Salisbury

Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder, and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the south-east of Wiltshire, near the edge of Salisbury Plain. An ancient cathedral was north of the present city at Old Sarum. A new cathedral was built near the meeting of the rivers and a settlement grew up around it, which received a city charter in 1227 as . This continued to be its official name until 2009, when Salisbury City Council was established. Salisbury railway station is an interchange between the West of England Main Line and the Wessex Main Line. Stonehenge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is north-west of Salisbury. Toponymy The name Salisbury, which is first recorded around the year 900 as Searoburg (dative Searobyrig), is a partial translation of the Roman Celtic name Sorbiodūnum. The Brittonic suffix -dūnon, meaning "fortress" (in reference to the fort that stood at Old Sarum), was replaced by its Old English equivalent -burg. The first part of the name is of obscure origin. The form "Sarum" is a Latinization of Sar, a medieval abbreviation for Middle English Sarisberie.