Leeds is a major city in West Yorkshire, England. It is located on the River Aire and is the urban core of the City of Leeds metropolitan borough.
According to the 2001 UK census the Leeds Urban Area had a population of 443,247 while the metropolitan borough, City of Leeds had a population of 726,939 and is one of England's core cities.
Leeds was recently voted Britain's Best City for Business by Omis Research. It is also regarded as the fastest growing city in the UK[2]and has a diverse economy with the service sector now dominating over the city's manufacturing industries. Leeds is the largest financial centre outside the capital. New tertiary industries such as retail, call centres, offices and media have contributed to a high rate of economic growth since the early 1990s. Nearly 100,000 people work in financial and business services - about a quarter of the workforce. The strength of the economy is also indicated by the low unemployment rate.
Growth sectors in financial & business services: banking, labour recruitment*, commercial cleaning, legal services, insurance, pension funds, computing*, architecture and civil engineering, real estate, investigation & security, accountancy, equipment leasing, consultancy & market research*, advertising, and R&D*.
Some of the faster growing sub-sectors during the 1990s marked *.
The rail network is still of great importance. From Leeds railway station MetroTrains operated by Northern Rail operate to all parts of West Yorkshire and surrounding local and commuter locations and other operators including GNER, Virgin Cross Country, Midland Mainline and TransPennine Express operate services to the rest of the country.
Leeds has two railway lines offering direct services to London. The principal route is along the East Coast Main Line which operates at least once per hour and is planned to become half-hourly through the day. Midland Mainline offers an alternative route via Leicester along the Midland Main Line to London St Pancras soon to be the home of Eurostar international services. The Midland Mainline service operates principally because the train operators fleet of diesel high speed trains (HST's) is based at Neville Hill maintenance depot in Leeds. There are three trains per day in each direction.
The city had plans for a tram network. However the government axed the scheme due to an unwillingness to pay for any costs over budget, and the Department for Transport's apparent preference of a bus-based rapid transport scheme to a tram-based scheme.[3][4] Leeds remains the largest city in the European Union without a mass transit system.[citation needed]
Leeds is the focus of the A58, A61, A62, A63, A64 and A65 roads. Nowadays, with the M1 and M62 intersecting just to its south and the A1(M) passing just to its east, it is one of the principal hubs of the northern motorway network. The city centre is pedestrianised, and is encircled by the clockwise-only 'loop road'.
Leeds Bradford International Airport is located to the north-west of the city and has scheduled flights to destinations within Europe plus Egypt and Turkey.
On 30th January 2006, a zero-fare bus service (the FreeCityBus) started running in the centre of Leeds.
