytravel. Local services on the City Line are operated by Northern rather than Merseyrail, although the line itself remains part of the Merseyrail network. Within the city centre the majority of the network is underground, with four city centre stations and over of tunnels.


title: Liverpool

text: Local bus services within and around Liverpool are managed by Merseytravel and are run by several different companies, including Arriva and Stagecoach. The two principal termini for local buses are Queen Square bus station (located near Lime Street railway station) for services north and east of the city, and Liverpool One bus station (located near the Albert Dock) for services to the south and east. Cross-river services to the Wirral use roadside terminus points in Castle Street and Sir Thomas Street. A night bus service also operates on Saturdays providing services from the city centre across Liverpool and Merseyside.


title: Liverpool

text: The cross-river ferry service in Liverpool, known as the Mersey Ferry, is managed and operated by Merseytravel, with services operating between the Pier Head in Liverpool and both Woodside in Birkenhead and Seacombe in Wallasey. Services operate at intervals ranging from 20 minutes, at peak times, to every hour during the middle of the day and at weekends. Despite remaining an important transport link between the city and the Wirral Peninsula, the Mersey Ferry has become an increasingly popular tourist attraction within the city, with daytime River Explorer Cruises providing passengers with an historical overview of the River Mersey and surrounding areas.


title: Liverpool

text: In May 2014, the CityBike hire scheme was launched in the city. The scheme provides access to over 1,000 bikes stationed at over 140 docking stations across the city.


title: Liverpool

text: As with other large cities, Liverpool is an important cultural centre within the United Kingdom, incorporating music, performing arts, museums and art galleries, literature and nightlife amongst others. In 2008, the cultural heritage of the city was celebrated with the city holding the title of European Capital of Culture, during which time a wide range of cultural celebrations took place in the city, including Go Superlambananas! and La Princesse. Liverpool has also held Europe's largest music and poetry event, the Welsh national Eisteddfod, three times, despite being in England, in 1884, 1900, and 1929.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool is internationally known for music and is recognised by "Guinness World Records" as the "World Capital City of Pop". Musicians from the city have produced 56 No. 1 singles, more than any other city in the world. Both the most successful male band and girl group in global music history have contained Liverpudlian members. Liverpool is most famous as the birthplace of the Beatles and during the 1960s was at the forefront of the Beat Music movement, which would eventually lead to the British Invasion. Many notable musicians of the time originated in the city including Billy J. Kramer, Cilla Black, Gerry and the Pacemakers and The Searchers. The influence of musicians from Liverpool, coupled with other cultural exploits of the time, such as the Liverpool poets, prompted American poet Allen Ginsberg to proclaim that the city was "the centre of consciousness of the human universe". Other musicians from Liverpool include Billy Fury, A Flock of Seagulls, Echo & the Bunnymen, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Frankie Vaughan, Anathema, Ladytron, The Zutons, Cast, Atomic Kitten and Rebecca Ferguson. The La's 1990 hit single "There She Goes" was described by "Rolling Stone" as a "founding piece of Britpop's foundation."


title: Liverpool

text: The city is also home to the oldest surviving professional symphony orchestra in the UK, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, which is based in the Philharmonic Hall. The chief conductor of the orchestra is Vasily Petrenko. Sir Edward Elgar dedicated his Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 to the Liverpool Orchestral Society, and the piece had its first performance in the city in 1901. Among Liverpool's curiosities, the Austrian émigré Fritz Spiegl is notable. He not only became a world expert on the etymology of Scouse, but composed the music to Z-cars and the Radio 4 UK Theme.


title: Liverpool

text: The Mathew Street Festival is an annual street festival that is one of the most important musical events in Liverpool's calendar. It is Europe's largest free music event and takes place every August. Other well established festivals in the city include Africa Oyé and Brazilica which are the UK's largest free African and Brazilian music festivals respectively. The dance music festival Creamfields was established by the Liverpool-based Cream clubbing brand which started life as a weekly event at Nation nightclub. There are numerous music venues located across the city, however, the Liverpool Arena is by far the largest. Opened in 2008, the 11,000-seat arena hosted the MTV Europe Music Awards the same year, and since then has played host to world-renowned acts such as Andrea Bocelli, Beyoncé, Elton John, Kanye West, Kasabian, The Killers, Lady Gaga, Oasis, Pink, Rihanna, and UB40.


title: Liverpool

text: On 7 October 2022, the BBC and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) announced that Liverpool would host the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 on behalf of the previous year's winning country Ukraine, who was unable to meet the demands of hosting the event due to security concerns caused by the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The contest will be held at the Liverpool Arena and will consist of two semi-finals on 9 and 11 May, and a final on 13 May 2023. This will be the first time that the contest will take place in the city, and will also be the record-extending ninth time that the UK has hosted the contest, having last done so in Birmingham in 1998.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool has more galleries and national museums than any other city in the United Kingdom apart from London. National Museums Liverpool is the only English national collection based wholly outside London. The Tate Liverpool gallery houses the modern art collection of the Tate in the North of England and was, until the opening of Tate Modern, the largest exhibition space dedicated to modern art in the United Kingdom. The FACT centre hosts touring multimedia exhibitions, while the Walker Art Gallery houses one of the most impressive permanent collections of Pre-Raphaelite art in the world. Sudley House contains another major collection of pre-20th-century art. Liverpool University's Victoria Building was re-opened as a public art gallery and museum to display the University's artwork and historical collections which include the largest display of art by Audubon outside the US. A number of artists have also come from the city, including painter George Stubbs who was born in Liverpool in 1724.


title: Liverpool

text: The Liverpool Biennial festival of arts runs from mid-September to late November and comprises three main sections; the International, The Independents and New Contemporaries although fringe events are timed to coincide. It was during the 2004 festival that Yoko Ono's work "My mother is beautiful" caused widespread public protest when photographs of a naked woman's pubic area were exhibited on the main shopping street.


title: Liverpool

text: Felicia Hemans (née Browne) was born in Dale Street, Liverpool, in 1793, although she later moved to Flintshire, in Wales. Felicia was born in Liverpool, a granddaughter of the Venetian consul in that city. Her father's business soon brought the family to Denbighshire in North Wales, where she spent her youth. They made their home near Abergele and St. Asaph (Flintshire), and it is clear that she came to regard herself as Welsh by adoption, later referring to Wales as "Land of my childhood, my home and my dead". Her first poems, dedicated to the Prince of Wales, were published in Liverpool in 1808, when she was only fourteen, arousing the interest of Percy Bysshe Shelley, who briefly corresponded with her.


title: Liverpool

text: An engraving of a painting of by S. F. Serres was published in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834 with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon to which she adds the note 'I believe that to this haunted gate, a common superstition is attached, namely, that to wish, and to have that wish fulfilled, is the result of such wish being uttered while passing'. It stood on the North Shore before the docks were built and was a place where farewells could be waved to departing voyagers.


title: Liverpool

text: A number of notable authors have visited Liverpool, including Daniel Defoe, Washington Irving, Thomas De Quincey, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Hugh Walpole. Daniel Defoe, after visiting the city, described it, as "one of the wonders of Britain in his 'Tour through England and Wales'".


title: Liverpool

text: Herman Melville's novel Redburn deals with the first seagoing voyage of 19 years old Wellingborough Redburn between New York and Liverpool in 1839. Largely autobiographical, the middle sections of the book are set in Liverpool and describe the young merchantman's wanderings, and his reflections. Hawthorne was stationed in Liverpool as United States consul between 1853 and 1856. Charles Dickens visited the city on numerous occasions to give public readings. Hopkins served as priest at St Francis Xavier Church, Langdale St., Liverpool, between 1879 and 81. Although he is not known to have ever visited Liverpool, Jung famously had a vivid dream of the city which he analysed in one of his works.


title: Liverpool

text: Of all the poets who are connected with Liverpool, perhaps the greatest is Constantine P. Cavafy, a twentieth-century Greek cultural icon, although he was born in Alexandria. From a wealthy family, his father had business interests in Egypt, London and Liverpool. After his father's death, Cavafy's mother brought him in 1872 at the age of nine to Liverpool, where he spent part of his childhood being educated. He lived first in Balmoral Road, then when the family firm crashed, he lived in poorer circumstances in Huskisson Street. After his father died in 1870, Cavafy and his family settled for a while in Liverpool. In 1876, his family faced financial problems due to the Long Depression of 1873, so, by 1877, they had to move back to Alexandria.


title: Liverpool

text: "Her Benny", a novel telling the tragic story of Liverpool street urchins in the 1870s, written by Methodist preacher Silas K. Hocking, was a best-seller and the first book to sell a million copies in the author's lifetime. The prolific writer of adventure novels, Harold Edward Bindloss (1866–1945), was born in Liverpool.


title: Liverpool

text: The writer, docker and political activist George Garrett was born in Secombe, on the Wirral Peninsula in 1896 and was brought up in Liverpool's South end, around Park Road, the son of a fierce Liverpool–Irish Catholic mother and a staunch 'Orange' stevedore father. In the 1920s and 1930s, his organisation within the Seamen's Vigilance Committees, unemployed demonstrations, and hunger marches from Liverpool became part of a wider cultural force. He spoke at reconciliation meetings in sectarian Liverpool, and helped found the Unity Theatre in the 1930s as part of the Popular Front against the rise of fascism, particularly its echoes in the Spanish Civil War. Garrett died in 1966.


title: Liverpool

text: The novelist and playwright James Hanley (1897–1985) was born in Kirkdale, Liverpool, in 1897 (not Dublin, nor 1901 as he generally implied) to a working-class family. Hanley grew up close to the docks and much of his early writing is about seamen. "The Furys" (1935) is first in a sequence of five loosely autobiographical novels about working-class life in Liverpool. James Hanley's brother, novelist Gerald Hanley (1916–92) was also born in Liverpool (not County Cork, Ireland, as he claimed). While he published a number of novels he also wrote radio plays for the BBC as well as some film scripts, most notably "The Blue Max" (1966). He was also one of several scriptwriters for a life of Gandhi (1964). Novelist Beryl Bainbridge (1932–2010) was born in Liverpool and raised in nearby Formby. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often set among the English working classes. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Awards prize for best novel in 1977 and 1996 and was nominated five times for the Booker Prize. "The Times" newspaper named Bainbridge among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".


title: Liverpool

text: J. G. Farrell was born in Liverpool in 1935 but left at the outbreak of war in 1939. A novelist of Irish descent, Farrell gained prominence for his historical fiction, most notably his "Empire Trilogy" ("Troubles", "The Siege of Krishnapur" and "The Singapore Grip"), dealing with the political and human consequences of British colonial rule. However, his career ended when he drowned in Ireland in 1979 at the age of 44.


title: Liverpool

text: Helen Forrester was the pen name of June Bhatia (née Huband) (1919–2011), who was known for her books about her early childhood in Liverpool during the Great Depression, including "Twopence to Cross the Mersey" (1974), as well as several works of fiction. During the late 1960s the city became well known for the Liverpool poets, who include Roger McGough and the late Adrian Henri. An anthology of poems, "The Mersey Sound", written by Henri, McGough and Brian Patten, has sold well since it was first being published in 1967.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool has produced several noted writers of horror fiction, often set on Merseyside – Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker and Peter Atkins among them. A collection of Liverpudlian horror fiction, "Spook City" was edited by a Liverpool expatriate, Angus Mackenzie, and introduced by Doug Bradley, also from Liverpool. Bradley is famed for portraying Barker's creation Pinhead in the "Hellraiser" series of films.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool also has a long history of performing arts, reflected in several annual theatre festivals such as the Liverpool Shakespeare Festival, which takes place inside Liverpool Cathedral and in the adjacent historic St James' Gardens every summer; the Everyword Festival of new theatre writing, the only one of its kind in the country; Physical Fest, an international festival of physical theatre; the annual festivals organised by Liverpool John Moores University's drama department and the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts; and other festivals by the large number of theatres in the city, such as the Empire, Epstein, Everyman, Playhouse, Royal Court, and Unity theatres.


title: Liverpool

text: Notable actors and actresses from Liverpool include Arthur Askey, Tom Baker, Kim Cattrall, Jodie Comer, Stephen Graham, Rex Harrison, Jason Isaacs, Tina Malone, the McGann brothers (Joe, Mark, Paul, and Stephen), David Morrissey, Elizabeth Morton, Peter Serafinowicz, Elisabeth Sladen, Alison Steadman, and Rita Tushingham. Actors and actresses from elsewhere in the world have strong ties to the city, such as Canadian actor Mike Myers (whose parents were both from Liverpool) and American actress Halle Berry (whose mother was from Liverpool).


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool has a thriving and varied nightlife, with the majority of the city's late-night bars, pubs, nightclubs, live music venues and comedy clubs being located in a number of distinct districts. A 2011 TripAdvisor poll voted Liverpool as having the best nightlife of any UK city, ahead of Manchester, Leeds and even London. Concert Square, St. Peter's Square and the adjoining Seel, Duke and Hardman Streets are home to some of Liverpool's largest and most famed nightclubs including Alma de Cuba, Blue Angel, Korova, The Krazyhouse (Now Electrik Warehouse), The Magnet, Nation (home of the Cream brand, and Medication, the UK's largest and longest-running weekly student event), Popworld as well as numerous other smaller establishments and chain bars. Another popular nightlife destination in the city centre is Mathew Street and the Gay Quarter, located close to the city's commercial district, this area is famed for The Cavern Club alongside numerous gay bars including Garlands and G-Bar. The Albert Dock and Lark Lane in Aigburth also contain an abundance of bars and late-night venues.


title: Liverpool

text: In Liverpool primary and secondary education is available in various forms supported by the state including secular, Church of England, Jewish, and Roman Catholic. Islamic education is available at primary level, but there is no secondary provision.


title: Liverpool

text: One of Liverpool's important early schools was The Liverpool Blue Coat School; founded in 1708 as a charitable school.


title: Liverpool

text: The Liverpool Blue Coat School is the top-performing school in the city with 100% 5 or more A*-C grades at GCSE resulting in the 30th best GCSE results in the country and an average point score per student of 1087.4 in A/AS levels. Other notable schools include Liverpool College founded in 1840 Merchant Taylors' School founded in 1620. Another of Liverpool's notable senior schools is St. Edward's College situated in the West Derby area of the city. Historic grammar schools, such as the Liverpool Institute High School and Liverpool Collegiate School—both closed in the 1980s—are still remembered as centres of academic excellence. Bellerive Catholic College is the city's top-performing non-selective school, based upon GCSE results in 2007.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool has three universities: the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and Liverpool Hope University. Edge Hill University, founded as a teacher-training college in the Edge Hill district of Liverpool, is now located in Ormskirk in South-West Lancashire. Liverpool is also home to the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA).


title: Liverpool

text: The University of Liverpool was established in 1881 as University College Liverpool. In 1884, it became part of the federal Victoria University. Following a Royal Charter and Act of Parliament in 1903, it became an independent university, the University of Liverpool, with the right to confer its own degrees. It was the first university to offer degrees in biochemistry, architecture, civic design, veterinary science, oceanography and social science.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool Hope University, which was formed through the merger of three colleges, the earliest of which was founded in 1844, gained university status in 2005. It is the only ecumenical university in Europe. It is situated on both sides of Taggart Avenue in Childwall and has a second campus in the city centre (the Cornerstone).


title: Liverpool

text: The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, founded to address some of the problems created by trade, continues today as a post-graduate school affiliated with the University of Liverpool and houses an anti-venom repository.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool John Moores University was previously a polytechnic, and gained status in 1992. It is named in honour of Sir John Moores, one of the founders of the Littlewoods football pools and retail group, who was a major benefactor. The institution was previously owned and run by Liverpool City Council. It traces it lineage to the Liverpool Mechanics Institute, opened in 1823, making it by this measure England's third-oldest university.


title: Liverpool

text: The city has one further education college, Liverpool Community College in the city centre. Liverpool City Council operates Burton Manor, a residential adult education college in nearby Burton, on the Wirral Peninsula.


title: Liverpool

text: There are two Jewish schools in Liverpool, both belonging to the King David Foundation. King David School, Liverpool is the High School and the King David Primary School. There is also a King David Kindergarten, featured in the community centre of Harold House. These schools are all run by the King David Foundation located in Harold House in Childwall; conveniently next door to the Childwall Synagogue.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool is one of the most successful footballing cities in England, and is home to two top flight Premier League teams. Everton F.C. was founded in 1878 and play at Goodison Park and Liverpool F.C. were founded in 1892 and play at Anfield. Between them, the clubs have won 28 English First Division titles, 12 FA Cup titles, 10 League Cup titles, 6 European Cup titles, 1 FIFA Club World Cup title, 1 European Cup Winners' Cup title, 3 UEFA Cup titles, and 24 FA Charity Shields.


title: Liverpool

text: The two clubs contest the Merseyside derby, dubbed the 'friendly derby'. Despite the name the fixture is known for its keen rivalry, having seen more sending-offs in this fixture than any other. Unlike many other derbies it is not rare for families in the city to contain supporters of both clubs. Liverpool F.C. is the English and British club with the most European Cup titles with six, the latest in 2019.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool has played at Anfield since 1892, when the club was formed to occupy the stadium following Everton's departure due to a dispute with their landlord. Liverpool are still playing there 125 years later, although the ground has been completely rebuilt since the 1970s. The Spion Kop (rebuilt as an all-seater stand in 1994–95) was the most famous part of the ground, gaining cult status across the world due to the songs and celebrations of the many fans who packed onto its terraces. Anfield is classified as a 4 Star UEFA Elite Stadium with capacity for 54,000 spectators in comfort and is a distinctive landmark in an area filled with smaller and older buildings. Liverpool club also has a multimillion-pound youth training facility called The Academy.


title: Liverpool

text: After leaving Anfield in 1892, Everton moved to Goodison Park on the opposite side of Stanley Park. The ground was opened on 24 August 1892, by Lord Kinnaird and Frederick Wall of the FA but the first crowds to attend the ground saw a short athletics meeting followed by a selection of music and a fireworks display. Everton's first game there was on 2 September 1892 when they beat Bolton 4–2. It now has the capacity for just under 40,000 spectators all-seated, but the last expansion took place in 1994 when a new goal-end stand gave the stadium an all-seater capacity. The Main Stand dates back to the 1970s, while the other two stands are refurbished pre-Second World War structures.


title: Liverpool

text: Everton is currently in the process of relocating, with a stadium move mooted as early as 1996. In 2003, the club were forced to abandon plans for a 55,000-seat stadium at King's Dock due to financial constraints, with further proposed moves to Kirkby (comprising part of Destination Kirkby, moving the stadium just beyond Liverpool's council boundary into Kirkby) and Walton Hall Park similarly scrapped. The latest plan is a move to nearby Bramley-Moore Dock on Liverpool's waterfront, with ground broken on the project in August 2021.


title: Liverpool

text: Rugby league is a developing sport in Liverpool, with many community partners assisting the sport's governing body (RFL) to offer opportunities to participate. These include well established professional clubs in the neighbouring towns of St. Helens and Widnes. The city has a thriving student rugby league scene; Liverpool University took part in the first university game in 1968 and the other universities have been regular participants in the BUSA competition.


title: Liverpool

text: Today there are a number of non-professional clubs in the city, including Liverpool Buccaneers, who in 2006 won the regional final of the Rugby League Conference and in 2008 were elevated to the Rugby League Conference National division. Two junior clubs, "Liverpool Lions" (based in Croxteth) and "Liverpool Storm" (based in Childwall), have been established in 2008. They will be competing in the NWC Junior leagues in 2009. Rugby league has more recently returned to Huyton-with-Roby in the form of the Huyton Bulldogs A.R.L.F.C. Huyton Bulldogs currently compete in the RL Merit League, and their home ground is at the Jubilee Playing Fields, Twig Lane, Huyton.


title: Liverpool

text: A number of secondary schools throughout Merseyside are now participating in the inaugural merit league and 2008 is the first year that Merseyside schools have qualified for the RFL's Champion Schools tournament. Primary schools have been competing in tag festivals for a few years and the annual Tag World Cup is one of the major events in the Liverpool schools' competition calendar.


title: Liverpool

text: Boxing is massively popular in Liverpool. The city has a proud heritage and history in the sport and is home to around 22 amateur boxing clubs, which are responsible for producing many successful boxers, such as Nel Tarleton, Alan Rudkin, John Conteh, Andy Holligan, Liam Smith, Paul Hodkinson, Tony Bellew and Robin Ried. The city also boasts a consistently strong amateur contingent which is highlighted by Liverpool being the most represented city on the GB Boxing team, as well as at the 2012 London Olympics, the most notable Liverpool amateur fighters include; Jimmy Lloyd, George Turpin, Tony Willis, Robin Reid and David Price who have all medalled at the Olympic Games. Boxing events are usually hosted at the Echo Arena and Liverpool Olympia within the city, although the former home of Liverpool boxing was the renowned Liverpool Stadium.


title: Liverpool

text: <nowiki> </nowiki>Aintree is home to the world's most famous steeple-chase, the John Smith's Grand National which takes place annually in early April. The race meeting attracts horse owners/ jockeys from around the world to compete in the demanding and 30-fence course. There have been many memorable moments of the Grand National, for instance, the 100/1 outsider Foinavon in 1967, the dominant Red Rum and Ginger McCain of the 1970s and Mon Mome (100/1) who won the 2009 meeting. In 2010, the National became the first horse race to be televised in high-definition in the UK.


title: Liverpool

text: The Royal Liverpool Golf Club, situated in the nearby town of Hoylake on the Wirral Peninsula, has hosted The Open Championship on a number of occasions, most recently in 2014. It also hosted the Walker Cup in 1983.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool once contained four greyhound tracks, Seaforth Greyhound Stadium (1933–1965), Breck Park Stadium (1927–1948), Stanley Greyhound Stadium (1927–1961) and


title: Liverpool

text: White City Stadium (1932–1973). Breck Park also hosted boxing bouts and both Stanley and Seaforth hosted Motorcycle speedway.


title: Liverpool

text: Wavertree Sports Park is home to the Liverpool Harriers athletics club, which has produced such athletes as Curtis Robb, Allyn Condon (the only British athlete to compete at both the Summer and Winter Olympics), and Katarina Johnson-Thompson; Great Britain was represented by Johnson-Thompson at the 2012 London Olympics in the women's heptathlon, and she would go on to win the gold medal at the 2019 World Championships, giving Liverpool its first gold medal and breaking the British record in the process.


title: Liverpool

text: In August 2012, Liverpool gymnast Beth Tweddle won an Olympic bronze medal in London 2012 in the uneven bars at her third Olympic Games, thus becoming the most decorated British gymnast in history. Park Road Gymnastics Centre provides training to a high level.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool has produced several swimmers who have represented their nation at major championships such as the Olympic Games. The most notable of which is Steve Parry who claimed a bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics in the 200m butterfly. Others include Herbert Nickel Haresnape, Margaret Kelly, Shellagh Ratcliffe and Austin Rawlinson. There is a purpose-built aquatics centre at Wavertree Sports Park, which opened in 2008. The City of Liverpool Swimming Club has been National Speedo League Champions 8 out of the last 11 years.


title: Liverpool

text: The city is the hub of the Liverpool and District Cricket Competition, an ECB Premier League. Sefton Park and Liverpool are the league's founder members based in the city with Wavertree, Alder and Old Xaverians clubs having joined the league more recently. Liverpool plays host Lancashire County Cricket Club as an outground most seasons, including six of eight home County Championship games during Lancashire's 2011 title winning campaign whilst Old Trafford was refurbished.


title: Liverpool

text: Since 2014 Liverpool Cricket Club has played host to the annual Tradition-ICAP Liverpool International tennis tournament, which has seen tennis stars such as Novak Djokovic, David Ferrer, Mardy Fish, Laura Robson and Caroline Wozniacki. Previously this had been held at Calderstones Park, situated in Allerton in the south of the city. Liverpool Tennis Development Programme at Wavertree Tennis Centre is one of the largest in the UK.


title: Liverpool

text: Professional basketball came to the city in 2007 with the entry of Everton Tigers, now known as Mersey Tigers, into the elite British Basketball League. The club was originally associated with Everton F.C., and was part of the "Toxteth Tigers" youth development programme, which reached over 1,500 young people every year. The Tigers began to play in Britain's top league for the 2007–08 season, playing at the Greenbank Sports Academy before moving into the newly completed Echo Arena during that season. After the 2009–10 season, Everton F.C. withdrew funding from the Tigers, who then changed their name to Mersey Tigers. Their closest professional rivals are the Cheshire Jets, based away in Chester.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool is one of three cities which still host the traditional sport of British baseball and it hosts the annual England-Wales international match every two years, alternating with Cardiff and Newport. Liverpool Trojans are the oldest existing baseball club in the UK.


title: Liverpool

text: The 2014 Tour of Britain cycle race began in Liverpool on 7 September, utilising a city centre circuit to complete of racing. The Tour of Britain took nine stages and finished in London on 14 September.


title: Liverpool

text: A 2016 study of UK fitness centres found that, of the top 20 UK urban areas, Liverpool had the highest number of leisure and sports centres per capita, with 4.3 centres per 100,000 of the city population.


title: Liverpool

text: The city has one daily newspaper: the "Echo", published by Reach plc. "The Liverpool Daily Post" was also published until 2013. The UK's first online only weekly newspaper called "Southport Reporter" ("Southport and Mersey Reporter"), is also one of the many other news outlets that cover the city. The independent media organisation "The Post" also covers Liverpool, while "Nerve" magazine publishes articles and reviews of cultural events.


title: Liverpool

text: LOCAL TV Liverpool is a local television station serving Liverpool City Region and surrounding areas. The station is owned and operated by Made Television Ltd and forms part of a group of eight local TV stations. It broadcasts from studios and offices in Liverpool.


title: Liverpool

text: The ITV region which covers Liverpool is ITV Granada. In 2006, the Television company opened a new newsroom in the Royal Liver Building. Granada's regional news broadcasts were produced at the Albert Dock News Centre during the 1980s and 1990s. The BBC also opened a new newsroom on Hanover Street in 2006.


title: Liverpool

text: ITV's daily magazine programme "This Morning" was broadcast from studios at Albert Dock until 1996, when production was moved to London. Granada's short-lived shopping channel "Shop!" was also produced in Liverpool until it was cancelled in 2002.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool is the home of the TV production company Lime Pictures, formerly Mersey Television, which produced the now-defunct soap operas "Brookside" and "Grange Hill". It also produces the soap opera "Hollyoaks", which was formerly filmed in Chester and began on Channel 4 in 1995. All three series were/are largely filmed in the Childwall area of Liverpool.


title: Liverpool

text: Radio stations include BBC Radio Merseyside, Liverpool Live Radio, Melodic Distraction, In Demand Radio, Capital Liverpool, Radio City and Greatest Hits Radio Liverpool & The North West. The last two are owned by Bauer and located in Radio City Tower which, along with the two cathedrals, dominates the city's skyline.


title: Liverpool

text: Liverpool has also featured in films; see List of films set in Liverpool for some of them. In films the city has "doubled" for London, Paris, New York, Chicago, Moscow, Dublin, Venice and Berlin.


title: Liverpool

text: The first overseas consulate of the United States was opened in Liverpool in 1790, and it remained operational for almost two centuries. Today, a large number of consulates are located in the city serving Chile, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Sweden and Thailand. Tunisian & Ivory Coast Consulates are located in the neighbouring Metropolitan Borough of Sefton.


title: Sony

text: , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional electronic products, the largest video game console company and the largest video game publisher. Through Sony Entertainment Inc, it is one of the largest music companies (largest music publisher and second largest record label) and the third largest film studio, making it one of the most comprehensive media companies. It is the largest technology and media conglomerate in Japan. It is also recognized as the most cash-rich Japanese company, with net cash reserves of ¥2 trillion.


title: Sony

text: Sony, with its 55 percent market share in the image sensor market, is the largest manufacturer of image sensors, the second largest camera manufacturer, and is among the semiconductor sales leaders. It is the world's largest player in the premium TV market for a television of at least with a price higher than $2,500 as well as second largest TV brand by market share and, as of 2020, the third largest television manufacturer in the world by annual sales figures.


title: Sony

text: Sony Group Corporation is the holding company of the , which comprises Sony Corporation, Sony Semiconductor Solutions, Sony Entertainment (Sony Pictures, Sony Music), Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Financial Group, Sony Creative Products, and others.


title: Sony

text: The company's slogan is "We are Sony". Their former slogans were "The One and Only" (1979–1982), "It's a Sony" (1981–2005), "like.no.other" (2005–2009), "make.believe" (2009–2013), and "Be Moved" (2013–2021).


title: Sony

text: Sony has a weak tie to the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) corporate group, the successor to the Mitsui "keiretsu". Sony is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (in which it is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX Core30 indexes) with an additional listing in the form of American depositary receipts listed in the New York Stock Exchange (traded since 1970, making it the oldest Japanese company to be listed in an American exchange), and was ranked 88th on the 2021 "Fortune" Global 500 list.


title: Sony

text: Sony began in the wake of World War II. In 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics shop in Shirokiya, a department store building in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo. The company started with a capital of ¥190,000 and a total of eight employees. On 7 May 1946, Ibuka was joined by Akio Morita to establish a company called (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation). The company built Japan's first tape recorder, called the Type-G. In 1958, the company changed its name to "Sony".


title: Sony

text: When "Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo" was looking for a romanized name to use to market themselves, they strongly considered using their initials, TTK. The primary reason they did not is that the railway company Tokyo Kyuko was known as TTK. The company occasionally used the acronym "Totsuko" in Japan, but during his visit to the United States, Morita discovered that Americans had trouble pronouncing that name. Another early name that was tried out for a while was "Tokyo Teletech" until Akio Morita discovered that there was an American company already using Teletech as a brand name.


title: Sony

text: The name "Sony" was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words: one was the Latin word ""sonus"", which is the root of sonic and sound, and the other was ""sonny"", a common slang term used in 1950s America to call a young boy. In 1950s Japan, "sonny boys" was a loan word in Japanese, which connoted smart and presentable young men, which Sony founders Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka considered themselves to be.


title: Sony

text: The first Sony-branded product, the TR-55 transistor radio, appeared in 1955, but the company name did not change to Sony until January 1958.


title: Sony

text: At the time of the change, it was extremely unusual for a Japanese company to use Roman letters to spell its name instead of writing it in kanji. The move was not without opposition: TTK's principal bank at the time, Mitsui, had strong feelings about the name. They pushed for a name such as Sony Electronic Industries, or Sony Teletech. Akio Morita was firm, however, as he did not want the company name tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Ibuka and Mitsui Bank's chairman gave their approval.


title: Sony

text: According to Schiffer, Sony's TR-63 radio "cracked open the U.S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics." By the mid-1950s, American teens had begun buying portable transistor radios in huge numbers, helping to propel the fledgling industry from an estimated 100,000 units in 1955 to 5 million units by the end of 1968.


title: Sony

text: Sony co-founder Akio Morita founded Sony Corporation of America in 1960. In the process, he was struck by the mobility of employees between American companies, which was unheard of in Japan at that time. When he returned to Japan, he encouraged experienced, middle-aged employees of other companies to reevaluate their careers and consider joining Sony. The company filled many positions in this manner, and inspired other Japanese companies to do the same. Moreover, Sony played a major role in the development of Japan as a powerful exporter during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, supplying the U.S. Military with bomb parts used in the Vietnam War. It also helped to significantly improve American perceptions of "made in Japan" products. Known for its production quality, Sony was able to charge above-market prices for its consumer electronics and resisted lowering prices.


title: Sony

text: In 1971, Masaru Ibuka handed the position of president over to his co-founder Akio Morita. Sony began a life insurance company in 1979, one of its many peripheral businesses. Amid a global recession in the early 1980s, electronics sales dropped and the company was forced to cut prices. Sony's profits fell sharply. "It's over for Sony", one analyst concluded. "The company's best days are behind it."


title: Sony

text: Around that time, Norio Ohga took up the role of president. He encouraged the development of the compact disc (CD) in the 1970s and 1980s, and of the PlayStation in the early 1990s. Ohga went on to purchase CBS Records in 1988 and Columbia Pictures in 1989, greatly expanding Sony's media presence. Ohga would succeed Morita as chief executive officer in 1989.


title: Sony

text: Under the vision of co-founder Akio Morita and his successors, the company had aggressively expanded into new businesses. Part of its motivation for doing so was the pursuit of "convergence", linking film, music and digital electronics via the Internet. This expansion proved unrewarding and unprofitable, threatening Sony's ability to charge a premium on its products as well as its brand name. In 2005, Howard Stringer replaced Nobuyuki Idei as chief executive officer, marking the first time that a foreigner had run a major Japanese electronics firm. Stringer helped to reinvigorate the company's struggling media businesses, encouraging blockbusters such as "Spider-Man" while cutting 9,000 jobs. He hoped to sell off peripheral business and focus the company again on electronics. Furthermore, he aimed to increase cooperation between business units, which he described as "silos" operating in isolation from one another. In a bid to provide a unified brand for its global operations, Sony introduced a slogan known as "make.believe" in 2009.


title: Sony

text: Despite some successes, the company faced continued struggles in the mid- to late-2000s. In 2012, Kazuo Hirai was promoted to president and CEO, replacing Stringer. Shortly thereafter, Hirai outlined his company-wide initiative, named "One Sony" to revive Sony from years of financial losses and bureaucratic management structure, which proved difficult for former CEO Stringer to accomplish, partly due to differences in business culture and native languages between Stringer and some of Sony's Japanese divisions and subsidiaries. Hirai outlined three major areas of focus for Sony's electronics business, which include imaging technology, gaming and mobile technology, as well as a focus on reducing the major losses from the television business.


title: Sony

text: In February 2014, Sony announced the sale of its Vaio PC division to a new corporation owned by investment fund Japan Industrial Partners and spinning its TV division into its own corporation as to make it more nimble to turn the unit around from past losses totaling $7.8 billion over a decade. Later that month, they announced that they would be closing 20 stores. In April, the company announced that they would be selling 9.5 million shares in Square Enix (roughly 8.2 percent of the game company's total shares) in a deal worth approximately $48 million. In May 2014 the company announced it was forming two joint ventures with Shanghai Oriental Pearl Group to manufacture and market Sony's PlayStation games consoles and associated software in China.


title: Sony

text: It was reported in December 2016 by multiple news outlets that Sony was considering restructuring its U.S. operations by merging its TV & film business, Sony Pictures Entertainment, with its gaming business, Sony Interactive Entertainment. According to the reports, such a restructuring would have placed Sony Pictures under Sony Interactive's CEO, Andrew House, though House wouldn't have taken over day-to-day operations of the film studio. According to one report, Sony was set to make a final decision on the possibility of the merger of the TV, film, & gaming businesses by the end of its fiscal year in March of the following year (2017).


title: Sony

text: On 1 April 2020, Sony Electronics Corporation was established as an intermediate holding company to own and oversee its electronics and IT solutions businesses.


title: Sony

text: On 19 May 2020, the company announced that it would rename Sony Group Corporation as of 1 April 2021. Subsequently, Sony Electronics Corporation would be renamed to Sony Corporation. On the same day the company announced that it would turn Sony Financial Holdings (currently Sony Financial Group), of which Sony already owns 65.06% of shares, to a wholly owned subsidiary through a takeover bid.


title: Sony

text: On 1 April 2021, Sony Corporation was renamed Sony Group Corporation. On the same day, Sony Mobile Communications Inc. absorbed Sony Electronics Corporation, Sony Imaging Products & Solutions Inc., and Sony Home Entertainment & Sound Products Inc. and changed its trade name to Sony Corporation.


title: Sony

text: Sony has historically been notable for creating its own in-house standards for new recording and storage technologies, instead of adopting those of other manufacturers and standards bodies, while its success in the early years owes to a smooth capitalization on the Compact Cassette standard introduced by Philips, with which Sony went on to enjoy a decades-long technological relationship in various areas. Sony (either alone or with partners) has introduced several of the most popular recording formats, including the 3.5-inch floppy disk, Compact Disc and Blu-ray Disc.


title: Sony

text: Sony introduced U-matic, the world's first videocassette format, in 1971, but the standard was unpopular for domestic use due to the high price. The company subsequently launched the Betamax format in 1975. Sony was involved in the videotape format war of the early 1980s, when they were marketing the Betamax system for video cassette recorders against the VHS format developed by JVC. In the end, VHS gained critical mass in the marketbase and became the worldwide standard for consumer VCRs.


title: Sony

text: Betamax is, for all practical purposes, an obsolete format. Sony's professional-oriented component video format called Betacam, which was derived from Betamax, was used until 2016 when Sony announced it was stopping production of all remaining 1/2-inch video tape recorders and players, including the Digital Betacam format.


title: Sony

text: In 1985, Sony launched their Handycam products and the Video8 format. Video8 and the follow-on hi-band Hi8 format became popular in the consumer camcorder market. In 1987 Sony launched the 4 mm DAT or Digital Audio Tape as a new digital audio tape standard.


title: Sony

text: Sony introduced the Triluminos Display, the company's proprietary color reproduction enhancing technology, in 2004, featured in the world's first LED-backlit LCD televisions. It was widely used in other Sony's products as well, including computer monitors, laptops, and smartphones. In 2013, Sony released a new line of televisions with an improved version of the technology, which incorporated quantum dots in the backlight system. It was the first commercial use of quantum dots.


title: Sony

text: In 2012, the company revealed a prototype of an ultrafine RGB LED display, which it calls the Crystal LED Display.


title: Sony

text: Sony used the Compact Cassette format in many of its tape recorders and players, including the Walkman, the world's first portable music player. Sony introduced the MiniDisc format in 1992 as an alternative to Philips DCC or Digital Compact Cassette and as a successor to the Compact Cassette. Since the introduction of MiniDisc, Sony has attempted to promote its own audio compression technologies under the ATRAC brand, against the more widely used MP3. Until late 2004, Sony's Network Walkman line of digital portable music players did not support the MP3 standard natively.


title: Sony

text: In 2004, Sony built upon the MiniDisc format by releasing Hi-MD. Hi-MD allows the playback and recording of audio on newly introduced 1 GB Hi-MD discs in addition to playback and recording on regular MiniDiscs. In addition to saving audio on the discs, Hi-MD allows the storage of computer files such as documents, videos and photos.


title: Sony

text: In 1993, Sony challenged the industry standard Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound format with a newer and more advanced proprietary motion picture digital audio format called SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound). This format employed eight channels (7.1) of audio opposed to just six used in Dolby Digital 5.1 at the time. Ultimately, SDDS has been vastly overshadowed by the preferred DTS (Digital Theatre System) and Dolby Digital standards in the motion picture industry. SDDS was solely developed for use in the theatre circuit; Sony never intended to develop a home theatre version of SDDS.


title: Sony

text: Sony and Philips jointly developed the Sony-Philips digital interface format (S/PDIF) and the high-fidelity audio system SACD. The latter became entrenched in a format war with DVD-Audio. Still, neither gained a major foothold with the general public. CDs had been preferred by consumers because of the ubiquitous presence of CD drives in consumer devices until the early 2000s when the iPod and streaming services became available.


title: Sony

text: In 2015, Sony introduced LDAC, a proprietary audio coding technology which allows streaming high-resolution audio over Bluetooth connections at up to 990 kbit/s at 32 bit/96 kHz. Sony also contributed it as part of the Android Open Source Project starting from Android 8.0 "Oreo", enabling every OEM to integrate this standard into their own Android devices freely. However the "decoder" library is proprietary, so receiving devices require licenses. On 17 September 2019, the Japan Audio Society (JAS) certified LDAC with their Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification. Currently the only codecs with the Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification are LDAC and LHDC, another competing standard.


title: Sony

text: Sony demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in 1977 and soon joined hands with Philips, another major contender for the storage technology, to establish a worldwide standard. In 1983, the two company jointly announced the Compact Disc (CD). In 1984, Sony launched the Discman series, an expansion of the Walkman brand to portable CD players. Sony began to improve performance and capacity of the novel format. It launched write-once optical discs (WO) and magneto-optical discs which were around 125MB size for the specific use of archival data storage, in 1986 and 1988 respectively.


title: Sony

text: In the early 1990s, two high-density optical storage standards were being developed: one was the MultiMedia Compact Disc (MMCD), backed by Philips and Sony, and the other was the Super Density Disc (SD), supported by Toshiba and many others. Philips and Sony abandoned their MMCD format and agreed upon Toshiba's SD format with only one modification. The unified disc format was called DVD and was introduced in 1997.


title: Sony

text: Sony was one of the leading developers of the Blu-ray optical disc format, the newest standard for disc-based content delivery. The first Blu-ray players became commercially available in 2006. The format emerged as the standard for HD media over the competing format, Toshiba's HD DVD, after a two-year-long high-definition optical disc format war.


title: Sony

text: Sony's laser communication devices for small satellites rely on the technologies developed for the company's optical disc products.


title: Sony

text: In 1983, Sony introduced 90 mm micro diskettes, better known as floppy disks, which it had developed at a time when there were 4" floppy disks, and many variations from different companies, to replace the then on-going 5.25" floppy disks. Sony had great success and the format became dominant. 3.5" floppy disks gradually became obsolete as they were replaced by current media formats. Sony held more than a 70 percent share of the market when it decided to pull the plug on the format in 2010.


title: Sony

text: In 1998, Sony launched the Memory Stick format, the flash memory cards for use in Sony lines of digital cameras and portable music players. It has seen little support outside of Sony's own products, with Secure Digital cards (SD) commanding considerably greater popularity. Sony has made updates to the Memory Stick format with Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick Micro. The company has also released USB flash drive products, branded under the Micro Vault line.


title: Sony

text: Sony introduced FeliCa, a contactless IC card technology primarily used in contactless payment, as a result of the company's joint development and commercialization of Near-Field Communication (NFC) with Philips. The standard is largely offered in two forms, either chips embedded in smartphones or plastic cards with chips embedded in them. Sony plans to implement this technology in train systems across Asia.


title: Sony

text: In 2019, Sony launched the ELTRES, the company's proprietary low-power wide-area wireless communication (LPWAN) standard.


title: Sony

text: In 2021, the WIPO’s annual review of the World Intellectual Property Indicators report ranked Sony's as ninth in the world for the number of patent applications published under the PCT System. 1,793 patent applications were published by Sony during 2020. This position is up from their previous ranking as 13th in 2019 with 1,566 applications.


title: Sony

text: Best known for its electronic products, Sony offers a wide variety of product lines in many areas. At its peak, it was dubbed as a "corporate octopus", for its sprawling ventures from private insurance to chemicals to cosmetics to home shopping to a Tokyo-based French food joint, in addition its core businesses such as electronics and entertainment. Even after it has unwound many business units including Sony Chemicals and Vaio PC, Sony still runs diverse businesses.


title: Sony

text: As of 2020, Sony is organized into the following business segments: Game & Network Services (G&NS), Music, Pictures, Electronics Products & Solutions (EP&S), Imaging & Sensing Solutions (I&SS), Financial Services, and Others. Usually, each business segment has a handful of corresponding intermediate holding companies under which all the related businesses are folded into, such as Columbia Records being part of Sony Music Group, a subsidiary and, at the same time, a holding company for Sony's music businesses, along with SMEJ.


title: Sony

text: Sony Corporation (Sony Electronics Corporation until 1 April 2021) is the electronics business unit of the Sony Group. It primarily conducts research and development (R&D), planning, designing, manufacturing and marketing for electronics products. Sony Global Manufacturing & Operations Corporation (SGMO) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation and responsible for managing manufacturing operations both in Japan and overseas, through its own factories as well as third party contract manufacturers.


title: Sony

text: In 1979, Sony released the world's first portable music player, the Walkman, bundled with the MDL-3L2 headphones. This line fostered a fundamental change in music listening habits by allowing people to carry music with them and listen to music through lightweight headphones. Originally used to refer to portable audio cassette players, the Walkman brand has been widely adopted by the company to encompass its portable digital audio and video players as well as a line of former Sony Ericsson mobile phones. In the case of optical disc players, the Discman brand was used until the late 1990s. In 1999 Sony's first portable digital audio players were introduced; one was a player using Memory Stick flash storage created by the Walkman division, and the other was a smaller pen-sized player with embedded flash storage created by the Vaio division; both accompanied with Sony's OpenMG copyright protection technology and PC software for music transfer. Sony continue to develop Walkman digital audio players.


title: Sony

text: Sony produced the TV8-301, the world's first all-transistor television, in 1959. In 1968, the company introduced the Trinitron brand name for its lines of aperture grille cathode ray tube televisions and afterwards computer monitors. Sony stopped production of Trinitron for most markets, but continued producing sets for markets such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. Sony discontinued its series of Trinitron computer monitors in 2005. The company discontinued the last Trinitron-based television set in the US in early 2007. The end of Trinitron marked the end of Sony's analog television sets and monitors.


title: Sony

text: Sony used the LCD WEGA name for its LCD TVs until summer 2005. The company then introduced the BRAVIA name. BRAVIA is an in-house brand owned by Sony which produces high-definition LCD televisions, projection TVs and front projectors, home cinemas and the BRAVIA home theatre range. All Sony high-definition flat-panel LCD televisions in North America have carried the logo for BRAVIA since 2005. In 2006, Sony lost its decades-long No.1 market share in the global television market. In November 2007, the Sony XEL-1, the first OLED television, was released and manufactured for two years. Later in 2013, Sony demonstrated the first 4K OLED television. As of 2012, Sony was the third-largest maker of televisions in the world and the business unit had been unprofitable for eight consecutive years.


title: Sony

text: From 2011, Sony started restructuring of its loss-making television business, mainly by downsizing business units and outsourcing the manufacturing of display panels to the companies like Sharp Corporation, LG Display, and Samsung Electronics. In December 2011, Sony agreed to sell all stake in an LCD joint venture with Samsung Electronics (S-LCD) for about $940 million. On 28 March 2012, Sony and Sharp announced that they have agreed to further amend the joint venture agreement originally executed by the parties in July 2009, as amended in April 2011, for the establishment and operation of Sharp Display Products Corporation ("SDP"), a joint venture to produce and sell large-sized LCD panels and modules. The agreement was eventually terminated as Sony parted ways. Sony's small-sized LCD business subsidiary and medium-to-large-sized OLED display business unit were spun off and became part of Japan Display and JOLED, respectively.


title: Sony

text: Also, Sony has sold a range of tapes, discs, recorders and players for videocassette, DVD, and Blu-ray formats for decades.


title: Sony

text: Sony offers a wide range of digital cameras. Its point-and-shoot models are branded Cyber-shot, while DSLRs and mirrorless models are branded Alpha, though Sony no longer makes DSLRs. It also produces action cameras and camcorders, with the company's cinema-grade products being sold under the CineAlta name.


title: Sony

text: Sony demonstrated a prototype of the Sony Mavica in 1981 and released it for the consumer market in 1988. The first Cyber-shot was introduced in 1996. Sony's market share of the digital camera market fell from a high of 20% to 9% by 2005.


title: Sony

text: Sony entered the market for digital single-lens reflex cameras in 2006 when it acquired the camera business of Konica Minolta. Sony rebranded the company's line of cameras as its Alpha line. Sony is the world's third largest manufacturer of the cameras, behind Canon and Nikon respectively.


title: Sony

text: In 2010, Sony introduced their first mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras, which were the NEX-3 and the NEX-5. They also started a new lens mount system, which was the E-mount. There were quite a few NEX models out there, when Sony decided to melt the NEX series into the Alpha series. The first Alpha MILC was the α3000, which was introduced in August 2013. It was followed by the Full-Frame α7 and α7R in October, then the successors of the NEX-5, the NEX-6 and NEX-7, the α5000 and the α6000 in 2014. The α6000 became the most popular MILC ever and Sony became the largest MILC manufacturer.


title: Sony

text: Sony produced computers (MSX home computers and NEWS workstations) during the 1980s. The company withdrew from the computer business around 1990. Sony entered again into the global computer market under the new VAIO brand, began in 1996. Short for "Video Audio Integrated Operation", the line was the first computer brand to highlight visual-audio features.


title: Sony

text: Sony faced considerable controversy when some of its laptop batteries exploded and caught fire in 2006, resulting in the largest computer-related recall to that point in history.


title: Sony

text: In a bid to join the tablet computer market, the company launched its Sony Tablet line of Android tablets in 2011. Since 2012, Sony's Android products have been marketed under the Xperia brand used for its smartphones.


title: Sony

text: On 4 February 2014, Sony announced that it would sell its VAIO PC business due to poor sales and Japanese company Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) will purchase the VAIO brand, with the deal finalized by the end of March 2014. As of 2018, Sony maintained a 5% stake in the new, independent company.


title: Sony

text: Sony has targeted medical, healthcare and biotechnology business as a growth sector in the future. The company acquired iCyt Mission Technology, Inc. (renamed Sony Biotechnology Inc. in 2012), a manufacturer of flow cytometers, in 2010 and Micronics, Inc., a developer of microfluidics-based diagnostic tools, in 2011.


title: Sony

text: In 2012, Sony announced that it would acquire all shares of So-net Entertainment Corporation, the largest shareholder of M3, Inc., an operator of portal sites (m3.com, MR-kun, MDLinx and MEDI:GATE) for healthcare professionals.


title: Sony

text: On 28 September 2012, Olympus and Sony announced that the two companies will establish a joint venture to develop new surgical endoscopes with 4K resolution (or higher) and 3D capability. Sony Olympus Medical Solutions Inc. (Sony 51%, Olympus 49%) was established on 16 April 2013.


title: Sony

text: On 28 February 2014, Sony, M3 and Illumina established a joint venture called P5, Inc. to provide a genome analysis service for research institutions and enterprises in Japan.


title: Sony

text: In 2000, Sony was a marginal player in the mobile phone market with a share of less than 1 percent. In 2001, Sony entered into a joint venture with Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson, forming Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications. Initial sales were rocky, and the company posted losses in 2001 and 2002. However, Sony Ericsson reached a profit in 2003. The company distinguished itself with multimedia-capable mobile phones, which included features such as cameras. These were unusual at the time. Despite their innovations, Sony Ericsson faced intense competition from Apple's iPhone, which was released in 2007. From 2008 to 2010, amid a global recession, Sony Ericsson slashed its workforce by several thousand. In 2009, Sony Ericsson was the fourth-largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world (after Nokia, Samsung and LG). By 2010, its market share had fallen to sixth place. Sony acquired Ericsson's share of the venture in 2012 for over US$1 billion. Sony Mobile focuses exclusively on the smartphone market under the Xperia brand.


title: Sony

text: In 2013, Sony contributed to around two percent of the mobile phone market with 37 million mobile phones sold. Sony Mobile's sales reached a peak in 2014 with 40 million handsets, the volume has since decreased. Sony shipped 13.5 million phones in 2017, 6.5 million in 2018, and 2.9 million handsets in FY 2020.


title: Sony

text: Since the late 1990s, Sony has released numerous consumer robots, including dog-shaped robots called AIBO, a music playing robot called Rolly, and a humanoid robot called QRIO. Despite being a pioneer in the field, Sony had ceased robotics-related operations for 10 years due to financial difficulties, until it decided to revive them in 2016.


title: Sony

text: In 2015, Sony partnered with an autonomous driving startup ZMP INC. to establish an aerial surveillance and reconnaissance drone manufacturer named Aerosense. At the CES 2021, Sony unveiled a drone with the brand Airpeak, the smallest of its kind that can incorporate a Sony Alpha camera according to the company, entering the drone business on its own for the first time.


title: Sony

text: Sony traces its roots in the semiconductor business back to 1954, when it became the first Japanese company to commercialize the transistor, invented and licensed by Bell Labs, whilst some of the biggest and well-established names in Japan at the time like Toshiba and Mitsubishi Electric initially stuck with vacuum tubes they had been thriving on; despite being an expert on the vacuum tube himself, Ibuka saw potential of the novel technology and had Morita negotiate the terms for licensing, making Sony into one of the earliest and the youngest licensees of the transistor, together with Texas Instruments. In 1957, Sony employee Leo Esaki and his colleagues invented a tunnel diode (usually referred to as Esaki diode) by which they discovered the quantum tunneling effect in solids, for which Esaki received the Nobel prize in Physics in 1973. Sony has commanded a dominant share in the charge-coupled device market.


title: Sony

text: As of 2020, Sony is the world's largest manufacturer of CMOS image sensors as its chips are widely used in digital cameras, tablet computers, smartphones, drones and more recently, self-driving systems in automobiles.


title: Sony

text: As of 2020, the company, through its chip business arm Sony Semiconductor Solutions, designs, manufactures, and sells a wide range of semiconductors and electronic components, including image sensors (HAD CCD, Exmor), image processors (BIONZ), laser diodes, system LSIs, mixed-signal LSIs, emerging memory storage, emerging displays (microLED, microOLED, and holographic display), multi-functional microcomputer ("SPRESENSE"), etc.


title: Sony

text: Sony Interactive Entertainment (formerly Sony Computer Entertainment) is best known for producing the popular line of PlayStation consoles. The line grew out of a failed partnership with Nintendo. Originally, Nintendo requested Sony to develop an add-on for its SNES that would play Compact Discs. In 1991 Sony announced the add-on, as well as a dedicated console known as the "Play Station". However, a disagreement over software licensing for the console caused the partnership to fall through. Sony then continued the project independently.


title: Sony

text: Launched in 1994, the first PlayStation gained 61% of global console sales and broke Nintendo's long-standing lead in the market. Sony followed up with the PlayStation 2 in 2000, which was even more successful. The console has become the most successful of all time, selling over 150 million units . Sony released the PlayStation 3, a high-definition console, in 2006. It was the first console to use the Blu-ray format, and was considerably more expensive than the competitors Xbox 360 and Wii due to the Cell processor.


title: Sony

text: Early on, poor sales performance resulted in significant losses for the company, pushing it to sell the console at a loss. The PlayStation 3 sold generally more poorly than its competitors in the early years of its release but managed to overtake the Xbox 360 in global sales later on. It later introduced the PlayStation Move, an accessory that allows players to control video games using motion gestures.


title: Sony

text: Sony extended the brand to the portable games market in 2004 with the PlayStation Portable (PSP). The console has sold reasonably, but has taken a second place to a rival handheld, the Nintendo DS. Sony developed the Universal Media Disc (UMD) optical disc medium for use on the PlayStation Portable. Early on, the format was used for movies, but it has since lost major studio support. Sony released a disc-less version of its PlayStation Portable, the PSP Go, in 2009. The company went on to release its second portable video game system, PlayStation Vita, in 2011 and 2012. Sony launched its fourth console, the PlayStation 4, on 15 November 2013, which as of 31 December 2017 has sold 73.6 million units globally.