a city in the hundred of Bridge and Petham, in the county of Kent, fifty-five and a half miles from London. It is the metropolitan see of all England. The situation is fine, in a valley surrounded by hills of easy elevation, and watered by the river Stour, whose various branches form between them several islands, on one of which the city has been built. The streets are somewhat narrow, and the houses in general neither large nor modern, except some which have been recently erected in the suburbs. The chief object of attraction is the magnificent cathedral, with a fine choir, an altar-piece designed by Sir James Burroughs, a most remarkable painted window, and the shrine of St Thomas a Becket. It was begun in 1174, and not finished till the reign of Henry V. Under the cathedral is a church for French Protestants, a colony of whom hereafter settled the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and established the silk manufacture, which, though it has declined, still continues, and is the only kind of fabric of the city. The chief trade consists in corn and hops, which are shipped at Whitstable for the London market. Besides the cathedral, there are nine churches. There are two markets weekly, on Wednesday and Saturday. The inhabitants amounted in 1811 to 10,290, in 1821 to 12,745, and in 1831 to 14,463.