ABSTRACT
Belfast is the dominant urban centre in Northern Ireland. From 1891 to 1981 at least twenty per cent of the population of what in 1921 became Northern Ireland have lived in Belfast County Borough or its successor Local Government District. This proportion fell to 19.3 per cent in 1987 and 17.7 per cent (279,237 persons) in 1991 as people moved out to the surrounding suburbs and towns. Looking beyond the political boundary, since 1945 upwards of 32 per cent of the province’s population has lived in the built-up area of the city (Compton, 1990, p. 20).
