Book Hotel Aberdeen

Aberdeen is Scotland's third largest city with a population of 202,370. Locals call it the Granite City and the Silver City with the Golden Sands, since much of the city was built of grey granite, which the loyal locals see as shimmering like silver in the sun.. It is also called the Oil Capital of Europe after the discovery of North Sea oil.

The area around Aberdeen has had human settlement for at least 8,000 years, when small villages lay around the mouths of the River Dee and River Don. The city's name came from the celtic 'Aber' meaning "the mouth of" and the river name Dee, literally meaning at the mouth of the Dee. Old Aberdeen, to the north of the modern city, and on the river Don was formerly known as "Aberdon".

In 1319, it received Royal Burgh status from Robert the Bruce, transforming the city economically. The city's two universities, University of Aberdeen, founded in 1495, and the Robert Gordon University, which was awarded university status in 1992, make Aberdeen the educational centre of the north-east. The traditional industries were fishing, paper-making, shipbuilding and textiles, but they have been overtaken by the oil industry and Aberdeen's seaport, the largest in the northeast of Scotland.

Traditionally Aberdeen was home to fishing, textile mills, ship building and paper making. These industries have all but gone now and have been replaced with high technology developments in the electronics design and development industry, research in agriculture and fishing and of course the oil industry which has been largely responsible for Aberdeen's economic boom in the last three decades.

Aberdeen has managed to avoid the dilapidation of city centres as often seen in the late 20th century, with only supermarkets and "warehouse" style stores in the outlying areas of the city. The city ranks fourth in Scotland for shopping. The centre has remained relatively prosperous, although Union Street has more than its fair share of discount stores and empty units. The traditional shopping streets are Union Street and George Street which are now backed up by inner-city shopping centres, notably the Bon Accord-St Nicholas Centre and the The Mall Trinity.

Welcome to Book Hotels in Aberdeen