Belfast City Map Poster

About Belfast

Belfast is a major tourist destination. It is the third-most visited city in the UK after London and Manchester, and it has been voted "the world's favourite city" four times in a row by readers of Condé Nast Traveler magazine. In 2015 Belfast was named as one of the top five destinations for expats to live in by "The Telegraph". The area around Belfast Lough (including Carrickfergus, Comber, Bangor and Newtownards) together with neighbouring towns such as Lisburn have become collectively known as Greater Belfast; they form part of a continuous urban area with over 500,000 inhabitants. The name 'Belfast' comes from its Irish name , meaning 'mouth of the sandbank'. This refers to an anchorage near where now stands between Castle Place on Queen Street (opposite Bank Square) at what was then called Sandbank or Sandy Bank – today's Donegall Quay ().