Bournemouth is a coastal resort
town on the south coast of England. At the 2011 census, the town had a
population of 183,491. With Poole to the west and Christchurch in the
east, Bournemouth is part of the South East Dorset conurbation, which
has a population of 465,000.
Before it was founded in 1810 by Lewis Tregonwell, the area was a
deserted heathland occasionally visited by fishermen and smugglers.
Initially marketed as a health resort, the town received a boost when it
appeared in Augustus Granville's 1841 book, The Spas of England.
Bournemouth's growth accelerated with the arrival of the railway, and it
became a town in 1870. Part of the historic county of Hampshire,
Bournemouth joined Dorset for administrative purposes following the
reorganisation of local government in 1974. Through local government
changes in 1997, the town began to be administered by a unitary
authority independent of Dorset County Council, although it remains part
of that ceremonial county. Since April 2019 the unitary authority has
been merged with that of Poole, as well as the non-metropolitan district
of Christchurch to create the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole
unitary authority (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bournemouth).
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