Bristol has long been an important regional capital, a cultural centre and the biggest city in the West.
But where, exactly, do the people of Bristol feel they are? Where is Bristol?
This might sound like a strange question, given the answer could be 'about 120 miles west of London', or 'on the banks of the River Avon close to the Severn Estuary' or, most accurately and simply: 'here'.
READ MORE: Where the Bristol accent comes from and why everyone else speaks English wrong
But it's a question that different people will have different answers to - depending on where you are, where you're from and how you regard the geography, and more importantly the cultural geography of England and its regions.
Take, for example, Leicester. The city in the east Midlands most famous for its crisps and surprisingly successful football team. Is Leicester north or south?
Recently, a big online poll and map was created with a survey that questioned people right across England about everything from the words they used to the clothes they wore and where they would regard where they are from. And it concluded, with a bit of surprise to those people further down towards London, that people in Leicester are southerners. The north-south line, culturally at least, is north of Leicester.
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But what about Bristol? Obviously the city is in the south of England, but when they talk about the north-south divide, especially when it comes to things like accents and language, the economy, public spending on things like transport, culture and history, the south west is traditionally very different to the south east.
Put simply, when northerners speak about 'southerners' or 'the south', they perhaps don't realise they mean 'London and the south east' - the Home Counties.
The most obvious example of this 'Ignoring of the West', comes when the cultural commentators and sociologists decide that you can tell if someone is from the north or south of England by the way they pronounce words like bath, grass or fast.
If the 'a' sound is short, they are from 'up north'. If the word sounds like it might have an 'r' or an 'h' in it, then the speaker is a southerner.
Of course, down here in the west, there's a third (and correct) way of pronouncing these words, with an 'a' that is sounded fully and properly.
Officially, Bristol is the largest city in the south west region of England. But is it culturally in the south west? Is there a cultural thing called 'the West Country'? Is Bristol part of it?
People in London might well look down the M4 and see Bristol's West Country or South West status, but then again, if you ask the Cornish or the people of Devon where the West Country or South West ends, they might well put a line across the Somerset border.
If the West Country is Devon and Cornwall, with their cream teas and pasties and grockels and tors, then where is Bristol? Are we just a southern city pretending we're different to Reading or Southampton or Oxford of Brighton, because we've got The Wurzels, a rhotic 'R' and lots of cider?
When Leicester people surprisingly revealed themselves to be southerners it emerged through their answers to questions about things like the words they use for bread rolls, what they call certain animals or the difference between 'dinner' and 'tea'.
What sets Bristol into the West Country? Or not into the South West? Is it the fact the city drinks the most cider per head of population? Is it the presence of skittle alleys - still - in lots of pubs? Is it the accent?
Let us know in the comments below what you think.
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