Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and, fully named as Dundee City, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. It lies on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea.
Dundee and the surrounding area has been continuously occupied since the Mesolithic. The port developed initially on the back of the wool trade exporting wool from the Angus hinterland. Once it was cheaper to produce linen, which had supplanted the wool trade and was itself under pressure from cotton abroad, the weavers turned their skills to weaving imported jute. The weaving industry caused the city to grow rapidly with many migrant workers though the town contained very few stone buildings prior to 1860. In this period, Dundee also gained a reputation for its marmalade industry and its journalism, giving Dundee its epithet as the city of "jam, jute and journalism". In 2006, the population of Dundee City was estimated to be 142,200. Dundee's recorded population reached a peak of 182,204 in the 1971 census, but has since declined due to outward migration.
Today, Dundee is promoted as the City of Discovery, in honour of Dundee's history of scientific activities and of the RRS Discovery, Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic exploration vessel, which was built in Dundee and is now berthed in the city harbour. Biomedical and technological industries have arrived since the 1980s, and the city now accounts for 10% of the United Kingdom's digital-entertainment industry. Dundee has two universities—the University of Abertay Dundee and the University of Dundee.
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