linguistic:translation
South Belfast

West Belfast is separated from South Belfast, and from the otherwise abutting loyalist districts of Sandy Row and the Donegall Road, by rail lines, the M1 Motorway (to Dublin and the west); industrial and retail parks, and the remnants of the Blackstaff (Owenvarra) bog meadows.

Belfast began stretching up-river in the 1840s and 50s: out the Ormeau and Lisburn roads and, between them, running along a ridge of higher ground, the Malone Road. From "leafy" avenues of increasingly substantial (and in the course of time “mixed") housing, the Upper Malone broadened out into areas of parkland and villas.

Further out still, where they did not survive as public parks, from the 1960s the great-house demesnes of the city's former mill-owners and industrialists, were developed for public housing: loyalist estates such as Seymour Hill and Belvoir. Meanwhile, in Malone and along the river embankments, new houses and apartment blocks have been squeezed in, increasing the general housing density.

Beyond the Queen's University area the area's principal landmarks are the 15-storey tower block of Belfast City Hospital (1986) on the Lisburn Road, and the Lagan Valley Regional Park through which a towpath extends from the City-centre quayside to Lisburn.

Northern Ireland's three permanent diplomatic missions are situated on the Malone Road, the consulates of China, Poland and the United States.