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In the sentence below, can I change which to where?

We often go to visit our friends in Bristol, which is not very far away.

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    What does your research into the possibilities show?
    – Helmar
    Aug 5, 2016 at 7:01
  • No, they are not interchangeable in your example. Note that you can say "We often visit Bristol, where we have friends".
    – BillJ
    Aug 5, 2016 at 8:02
  • The it should not be there anyway. Bristol, which is not far away. is correct, *Bristol, where (it) is not far away makes little sense.
    – oerkelens
    Aug 5, 2016 at 9:09
  • which is a relative pronoun. where is a relative adverb. You will find more information about relative adverbs here. learningenglish.voanews.com/a/everyday-grammar-relative-adverbs/…
    – JavaLatte
    Aug 6, 2016 at 9:26
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    @JavaLatte Where is not an adverb. It's a preposition.
    – Araucaria - Not here any more.
    Nov 2, 2016 at 13:54

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We often go to visit our friends in Bristol, which is not very far away.

Can I change which to where? No, here we can't change.

We often go to visit our friends in Bristol, which is not very far away.

This sentence means that we often go to visit our friends in Bristol, and Bristol is not very far away.

The relativizer - where - doesn't function like the way relativizer - which - functions. Consider the following sentence -

We often go to visit Bristol, where our friends live.

we often go to visit Bristol. and our friends lives [in Bristol]. You see where replaces that in along with the antecedent Bristol. But if we had to use which in place of where we would have had to retain that in in our sentence to make it grammatical.

We often go to visit Bristol, which our friends live in.

or

We often go to visit Bristol, in which our friends live.

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I don't think you can use where. If you were to use "where", you should change the sentence structure. Maybe like this: We often go to visit our friends' house in Bristol, which is not very far away.

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    Your suggested change doesn't use "where" nor is it possible with yours to use where in place of which
    – eques
    Nov 2, 2016 at 16:13

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