Swindon (pop. 233,410) is a large town in southern England. In 1997, it became a unitary authority, the primary form of local government in the United Kingdom. It is an industrial and commercial center, producing electronic equipment, food products, motor vehicle parts, pharmaceuticals, and plastics. Swindon has a pedestrian shopping area, a sports complex, and a theater.
People have lived in the Swindon area for thousands of years. A Roman settlement was founded nearby in the A.D. 40’s. Germanic Saxon tribes arrived in the area in the A.D. 500’s, and an agricultural community prospered there. The Domesday Book of 1086—a record of property holders in England—refers to the Swindon settlement as Suindune. The town’s name comes from the Saxon words swin and dune, meaning swine and hill. Pigs had long been raised in the area, and they were bought and sold at Swindon markets.
Canals constructed in Wiltshire in the early 1800’s increased trade in the area. In the 1840’s, Swindon became a center for the maintenance and refueling of locomotives for the Great Western Railway. In the 1950’s, the British government named Swindon an “overspill” community intended to receive residents from crowded areas of London. By the mid-1960’s, tens of thousands of Londoners had relocated to new residential developments in Swindon.
