With an approximate population of 400,000, and metropolitan area of 550,000, it is England's sixth, and the United Kingdom's ninth, most populous city, one of England's core cities and the most populous city in South West England. It received a royal charter in 1155 and was granted county status in 1373. For half a millennium it was the second or third largest English city, until the rapid rise of Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham in the Industrial Revolution in the later part of the 18th century. It borders on the unitary districts of Bath and North East Somerset (BANES), North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, between the cities of Bath, Gloucester and Newport, and has a short coastline on the estuary of the River Severn which flows into the Bristol Channel.