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History
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In the twelfth century, Alexander I noted "Aberdon" as one of his principal towns, and by the thirteenth century it had become a centre for
trade and fishing
, a jumble of timber and wattle houses perched on three small hills, with the castle to the east and St Nicholas's kirk outside the gates to the west.
It was here that Robert the Bruce sought refuge during the Scottish Wars of Independence, leading to the garrison of the castle by Edward I and Balliol's supporters. In a night-time raid in 1306, the townspeople attacked the garrison and killed them all, an event commemorated by the city's motto "Bon Accord", the watchword for the night. A century later Bishop Elphinstane founded the Catholic university in the area north of town known today as Old Aberdeen , while the rest of the city developed as a mercantile centre and important port.
By the mid-twentieth century, Aberdeen's traditional industries were in decline, but the discovery of
oil
in the North Sea transformed the place from a depressed port into a boom town. The oil-borne prosperity may have served to mask the thinness of the region's other wealth creators, but it has nonetheless allowed Aberdeen to hold its own as a cultural and academic centre and as a focus of the northeast's identity into the new century. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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United Kingdom,
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