Manchester

Manchester is a city in Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 514,417 in 2013. Located in the United Kingdom's second most populous urban area, which has a population of 2.55 million, Manchester is in the south-central part of North West England, fringed by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east and an arc of towns with which it forms a continuous conurbation. The local authority is Manchester City Council.

The recorded history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort of Mamucium, a variant of which name is preserved by the city's demonym: residents are still referred to as Mancunians and or Mank's. The Roman fort was established around  79 on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. Historically part of Lancashire, although areas of Cheshire, south of the River Mersey were incorporated into the city during the 20th century. Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a manorial township but began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchester's unplanned urbanisation was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, and resulted in it becoming the world's first industrialised city.