Paisley
Paisley (Scottish Gaelic: Pàislig) is a town and former
burgh in the west-Central Lowlands of Scotland. It is
situated on the northern edge of the Gleniffer Braes,
straddling the banks of the River Cart. Paisley is the
administrative capital of the Renfrewshire council area,
and forms a continuous urban area with Greater Glasgow,
Glasgow City Centre being 6.9 miles (11.1 km) to the
east. Paisley was once reckoned to have been the site
of the Roman fortification of Vanduara (or Vandogara)
chronicled by Ptolemy. The identification of the site
of modern Paisley with this fort is based principally
on the similarity of the name of the station to the
Brythonic Gwen-dwr ("white water"), which was inferred
to have been the name at that time of the White Cart
Water. In the 12th century, a priory was founded at
Paisley around which a settlement soon grew. Within
a hundred years of its foundation the priory had achieved
the status of an Abbey. The town became famous during
the 18th and 19th centuries for the production of cloth,
especially cotton with the distinctive Paisley Pattern.
Paisley is the largest town in Scotland. Whilst smaller
than Scotland's major cities, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen,
and Dundee, it forms the fifth-largest settlement in
the country, having a greater population than Inverness
or Stirling, which both have city status. Paisley forms
much of the south-western part of the Greater Glasgow
conurbation.
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