Manchester is a city in North West England. In 2013 there were 514,417 people living there, which makes it the fifth largest city in the United Kingdom. By the 2021 Census there were 551,938 - the population went up by 0.96% a year. 173,189 were not born in the United Kingdom.[4]
It is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. Manchester was given city status in 1853. The city is in the middle of the Greater Manchester Urban Area, which has 2,240,230 people,[5] and is the United Kingdom's third largest built-up place.
Manchester is a very important city in England, and is often called the "Capital of the North".[6] Manchester has many places for the arts, places for learning, businesses providing media as well as lots of shops. In a poll of British managers in 2006, Manchester was named the best place in Britain to have a business.[7] A report in 2007 said Manchester is a fast-growing city (meaning lots of jobs are being created).[8] Manchester was the host of the 2002 Commonwealth Games. It has two well-known football teams, Manchester United and Manchester City.[9]
In 2023 Greater Manchester Police conducted an operation in the Cheetham Hill district near Strangeways Prison where there had long been a lot of criminal activity. Operation Vulcan shut down 100 shops in Manchester. 580 tonnes of items, including clothes, drugs and illicit tobacco, were confiscated from 207 shipping containers. They said this was the largest ever seizure of counterfeit goods in the UK.[10] The city councils of Manchester and Salford are proposing a substantial redevelopment of the area. They would like to move the prison out of Strangeways.[11]