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Belfast (from the Irish: Béal Feirste meaning "Sandy ford at river mouth")[Placenames/Logainmneacha: Belfast. BBC Northern Ireland - Education. BBC. Retrieved on 2007-05-17.] is the capital of Northern Ireland.[Northern Ireland. MSN Encarta - Northern Ireland. Microsoft. Retrieved on 2007-10-29.] It is the largest urban area in Northern Ireland and the province of Ulster and the second-largest city on the island of Ireland. In the 2001 census, the population within the city limits (the Belfast Urban Area) was 276,459,[Comparative Demography Profile: Belfast District Council, Northern Ireland. 2001 census data (Crown Copyright). Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency (2001). Retrieved on 2007-05-17.] while 579,554 people lived in the wider Belfast Metropolitan Area.[Area Profile of Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area (BMUA). 2001 Census data. Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency (2001). Retrieved on 2007-05-16.] This made it the fifteenth-largest city in the United Kingdom, but the eleventh-largest conurbation.[Pointer, Graham. The UK's major urban areas (PDF). UK National Statistics. Retrieved on 2007-12-07.]
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