It is first recorded in Latinised form in the early ninth century as Legorensis civitatis and in Old English itself in an Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 924 as Ligera ceastre (and, in various spellings, frequently thereafter).

[16] Based on the Welsh name (given as Kaerleir), Geoffrey of Monmouth proposed a king Leir of Britain as an eponymous founder in his Historia Regum Britanniae (12th century).

It remains unclear whether the Romans fortified and garrisoned the location, but it slowly developed from around the year 50 onwards as the tribal capital of the Corieltauvians under the name Ratae Corieltauvorum.

However, in September 2012, an archaeological investigation of the car park revealed a skeleton[36] which DNA testing helped verify to be related to two descendants of Richard III's sister.

After the Union of the Crowns, Anne of Denmark, Prince Henry, and Princess Elizabeth travelled to Leicester on 24 June 1603, after the courtier and usher Thomas Conway was assured that the town was free from infection or plague.

In 1645, King Charles I of England and Prince Rupert decided to attack the (then) town to draw the New Model Army away from the Royalist (colloquially called Cavaliers) headquarters of Oxford.

It also benefited from general acceptance (and the Public Health Acts )[citation needed] that municipal organisations had a responsibility to provide for the town's water supply, drainage, and sanitation.

In 1900, the Great Central Railway provided another link to London, but the rapid population growth of the previous decades had already begun to slow by the time of Queen Victoria's death in 1901.

Recruitment to the armed forces was lower in Leicester than in other English cities, partly because of the low level of unemployment and the need for many of its industries, such as clothing and footwear manufacturing, to supply the army.

Leicester's diversified economic base and lack of dependence on primary industries meant it was much better placed than many other cities to weather the tariff wars of the 1920s and Great Depression of the 1930s.

[55] By the 1990s, as well, Leicester's central position and good transport links had established it as a distribution centre; the southwestern area of the city has also attracted new service and manufacturing businesses.

The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) had estimated that by 2011 Leicester would have approximately a 50% ethnic minority population, making it the first city in Britain not to have a white British majority.

However, Professor Ludi Simpson at the University of Manchester School of Social Sciences said in September 2007 that the CRE had "made unsubstantiated claims and ignored government statistics" and that Leicester's immigrant and minority communities disperse to other places.

Leicester has been particularly badly affected in the United Kingdom; from July 2020 during the imposition of the first local lockdown which saw all non-essential retail closed again and businesses such as public houses, restaurants and hairdressers unable to reopen.

The nearest official Weather Station was Newtown Linford, about 5 miles (8.0 km) northwest of Leicester city centre and just outside the edge of the urban area.

[91] In the 2019 local elections, the Labour Party gained the sole Conservative held ward of Knighton leaving Nigel Porter of the Liberal Democrats as the only opposition member on the city council.

[94][95][96] The conservative group was further reduced in June 2024 when councillor Nagarjun "Nags" Agath quit the party to stand as an independent candidate in Leicester East in the 2024 United Kingdom general election.

[104]Certain European languages such as Polish will undoubtedly feature in current statistics, although their prevalence may reduce subsequently as future generations rapidly assimilate or return to places of origin, given cultural and geographic proximity and changes in the geo-political environment.

Moreover, in recent years the higher transport prices and longer lead-times associated with globalised production in Asia mean some textile manufacturers are locating to the city.

HMRC has made just 36 visits checking on compliance with minimum wage legislation; it has issued penalties to fewer than 10 textile firms and claimed just over £100,000 in arrears relating to 143 workers.

He aimed to make sure that Leicester had the highest standards of employment; that workers are properly paid, well trained and work in safe environments,[114] In 2020 the HSE was alerted to COVID-19 non-compliance, made inspections and gave advice.

Highcross Leicester opened in 2008 after work to redevelop "The Shires Centre" was completed at a cost of £350 million (creating 120 stores, 15 restaurants, a cinema, 110,000 m2 of shopping space).

The Golden Mile is the name given to a stretch of Belgrave Road renowned for its authentic Indian restaurants, sari shops, and jewellers; the Diwali celebrations in Leicester are focused on this area and are the largest outside the sub-continent.

The scheme was a joint venture between Leicester City Council, the operator Ride On, Enzen Global as delivery partner and additional funding provided through sponsorship with Santander.

[137] From the mid 17th century Leicester became a noted centre for Protestant Nonconformity and many sects constructed places of worship in the city including the Baptists, the Congregationalists, the Quakers, the Methodists, and the Unitarians.

[citation needed] Places of worship include: Holy Cross Priory (Roman Catholic), Shree Jalaram Prarthana Mandal (Hindu temple),[142] the Stake Centre of the LDS Church's Stake,[citation needed] four Christadelphian meeting halls,[143] Jain Centre,[144] Leicester Cathedral, Leicester Central Mosque,[145] Masjid Umar[146] (Mosque),[147] Guru Nanak Gurdwara (Sikh), Neve Shalom Synagogue (Progressive Jewish).

After a period of years spent working in Oxford and London, Mole returns to Leicester and gets a job in a second-hand bookshop and a flat in an "upmarket" development on a swan-infested waterfront, which is a barely disguised representation of the area near to St. Nicholas Circle.

The Clarendon Park and New Walk areas of the city, along with an unnamed Charnwood village ("vaguely based upon Cossington", according to the author) are some of the settings of the 2014 novel The Knot of Isis by Chrid McGordon.

Leicester is the setting for the British children book series, The Sleepover Club, by authors Rose Impey, Narinder Dhami, Lorna Read, Fiona Cummings, Louis Catt, Sue Mongredien, Angie Bates, Ginny Deals, Harriet Castor and Jana Novotny Hunter.

[159][160][161] Leicester Tigers have been the most successful English rugby union football club since the introduction of a league in 1987, winning it a record eleven times, five more than either Bath or Wasps.