York

York

Historic local governance of the city was as a county corporate, not included in the county's riding system. The city has since been locally governed as a municipal borough, county borough, and since 1996, a non-metropolitan district (the City of York), which also includes surrounding villages and rural areas, and the town of Haxby. The current district's local council, City of York Council, is responsible for providing all local services and facilities throughout this area.


Toponymy

York was known to the Romans as Eburacum or Eboracum, a Latinisation of the Brittonic Eburācon. The latter may mean "place of yew trees", from eburos and -āco(n), a suffix meaning "associated with". Eburos is also recorded as a personal name, however, so an alternative etymology would be "property of Eburos". Indeed, the 12th‑century chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth attributed the name to a legendary king named Ebraucus.


Toponymy

By the time of the Anglo-Saxon settlement, the Brittonic name had developed into something like Evorōg (compare modern Welsh Efrog). The Anglo-Saxons associated the first element with the word eofor, meaning "boar", and referred to the city as Eoforwīc (literally "boar town"). This was in turn adapted into Old Norse as Éorvík, which later became Jórvík or simply Jórk. The Norse name was then reborrowed into English as York, a form that first appears in the 13th century. The Old English name survived as Everwyk or Everwich, becoming obsolete after the 15th century.

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