Fun Birmingham Facts

Did You Know?

• With a population of 229,800 (2007), Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama.
• The University of Alabama at Birmingham's University Hospital is the world's top kidney transplant center.
• The Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), the global Catholic television giant, is headquartered and broadcasts from its studios in Birmingham to millions of viewers around the world.
• Alabama ranks No. 3 in the United States in most runners per capita.
• Birmingham's Ruffner Mountain is larger than New York City's Central Park and a five-minute drive from downtown. It is the second largest urban nature preserve in the country.
• Only New York City has more of the top 50 banks headquartered in the city.
• Birmingham is the only place in the world where all the ingredients for making iron are present: coal, iron ore and limestone—all within a 10-mile radius.
• Begun in 1975, Birmingham's annual Miss Apollo Pageant is now the second oldest continuously running drag queen pageant in the country.
• Birmingham's role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s placed it "at the center of the most significant domestic drama of the 20th century..."

Source: http://www.birminghamal.org/about-birminghamfacts.html