Coventry

Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although Stoke-on-Trent, Leicester and Nottingham have larger urban areas. The population of Coventry has risen to 309,800 as of 2008.

Historically within Warwickshire, Coventry is situated 95 miles (153 km) northwest of central London and 19 miles (31 km) east-southeast of Birmingham, and is further from the coast than any other city in Britain. Although harbouring a population of almost a third of a million inhabitants, Coventry is not amongst the English Core Cities Group due to its proximity to Birmingham.

Coventry was the world's first twin city when it formed a twinning relationship with the Russian city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) during World War II. The relationship developed through ordinary people in Coventry who wanted to show their support for the Soviet Red Army during the Battle of Stalingrad. The city is now also twinned with Dresden, Lidice and 23 other cities around the world.

Coventry Cathedral is one of the newer cathedrals in the world, having been built following the World War II bombing of the ancient cathedral by the Luftwaffe. Coventry motor companies have contributed significantly to the British motor industry, and it has two universities, the city centre-based Coventry University and the University of Warwick on the southern outskirts.

Coventry is where Lady Godiva is supposed to have rode naked on horseback through the streets of the city in protest at high taxes being levied on the cityfolk by her husband Leofric, Earl of Mercia. It was badly bombed in a single air-raid during the Second World War, destroying 1/3 of the city including the cathedral. Since then, it has been a place of peace and reconciliation after the war, and has a new cathedral built after the war (plans for it were approved only two days after the old one was destroyed - just how defiant the British were).

www.coventry.gov.uk/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVwPW5OzYO4

Coventry C.C. large-scale digi-map used in drawing the attached polygon can be found and download in pdf format at :
www.coventry.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/1237/cdp_prop...