Portsmouth City of Portsmouth Stadium

Portsmouth (/ˈpɔːrtsməθ/ (listen)) is a port city primarily built on Portsea Island in the county of Hampshire, South East England. It is also known colloquially as Pompey, a nickname shared with HMNB Portsmouth and Portsmouth Football Club. It is the United Kingdom's only island city. Portsmouth is situated 70 miles (110 km) south-west of London and 19 miles (31 km) south-east of Southampton. Portsmouth's population was recorded as 205,100 in the 2011 UK Census. The city forms part of the South Hampshire conurbation.

Portsmouth's history can be traced back to Roman Britain. King Richard I first granted Portsmouth market town status on 2 May 1194 with a royal charter and a coat of arms, "a crescent of gold on a shade of azure, with a blazing star of eight points". A significant naval port for centuries, Portsmouth has the world's oldest surviving dry dock still in active use, No.1 Dock which was built by Henry VII in 1495. Portsmouth was England's first line of defence during the 1545 French invasion.

By the early nineteenth century, the world's first mass-production line was set up in Portsmouth Dockyard's Block Mills; this made it the world's most industrialised site, and the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. The Palmerston Forts were built around Portsmouth in 1859 in anticipation of another invasion from continental Europe, then becoming the most heavily-fortified town in the world and was considered "the world's greatest naval port" at the height of the British Empire, during the Pax Britannica.

On 21 April 1926, Portsmouth was elevated from town to city status. Its motto, "Heaven's Light Our Guide" (referring to the city's eight-pointed star and crescent-moon emblem), was registered in 1929.

The city was extensively bombed in World War II's Portsmouth Blitz (which resulted in the deaths of 930 people). Portsmouth was also the pivotal embarkation point for the 6 June 1944 D-Day landings.

In 1982, a large proportion of the task force dispatched to liberate the Falk