Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester
Metropolitan and ceremonial county
Deansgate Square towers; Peel Monument; Wigan
Location of Greater Manchester within England
Coordinates: 53°30′09″N 2°18′36″W / 53.5025°N 2.3100°W / 53.5025; -2.3100
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Constituent country	England
Region	North West England
Established	1 April 1974
Established by	Local Government Act 1972
Time zone	UTC+0 (GMT)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+1 (BST)
UK Parliament	27 MPs
Police	Greater Manchester Police
Ceremonial county
Lord Lieutenant	Diane Hawkins[1]
High Sheriff	Lorraine Worsley-Carter[2]
Area	1,276 km2 (493 sq mi)
• Rank	39th of 48
Population  (2022)[3]	2,911,744
• Rank	3rd of 48
Density	2,282/km2 (5,910/sq mi)
Ethnicity	List 76.4% White 13.5% Asian 4.7% Black 3.1% mixed 2.4% other 2021 census[4]
Metropolitan county
Government	Greater Manchester Combined Authority
Mayor	Andy Burnham (L)
GSS code	E11000001 (county) E47000001 (city region)
ITL	TLD3
Website	greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk
Districts
Districts of Greater Manchester   Metropolitan districts
Districts	List Manchester Stockport Tameside Oldham Rochdale Bury Bolton Wigan Salford Trafford

Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester.

The county has an area of 493 sq mi (1,277 km²)^[5] and is highly urbanised, with a population of 2.9 million. The majority of the county's settlements are part of the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, which extends into Cheshire and Merseyside and is the second most populous urban area in the UK. The city of Manchester is the largest settlement. Other large settlements are Altrincham, Bolton, Rochdale, Sale, Salford, Stockport and Wigan. Greater Manchester contains ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan, the councils of which collaborate through Greater Manchester Combined Authority. The county was created on 1 April 1974 from parts of north-east Cheshire, south-east Lancashire, and a small part of the West Riding of Yorkshire.

The centre and south-west of Greater Manchester are lowlands, similar to the West Lancashire Coastal Plain to the north-west and the Cheshire Plain to the south-west. The north and east are part of the Pennines: the West Pennine Moors in the northwest, the South Pennines in the northeast and the Peak District in the east. Most of the county's rivers rise in the Pennines and are tributaries of the Mersey and Irwell, the latter of which is itself a tributary of the Mersey. The county is connected to the Mersey Estuary by the Manchester Ship Canal, which for its entire length within Greater Manchester consists of canalised sections of the Mersey and Irwell.

What is now Greater Manchester was a largely rural area until the Industrial Revolution, when the region rapidly industrialised. The area's towns and cities became major centres for the manufacture of cotton textiles, aided by the exploitation of the Lancashire coalfield. The region was also an engineering and scientific centre, leading to achievements such as the first inter-city railway and Ernest Rutherford's pioneering work on nuclear fission. Since deindustrialisation in the mid-20th century the county has emerged as a major centre for services, media and digital industries, and is renowned for guitar and dance music and its football teams.^[6]