Aberdeen is Scotland's third largest city with an official population of 202,370 which was estimated by the cities council in 2005. Nicknames include the Granite City and the Silver City with the Golden Sands. During the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries Aberdeen's buildings incorporated locally quarried grey granite, whose mica deposits sparkle like silver which is how the names came about. The city has a long sandy coastline. Since the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1970s, other nicknames have been the Oil Capital of Europe or the Energy Capital of Europe.
The city's two universities, the University of Aberdeen, founded in 1495, and the Robert Gordon University, which was awarded university status in 1992. The traditional industries of fishing, paper-making, shipbuilding, and textiles have been overtaken by the oil industry and Aberdeen's seaport. Aberdeen Heliport is one of the busiest commercial heliports in the world and the seaport is the largest in the north-east of Scotland.
Aberdeen has won the Britain in Bloom competition a record breaking ten times and hosts the Aberdeen International Youth Festival.
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