Manchester is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. In 2008, the population of the city was estimated to be 464,200 making it the seventh-most populous local authority district in England. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas; the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester had an estimated population of 2,562,200.

University Campus, Granby Row, Barnes Wallis Building.

The Royal Exchange Theatre, St Anns Square, Manchester, M2 7DH

Manchester Arndale Centre, Manchester City Centre Shopping.

Piccadilly Gardens

The Shakespeare Pub, Manchester, Manchester, M2 2AA

Statue of Archimedes by Thompson Dagnall, Altrincham Street.

Great Bridgewater Street, waterside, Rain Bar, Hacienda

Palace Theatre, Midland Hotel, Oxford Road Station. Whitworth Street West, Station Approach

Manchester International Convention Centre (GMEX) and the Midland Hotel

Bridgewater Hall, Lower Mosley Street, Barbirolli Square

Albert memorial, fountains and statues.

Manchester Central Library, St. Peters Square, Central Library & War Memorial

Manchester Town Hall, Princess Street and Cooper Street

Manchester China Town, Chinatown gate, Faulkner Street Manchester.

Britannia Manchester Hotel, Portland Street, Manchester, M1 3LA

The Tib Street Horn

The Triangle, Fennel Street, Long Millgate

Exchange Square, Shambles Square

Manchester Cathedral, Victoria Street

The Wheel of Manchester, Corporation Street, Exchange Square

Manchester Town Hall, Albert Square

Odeon building, Printworks, Corporation Street, Withy Grove

Beetham Tower, Manchester

Forming part of the English Core Cities Group, Manchester today is a centre of the arts, the media, higher education and commerce, factors all contributing to Manchester polling as the second city of the United Kingdom in 2002. In a poll of British business leaders published in 2006, Manchester was regarded as the best place in the UK to locate a business. A report commissioned by Manchester Partnership, published in 2007, showed Manchester to be the "fastest-growing city" economically.

A guide to Saving Money when Eating Out in Manchester

Manchester's Central Business District is in the centre of the city, adjacent to Piccadilly, focused on Mosley Street, Deansgate, King Street and Piccadilly. Spinningfields is a 1.5 billion GBP mixed-use development that is expanding the district west of Deansgate. The area is designed to hold office space, retail and catering facilities, and courts. Several high-profile tenants have moved in, and a Civil Justice Centre opened in October 2007.

Manchester is the commercial, educational and cultural focus for North West England, and is ranked as the third or fourth biggest retail area in the UK by sales. The city centre retail area contains shops from chain stores up to high-end boutiques such as Vivienne Westwood, Emporio Armani, DKNY, Harvey Nichols, Chanel and Hermes. The city has several shopping malls including the Manchester Arndale, the UK's largest inner city shopping mall.

Manchester's buildings display a variety of architectural styles, ranging from Victorian to contemporary architecture. The widespread use of red brick characterises the city. Much of the architecture in the city harks back to its days as a global centre for the cotton trade. Just outside the immediate city centre is a large number of former cotton mills, some of which have been left virtually untouched since their closure while many have been redeveloped into apartment buildings and office space.

Manchester Town Hall, in Albert Square, was built in the gothic revival style and is considered to be one of the most important Victorian buildings in England. It has been used in film as a replacement location for the Palace of Westminster, in which filming is not permitted. Manchester also has a number of skyscrapers built during the 1960s and 1970s, the tallest of which was the CIS Tower located near Manchester Victoria station until the Beetham Tower was completed in 2006; it is an example of the new surge in high-rise building and includes a Hilton hotel, a restaurant, and apartments. On its completion, it was the tallest building in the UK outside London, although an even taller building, the Piccadilly Tower, began construction behind Manchester Piccadilly station in early 2008 (a project currently in abeyance). The Green Building, opposite Oxford Road station, is a pioneering eco-friendly housing project, one of very few in the UK.

The award-winning Heaton Park in the north of the city borough is one of the largest municipal parks in Europe, covering 610 acres (250 ha) of parkland. The city has 135 parks, gardens, and open spaces. Two large squares hold many of Manchester's public monuments. Albert Square has monuments to Prince Albert, Bishop James Fraser, Oliver Heywood, William Ewart Gladstone,and John Bright. Piccadilly Gardens has monuments dedicated to Queen Victoria, Robert Peel, James Watt and the Duke of Wellington. The cenotaph in St Peter's Square, by Edwin Lutyens, is Manchester's main memorial to its war dead. The Alan Turing Memorial in Sackville Park commemorates his role as the father of modern computing. A statue of Abraham Lincoln by George Gray Barnard in the eponymous Lincoln Square (having stood for many years in Platt Fields) was presented to the city by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Phelps Taft of Cincinnati, Ohio, to mark the part that Lancashire played in the cotton famine and American Civil War of 1861 to 1865. A Concorde is on display near Manchester Airport.