BIRMINGHAM, the largest city of Alabama, U.S.A., in the north-central part of the State. It is on Federal highways i i, 31, and 78; and is served by the Atlanta, Birmingham and Coast, the Central of Georgia, the Frisco, the Illinois Central, the Louis ville and Nashville, the Mobile and Ohio, the Seaboard Air Line, and the Southern railways, and by three additional local freight carriers, including the railway of the government-owned Warrior River Terminal Company, connecting (17m. from the switching limits of the city) with its terminal at Birmingport, on the Locust Fork of the Warrior river, from which there is a navigable water route to Mobile. It is the county-seat of Jefferson county, and a port of entry in the Mobile customs district. The population was 178,806 in 1920, of whom 70,230 were negroes, and 6,084 foreign born white, and was 259,678 in 1930 by the Federal census. The metropolitan area, including Bessemer (q.v.), Fairfield (q.v.) and other suburban communities, had a population in 1930 of over 300,000.
Birmingham is the leading industrial city of the South. It has been built entirely since 1870. The city proper lies in a long narrow valley (Jones valley), at an altitude varying from 700 to 1,045f t., and is protected by mountains to the south-east and north-west. Its residential environs spread over the mountain slopes and into the valleys beyond. The main streets are wide (8o–iooft.) and most of the buildings are of modern construc tion. The hotels have over 3,500 guest rooms. Building permits issued during 1920-26 represented values amounting to $9J,000, 000. The assessed valuation of property in 5927 was $209,500,000.
The industrial development of the city is based on immense mineral deposits : coal, including good coking varieties ; limestone and dolomite, used in fluxing steel; iron, approximating 1,700, 000,000 tons of red ore and 27,000,000 tons of brown ore; besides graphite, marble, barytes, bauxite, pyrite, quartz, mill-stone, cement-rock, clays, sand and gravel, and many others in smaller amounts. All the materials needed for making steel are found here in close proximity. Electric energy is supplied from hydro electric and steam-electric plants with an installed capacity of 708,70oh.p., on the Coosa and the Tallapoosa rivers, at Muscle Shoals, and at several other points. Pig iron and steel have always been the leading products ; but other industries have developed until 2,000 different commodities, ranging (alphabetically) from acetic acid to zinc sulphate, are produced by the 700 mills, mines, and factories in the Birmingham district, and their annual output is valued at $650,000,000. The district produced in 5926 about 22,000,000 tons of coal; 4,228,947 tons of coke, most of it in by product ovens yielding vast quantities of coal-tar and supplying the city's mains with gas; 2,933,796 tons of pig-iron; 1,600,00o tons of steel. Other important products are cast-iron pipe; wire, nails, steel cars, rails and stoves; cotton gins and machinery for coal-mines ; brick, cement, lumber and lumber products, cotton seed oil and meal, corn-meal, cotton goods, rubber tyres, chemi cals, and explosives. The products of the factories (321) within the city in 1927 were valued at Birmingham is an important market for soft woods, especially yellow pine, of which it ships 5o,000 cars annually. It is the shopping centre for a population of about a million. Post-office receipts in 1926 were $1,626,599. Debits to individual banking accounts amounted to $1,603,599,000.
The city operates under a commission form of government, adopted in 1911. Its budget for 1926 was $5,576,945- The Health Department has a staff of 116, including 35 nurses. The Board of Education in 1922 made a thorough examination of the public school plant, and mapped out a building programme to relieve immediately the worst conditions due to the city's rapid growth and the small amount of construction for civilian purposes during the World War; to make adequate provision by 193o; and then to provide year by year for a normal increase of population up to 1940. By 5927, i i new buildings had been com pleted. The city's 34 parks have an area of 851 acres; 3o super vised playgrounds are maintained in the summer. There are two municipal golf-courses and six private golf and country clubs; a municipal athletic stadium ; a municipal market ; and a municipal auditorium seating 6,000.
At the base of Red Mountain, on a campus of 75 acres, is Howard college, a co-educational Baptist institution, which was opened at Marion in 1842 as an academy, and moved to Bir mingham in 1887. Its enrolment in 1926-27, exclusive of the summer school, was 987. Birmingham-Southern college, under Methodist auspices, also co-educational, occupies 125 acres on a hill overlooking the entire city and valley, and had an enrolment in 1926-27 of 1,044 in the college proper. It was created in 1918 by the consolidation of Birmingham College, founded in 1897 as the North Alabama conference college, and Southern university, established at Greensboro in 1859.
In 187o the site of Birmingham was a cotton field crossed by two railways. The city was founded in 1871, by a land company backed by railway officials, and was incorporated on Dec. 19. It was named after the city of the same name in England. At the census of 188o the population was 3,086 ; in 1890 it was 26,178; in 1900, 38,415; in 191o, 132,685. Annexations of territory have increased .its area to 53sq. m. Between 190o and 1926 the popula tion multiplied by 6; bank deposits by 13 ; value of property by 14 ; the city's revenue by 16 ; the number of factories and mines in the Birmingham district by 21, the number of their employes by 6, and their corporate investment by 9. The water-mains within the city limits increased from 76m. to 649m. ; sidewalks from 15m. to 468m.; telephones from 1,433 to 36,145; and motor-vehicles from 12 (in 1905) to 39,602, one to every six of the population.