Manchester (pronounced /ˈmæntʃɛstə/) is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. The City of Manchester metropolitan borough has a population of 441,200. Manchester lies at the centre of the wider Greater Manchester Urban Area which has a population of 2,240,230, the United Kingdom's third largest conurbation.
Forming part of the English Core Cities Group, and often described as the "Capital of the North", Manchester today is a centre of the arts, the media, higher education and commerce. It is also regarded as the third best place to locate business in the UK, is the third most visited city in the United Kingdom by foreign visitors. Manchester is also well known for its sporting connections, with two Premier League football teams, Manchester United and Manchester City, and hosted the XVII Commonwealth Games in 2002.
It is claimed that Manchester was the world's first industrialised city and is notable for the central role it played during the Industrial Revolution. It was the dominant international centre of textile manufacture and cotton spinning. During the 19th century it was nicknamed Cottonopolis, denoting that the area was a metropolis of cotton mills. Manchester City Centre is now on a "tentative list" of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, mainly due to its network of canals and mills that facilitated its development during the 19th century.
Manchester is sometimes regarded to have supplanted Birmingham as the UK's second city, although Manchester is also referred to as the UK's third city.