Built at the mouth of two major Scottish rivers, the Dee and the Don, the City owes its distinctive appearance to the famous, locally quarried and widely exported, Granite. Both the Houses of Parliament and Waterloo Bridge in London are built using granite that was quarried in Aberdeen.
Traditional industries such as fishing and farming still fare well in and around the city but Aberdeen's buoyant modern economy and cosmopolitan attitudes are fuelled by the oil industry. All of these aspects combine to give Aberdeen its established Regional, National and International importance.
An exceptionally beautiful city, Aberdeen won the Royal Horticultural Society’s ‘Britain in Bloom’ award for nine years in a row (ten in total)
Aberdeen’s vibrant arts, entertainment and leisure industries are reflected in the city centre’s theatres, galleries and wide retail offering. Despite being one of the UK’s most northerly cities, Aberdeen is far from remote thanks to its excellent transport links. The bus and train stations as well as the ferry terminal are less than one minutes walk from Union Square and less than 5 minutes to Union Street. Aberdeen airport also has direct bus, train and taxi routes to the city centre.