Greater Bristol is a term used for the conurbation which contains and surrounds the city of Bristol in the South West of England. There is no official "Greater Bristol" authority, but the term is sometimes used by local, regional and national authorities, and others as a synonym for either the "Bristol Urban Area" or the wider area of the former County of Avon. The Bristol post town covers a wider area than the city of Bristol.

One definition of "Greater Bristol" is the "Bristol Urban Area" as defined by the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS). This covers the contiguous built-up area around Bristol, including the Kingswood, Mangotsfield, Stoke Gifford, Bradley Stoke, Patchway, Filton, Almondsbury, Frampton Cotterell and Winterbourne areas within South Gloucestershire; Easton-in-Gordano within North Somerset; and part of Whitchurch which falls within the administrative area of Bath and North East Somerset. However, this ONS definition does not include the city of Bath, Weston-super-Mare, or even small towns closer to Bristol such as Yate, Keynsham or Portishead.

Bristol ⁱ/ˈbrɪstəl/ is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007. It is England's sixth and the United Kingdom's eighth most populous city, one of the group of English Core Cities and the most populous city in South West England.

Historically within Gloucestershire, the city received a Royal Charter in 1155 and was granted County status in 1373. From the 13th century, for half a millennium, it ranked amongst the top three English cities after London, alongside York and Norwich, on the basis of tax receipts, until the rapid rise of Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester during the Industrial Revolution in the latter part of the 18th century. It borders the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire, and is also located near the historic cities of Bath to the south east and Gloucester to the north. The city is built around the River Avon, and it also has a short coastline on the Severn Estuary, which flows into the Bristol Channel.

Dawn Primarolo (born 2 May 1954) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bristol South since 1987. She was Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families at the Department for Children, Schools and Families from June 2009 to May 2010 and has been a Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons since 2010. In November 2011 she announced her intention to stand down from Parliament at the next general election.

Primarolo was educated at Thomas Bennett comprehensive school in Crawley, before continuing her education at the Bristol Polytechnic and the University of Bristol, gaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Science.

Primarolo joined the Labour Party in 1973 and was first elected to Parliament at the 1987 general election, after the constituency party de-selected Michael Cocks, the sitting MP.

At the time of her election, she was regarded as a hard left-winger and is still often referred to by the media as "Red Dawn", but became a New Labour loyalist and "absolutely loyal to New Labour", leading Andrew Roth of The Guardian newspaper to say she has "changed from 'Red Dawn' to 'Rosy Pink'"; as part of this change, she has moved from support of CND, the rise of which originally encouraged her into politics, to voting for the renewal of Britain's Trident nuclear defence. She also unsuccessfully lobbied the Soviet government of Mikhail Gorbachev to rehabilitate Leon Trotsky. She is a former member of Avon County Council.