Belfast, the largest and most prosperous commercial and manufacturing city in Ireland, is principally situated in the county of Antrim, of which since 1850 it has been the county town. Belfast has growing suburbs, such as Ballymacarrett and Ballynaveigh on the Down side of the river Lagan, which discharges its waters into Belfast Lough. It is 12 miles from the Irish Sea, 101 N. of Dublin, 130 SW. of Glasgow, and 156 NW. of Liverpool. In this position Belfast stands on an alluvial deposit not more than six feet above the sea-level. The river Lagan is crossed by the Queen Bridge, which has been recently widened; by the Albert Bridge, which was reconstructed in 1887-88; by a railway bridge; and by a bridge at Ormeau, close to the park of that name purchased from the Marquis of Donegal for popular recreation. Belfast has also several new parks in different parts of the town. On the Antrim side the picturesque hills, rising almost to the dignity of mountains, have an impressive effect, and the general aspect of the town is bright and animated. Though the seat of the linen industry, with a number of mills and manufactures of several kinds, Belfast has a much more pleasant appearance than most British manufacturing towns. On each side of the spacious lough, which resembles in some respects the Lake of Geneva, are a number of pleasant villas, whilst in the higher suburb of Malone, and along the Lisburn Road, handsome edifices of a similar character have sprung up with a cheerful diversity. A fine large new street called Royal Avenue was in 1884 driven through the centre of the town from York Street to Donegal Place. It contains the new post-office, the Ulster Reform Club, the offices of the Water Commissioners, and the free library, which, with many fine shops, form a very imposing thoroughfare. A sight of Belfast at the present time surprises those who have been taught to believe in the poverty and want of enterprise in Ireland. There are 33 Presbyterian churches; 20 Protestant Episcopalian, 15 Methodist, and 6 Roman Catholic. The Queen's College, a handsome brick building, was opened in 1849. The Presbyterian College in 1881 had, in conjunction with the Magee College of Londonderry, the power conferred on it of granting theological degrees. The Catholics and Methodists have colleges of their own, while a Royal Academical Institution and the Belfast Academy, with other institutions of a similar character, supply great educational facilities. The National Schools amount to 130; the Church Educational Society have schools of their own; and there are a number of excellent private schools.
The progress Belfast has made since the middle of the century may be indicated by some of the most recent returns. In the year 1821 the population was 37,117; in 1851 it was just over 100,000; in 1871 it was 174,412; in 1881, 208,122; in 1891, 255,896, of whom about 71 per cent. are Protestants. It thus is as large as were the largest English or Scotch manufacturing towns beyond London, when, in 1848, Macanlay wrote his celebrated third chapter. The area of the borough is 6805 acres; there are 1547 streets; and the number of buildings rose from 18,375 in 1861 to 48,514 at the beginning of 1887. The average number of persons in each house is 5½. The valuation of the borough, which in 1851 was £182,854, in 1886 was £647,114; thus in thirty-five years it had been more than trebled. Since 1867, £65,000 has been spent on the construction of arterial district sewage; and in 1887 a Belfast Main Drainage Act was passed for the purpose of extending, at an expenditure of £300,000, main-trunk and intercepting sewers for collecting all the sewage of the borough, and discharging it into the sea at a great distance from the town. Almost to the close of the parliamentary session of 1887, Belfast was under a very high municipal franchise; but at the time of the passing of the Main Drainage Bill, this franchise was reduced professedly to household suffrage; still, it is practically a £4, 5s. rating franchise. Simultaneously with the improvements in the town, the Harbour Commissioners have been engaged in greatly improving the quays and the harbour. With this object they had already expended £500,000 when, under an Act of 1883, they obtained power authorising an additional expenditure of about a million of money more. Donegal Quay, devoted to the cross-channel steamboat service, is now a handsome and substantial structure, and there are other quays of similar construction. The returns give a very incomplete estimate of the foreign trade (in 1896, 400 ships of 349,470 tons entered, and 180 of 176,577 cleared), which is for the most part conducted through Glasgow and Liverpool, and is estimated at upwards of twenty millions. The total tonnage of Belfast, which in 1863 was nearly 1,000,000 tons, by 1896 had very nearly doubled itself. The revenue collected in 1886 amounted to £1,658,516, an amount then exceeded only by two ports in the United Kingdom; at present it amounts to £2,500,000 per annum. The valuation has since 1890 surpassed that of Dublin—as does the Belfast population that within the municipality of Dublin. The linen trade, though such a very important one to Belfast, is far from being the sole one. Other industries have since 1855 been developing all round. Among the most remarkable is the shipbuilding trade, of which the firm of Harland and Wolff is the most prominent representative, though other establishments are, according to their means, equally prosperous. Rope manufactures, and the manufacture of aerated waters, as well as several other businesses, including a very large whisky trade, add greatly to the prosperity of the town. At intervals, as in July 1880 and in June 1886, there have been serious riots between the lowest classes of the Protestant and Catholic population, in close proximity to each other. But Belfast is a town of great energy, steadily growing, even under adverse circumstances; handsome and picturesque beyond most large manufacturing towns. In 1888 it received the rank of a city.
See Benn, History of Belfast to the End of the 18th Century (1877); Young, Historical Notices of Old Belfast (1896); and the present writer's Ulster as it Is (1896).