CITY IN BRIEF

Manchester is a city in North West England, with a population of 514,417 in 2013. In the United Kingdom's second most populous urban area, with a population of 2.55 million.

Manchester achieved city status in 1853, the first new British city for three hundred years. The Manchester Ship Canal, at the time the longest river navigation canal in the world, opened in 1894, creating the Port of Manchester and linking the city to sea, 36 miles (58 km) to the west. Its fortunes declined after the Second World War however, owing to deindustrialization, but investment spurred by the 1996 Manchester bombing led to extensive regeneration.

Today Manchester is ranked as a beta world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network and is consequently the highest ranked British city except for London. Its metropolitan economy is the third largest in the United Kingdom with an estimated PPP GDP of US$92 billion as of 2014. Manchester is the third-most visited city in the UK by foreign visitors, after London and Edinburgh. It is notable for its architecture, culture, musical exports, media links, scientific and engineering output, social impact, sports clubs and transport connections. Manchester Liverpool Road railway station was the world's first inter-city passenger railway station and it was in the city that scientists first split the atom and developed the stored-program computer.