Medway

City in England Medway is a city and conurbation in Kent, South East England. It had a population of 278,016 in 2019. The unitary authority was formed in 1998 when Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with the Borough of Gillingham to form Medway Towns. It is a unitary authority area run by Medway Council, independent of Kent County Council but remains part of the ceremonial county of Kent. Medway is one of the boroughs included in the Thames Gateway development scheme. It is also the home of Universities at Medway, a tri-partite collaboration of the University of Greenwich, the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University on a single campus in Chatham, together with the University for the Creative Arts, which will have a campus in Rochester until its closure in September 2023, when it will be replaced by Medway School of Arts. Geography Because of its strategic location by the major crossing of the River Medway, the borough has made a wide and significant contribution to Kent, and to England, dating back thousands of years, as evident in the siting of Watling Street by the Romans and by the Norman Rochester Castle, Rochester Cathedral (the second oldest in Britain) and the Chatham naval dockyard and its associated defences.