Yorkshire A to Y

Gazetteer

Bradford metropolitan district X

Bradford metropolitan district is one of five very large metropolitan authorities which make up West Yorkshire, it includes the north-western part of the county.

The Bradford conurbation has swallowed several villages since Bradford grew from a town to a city in the Victorian era. With green fields stripped away, the merged surburban districts now lack their original distinction around most of the city. However, the vast Bradford metropolitan district also includes many distinct villages and towns, principally to the north and west of the Bradford city centre around Wharfedale and along Airedale and the Worth Valley. The towns include Bingley, Ilkley, Keighley and Shipley.

In terms of its area, Bradford district is the third-largest among the five West Yorkshire metropolitan districts with an area of 141.5 square miles (366.4 sq km)^. That is a smaller area than Leeds and Kirklees districts and a little larger than Calderdale and Wakefield districts. It is also around the same size area as the Sheffield metropolitan district in South Yorkshire. All of Yorkshire's metropolitan districts are larger than those elsewhere in England and, indeed, Bradford metropolitan district covers more than three times the area of the metropolitan districts of Manchester or Newcastle upon Tyne.

The district population of 546,400* was the third-largest in Yorkshire at the time of the 2021 Census, after Leeds metropolitan district and also marginally lower than that of the Sheffield metropolitan district of South Yorkshire. Bradford metropolitan district now has the fourth-largest population across all administrative areas in Yorkshire after the merger of all North Yorkshire district authorities in 2023.

Bradford district has boundaries with three of the five metropolitan districts of West Yorkshire — Calderdale, Kirklees and Leeds — and also with North Yorkshire (previously its Harrogate and Craven districts) and with the Pendle district of Lancashire.

^ Area figure from ONS Standard Area Measurements 2022 (converted from hectares).
* Population figure from Census 2021.
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