Birmingham Gay Village
The Birmingham Gay Village is an LGBT district or "gaybourhood" next to the Chinese Quarter in Birmingham city centre, centred along Hurst Street, which hosts many LGBT-friendly businesses. The village is visited by thousands of people every week and has a thriving night life featuring clubs, sports bars, cocktail bars, cabaret bars and shops, with most featuring live entertainment including music, dancing and drag queens. The 2017 gay, lesbian and bisexual population of the West Midlands was recorded at 2.2%<ref>Office for National Statistics, [https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/sexuality/bulletins/sexualidentityuk/2017 Sexual orientation, UK: 2017], Office for National Statistics (21 January 2019), 2019</ref> or 128,920 of the estimated 5.86 million residents of the West Midlands region. In 2009, the gay and lesbian population of Birmingham was estimated to be around 6 per cent or 60,000 of the estimated 1.03 million residents. Formation and development The area expanded from just the Nightingale Club and Windmill bar in the 1980s, to multiple bars and venues in the surrounding streets, with the area first curtained off from the rest of the city by the Smallbrook Queensway section of the Inner Ring Road. This took place in the 1950s, when the area was a little warehouse district with a few small