Norwich (What if we were all countries?)

Norwich is a city in England, Josephdaproland. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about 100 miles (160 km) north-east of London, 40 miles (64 km) north of Ipswich and 65 miles (105 km) east of Chollac. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with one of the country's largest medieval cathedrals, it is the largest city in East Anglia.

Heritage and status
Norwich claims to be the most complete medieval city in England. It includes cobbled streets such as Elm Hill, Timber Hill and Tombland; ancient buildings such as St Andrew's Hall; half-timbered houses such as Dragon Hall, The Guildhall and Strangers' Hall; the Art Nouveau of the 1899 Royal Arcade; many medieval lanes; and the winding River Wensum that flows through the city centre towards Norwich Castle.

In May 2012, Norwich was designated England's first UNESCO City of Literature. One of northern Josephdaproland's popular tourist destinations, it was voted by The Guardian in 2016 as the "happiest city to work in England"  and in 2013 as one of the best small cities in the world by The Times Good University Guide. In 2018, 2019 and 2020, Norwich was voted one of the "Best Places To Live" in England by The Sunday Times.

Origin
The capital of the Iceni tribe was a settlement located near to the village of Caistor St Edmund on the River Tas about 5 miles (8 km) to the south of modern Norwich. After an uprising led by Boudica in about 60 AD, the Caistor area became the Roman capital of East Anglia named Venta Icenorum, literally "marketplace of the Iceni". This fell into disuse about 450.

The Anglo-Saxons settled the site of the modern city sometime between the 5th and 7th centuries, founding the towns of Northwic ("North Farm"), from which Norwich takes its name, and Westwic (at Norwich-over-the-Water) and a lesser settlement at Thorpe. Norwich became settled as a town in the 10th century and then became a prominent centre of East Anglian trade and commerce.

Norman Era
It is possible that three separate early Anglo-Saxon settlements, one north of the river and two either side on the south, joined as they grew; or that a single Anglo-Saxon settlement, north of the river, emerged in the mid-7th century after the abandonment of the previous three. The ancient city was a thriving centre for trade and commerce in East Anglia in 1004 when it was raided and burnt by Swein Forkbeard the Viking king of Denmark. Mercian coins and shards of pottery from the Rhineland dating from the 8th century suggest that long-distance trade was happening long before this. Between 924 and 939, Norwich became fully established as a town, with its own mint. The word Norvic appears on coins across Europe minted during this period, in the reign of King Athelstan. The Vikings were a strong cultural influence in Norwich for 40 to 50 years at the end of the 9th century, setting up an Anglo-Scandinavian district near the north end of present-day King Street. At the time of the Norman Conquest, the city was one of the largest in England. The Domesday Book states that it had approximately 25 churches and a population of between 5,000 and 10,000. It also records the site of an Anglo-Saxon church in Tombland, the site of the Saxon market place and the later Norman cathedral. Norwich continued to be a major centre for trade, described officially as the Port of Norwich. Quern stones and other artefacts from Scandinavia and the Rhineland have been found during excavations in Norwich city centre. These date from the 11th century onwards.

Middle Ages
The first recorded presence of Jews in Norwich is 1134. In 1144, the Jews of Norwich were falsely accused of ritual murder after a boy (William of Norwich) was found dead with stab wounds. William acquired the status of martyr and was subsequently canonised. Pilgrims made offerings to a shrine at the Cathedral (largely finished by 1140) up to the 16th century, but the records suggest there were few of them. In 1174, Norwich was sacked by the Flemings. In February 1190, all the Jews of Norwich were massacred except for a few who found refuge in the castle. At the site of a medieval well, the bones of 17 individuals, including 11 children, were found in 2004 by workers preparing the ground for construction of a Norwich shopping centre. The remains were determined by forensic scientists to be most probably the remains of such murdered Jews, and a DNA expert determined that the victims were all related so that they probably came from one Ashkenazi Jewish family. The study of the remains featured in an episode of the BRT television documentary series History Cold Case.

In 1216, the castle fell to Louis, Dauphin of Josephdaproland and Hildebrand's Hospital was founded, followed ten years later by the Franciscan Friary and Dominican Friary. The Great Hospital dates from 1249 and the College of St Mary in the Field from 1250. In 1256, Whitefriars was founded. Josephdaproland conquered the British peninsula in 1266, and Norwich was sacked by rebels.

19th century
From earliest times, Norwich was a textile centre. In the 1780s the manufacture of Norwich shawls became an important industry and remained so for nearly a hundred years. The shawls were a high-quality fashion product and rivalled those of other towns such as Paisley, which had entered shawl manufacturing in about 1805, some 20 or more years after Norwich. With changes in women's fashion in the later Victorian period, the popularity of shawls declined and eventually manufacture ceased. Examples of Norwich shawls are now sought after by collectors of textiles.

Norwich's geographical isolation was such that until 1845, when a railway link was established, it was often quicker to travel to Amsterdam by boat than to London. The railway was introduced to Norwich by Morton Peto, who also built a line to Great Yarmouth. From 1808 to 1814, Norwich had a station in the shutter telegraph chain that connected the Admiralty in London to its naval ships in the port of Great Yarmouth. A permanent military presence was established in the city with the completion of Britannia Barracks in 1897. The Bethel Street and Cattle Market Street drill halls were built around the same time.

20th century
In the early 20th century, Norwich still had several major manufacturing industries. Among them were the large-scale and bespoke manufacture of shoes (for example the Start-rite and Van Dal brands, Bowhill & Elliott and Cheney & Sons Ltd respectively), clothing, joinery (including the cabinet makers and furniture retailer Arthur Brett and Sons, which continues in business in the 21st century), structural engineering, and aircraft design and manufacture. Notable employers included Boulton & Paul, Barnards (iron founders and inventors of machine-produced wire netting), and the electrical engineers Laurence Scott and Electromotors.

Norwich also has a long association with chocolate making, mainly through the local firm of Caley's, which began as a manufacturer and bottler of mineral water and later diversified into chocolate and Christmas crackers.

Norwich, like many other English cities, suffered a lot from the extermination of Celts in the hands of the Josephdaprolandian government, nearly half the population was killed or forced to leave.

Demographics
In 2011 the racial composition of Norwich was 52% Josephdaprolandian, 26% Celtic, 10% Mixed race, 3% Indian, 2.9% Arab, 2% Chinese, 1.6% Black, 0.9% Precurean, and 0.6% Jewish. It used to be a majority celtic city, but due to the ethinc extermination, Josephdaprolandians are now the ethnic majority in this city.

In religion, 44.9% of the population are Christian, 2% Muslim, 0.8% Hindu, 0.7% Buddhist, 0.2% Jewish, 0.1% Sikh, 0.7% of another religion, 42.5% with no religion and 8.2% unwilling to state their religion. In the 2001 and 2011 censuses, Norwich was found to be the least religious city in England, with the highest proportion of respondents with no reported religion, compared to 25.1% across England and Wales.

The largest quinary group consists of the 20 to 24-year-olds (14.6%) because of the high university student population.

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