Capital of the North

The City of Manchester metropolitan borough has a population of 441,200. Manchester lies at the centre of the wider Greater Manchester Urban Area which has a population of 2,240,230, the United Kingdom's third largest conurbation.

Manchester Brief History

The original Manchester was an old town which has been inhabited since Roman times, when General Julius Agricola built a fort just north of the site of present day city, though it was not until the 18th century that this hitherto remote and inconspicuous little medieval township sprang into the forefront of world attention, and not until the mid-19th century that it became a city. Actually, it was the neighbouring City of Salford that dominated the region, and the Salford Hundred covered all lands between the River Ribble to the north and the Mersey to the south, and to this day the sovereign still bears the title of Lord of the Manor of Salford. Not until the 19th century, after many protests and petitions to parliament, notably by the Chartists, did Manchester gain the status of a city.

Greater Manchester 

In the 1970s, Greater Manchester was born - a still controversial grouping of 8 boroughs and 2 cities, which were subsumed into one large administrative connurbation, the Metropolian County of Greater Manchester. Two of these, Tameside and Trafford, were newly created (again, quite controversially) for the purpose, while other former County Boroughs like Bury, Oldham and Rochdale (in Lancashire) and Stockport (in Cheshire) lost their administrative independence to a large degree to the new Metropolitan County.

Architecture 

Manchester has a wide variety of buildings, ranging from Victorian architecture to modern. Much of the architecture in the city harks back to its days as a global centre for the cotton trade. Manchester also has a number of skyscrapers mostly built during the 1960s and 1970s, although recently there has been a renewed interest in building more. Beetham Tower, completed in 2006, includes a Hilton hotel, a restaurant, and residences. It is currently the tallest building in the UK outside London. An even taller building, the Piccadilly Tower, is scheduled to commence construction in 2007 behind Manchester Piccadilly station. 

Literature and Arts

In the 19th century, Manchester figured in novels that discussed the changes that industrialisation had brought to Britain. These included works such as Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life (1848) by Elizabeth Gaskell, and The Condition of the English Working Class in 1844, written by Friedrich Engels while living and working in Manchester. Charles Dickens is reputed to have set his novel Hard Times in the city, and while it is partly modelled on Preston, it shows the influence of his friend Elizabeth Gaskell.

Larger venues include the Manchester Opera House, featuring large scale touring shows and West End shows, the Palace Theatre, the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester's former cotton exchange, and the Lowry Centre, a touring venue in Salford. Smaller sites include the Library Theatre, a producing theatre in the basement of the central library, the Green Room, the Contact Theatre, and Studio Salford. The Dancehouse is dedicated to dance productions.

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