City of Nottingham

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Region: East Midlands
Country: England

§ This page provides an overview of an officially designated city in the UK, bringing together various information to help you better understand this city.

Nottingham was granted city status in 1897 and this was confirmed in 1974; evolving from an Anglo-Saxon settlement to a lace and cycle-making hub with a strong university presence, it became a unitary authority in 1998; recent governance developments include the creation in 2024 of the East Midlands Combined County Authority with a directly elected mayor, alongside financial intervention after the council issued a Section 114 notice in November 2023 and government appointed commissioners in 2024 to oversee improvement.

City Council Status

Nottingham City Council is a unitary authority (since 1998) responsible for all principal services; Nottingham’s city status was granted in 1897.

Civic Honours: Lord Mayors & Lord Provost

Nottingham’s mayoralty was raised to a Lord Mayoralty on 10 July 1928.

In the UK, city status and the dignity of Lord Mayor (or Lord Provost in Scotland) are separate honours, each granted by the monarch via letters patent. Of the 76 cities, 28 have a Lord Mayoralty and 4—Scotland’s four cities—have a Lord Provost; these titles don’t automatically follow from city status. A Lord Mayoralty exists in 24 cities in England, 2 in Wales, and 2 in Northern Ireland.

Only 24 cities in England have Lord Mayors: Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Canterbury, Chester, Coventry, Exeter, Kingston-upon-Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, the City of London, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Sheffield, Southampton, Stoke-on-Trent, the City of Westminster, and York.

In the UK, a city is not defined by size or population but by formal status granted by the monarch, often through historical charters or, more recently, civic honours competitions. There are 76 officially recognised cities, some of which are relatively small compared to other urban areas. In contrast, local authority districts (361 in total) are administrative areas created for local government purposes and may include a mix of urban centres, suburbs, and rural communities. Within districts, there may be one or more towns, which generally refer to sizeable urban settlements but do not hold city status unless it has been formally granted. In practice, a city can exist within a district, and a district can cover multiple towns, showing the clear distinction between legal status, administrative boundaries, and everyday usage.

Cities in East Midlands