Blackburn
Population: 105085 people
Blackburn i/ˈblækbərn/ is a large town in Lancashire, England. It lies to the north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, 9 miles (14 km) east of Preston, 20.9 miles (34 km) NNW of Manchester[n 1] and 9 miles (14 km) north of the Greater Manchester border. Blackburn is bounded to the south by Darwen, with which it forms the unitary authority of Blackburn with Darwen; Blackburn is its administrative centre. At the time of the UK Government's 2001 census, Blackburn had a population of 105,085, whilst the wider borough of Blackburn with Darwen had a population of 140,700. Blackburn had a population of 106,537 in 2011, a slight increase since 2001. Blackburn is made up of fifteen wards in the Northeast of the surounding borough.
A former mill town, textiles have been produced in Blackburn since the middle of the 13th century, when wool was woven in people's houses in the domestic system. Flemish weavers who settled in the area during the 14th century helped to develop the woollen cottage industry.James Hargreaves, inventor of the spinning jenny, was a weaver in Oswaldtwistle near Blackburn and the most rapid period of growth and development in Blackburn's history coincided with the industrialisation and expansion of textile manufacturing. Blackburn was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution and amongst the first industrialised towns in the world.[citation needed]
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