Manchester
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Manchester is the city at the centre of Greater Manchester, the largest built-up area in England outside London. The area of the official district called the city of Manchester is quite small, because many parts of urban Manchester lie in the surrounding boroughs. Manchester is the main city of Northern England, and of the region of England called the North West.
In the 19th Century, Manchester became world's most important cotton town. Although a small amount of cloth is still made in the city, the trade has mainly stopped, leaving a large number of fine buildings dating from that time including the Town Hall, Free Trade Hall and Central Library.
The county of Greater Manchester was formed in 1974 when the metropolitan county was formed primarily from cities and towns in Southern Lancashire and Northern Cheshire, and some mainly rural districts of Derbyshire and Yorkshire.
A renaissance of the city began in the 1980s. This was partly led by a vibrant music scene whose spirit was given the name "Madchester", led by bands such as The Happy Mondays, Joy Division, Inspiral Carpets, The Smiths and Oasis, and partly fuelled by the large number of students attending the various universtities and further education colleges. Manchester has the highest population of students in the UK in term time.
Manchester contains the United Kingdom's largest university. The University of Manchester has over 30,000 students. It also has the second largest University in the Manchester Metropolitan University as well as the University of Salford
The city has two premier league football teams, Manchester City and Manchester United. Two other premier league clubs based in the built-up area called "Greater Manchester" are Wigan Athletic and Bolton Wanderers. Some supporters of Manchester City often claim out of jealousy that United are not from Manchester itself, but this is not the case[1]. Manchester United are renouned for having supporters all over the country, many of these dubbed 'glory supporters' following United's continued sucess during the last 15 years by rival fans. There is however a strong Manchester following and there are many fans that supported the club for their 26 years without a league title between 1967 and 1993. Stockport County could claim to be from Manchester as well (Stockport is in Greater Manchester) but they do not [2].
