Manchester the city has a population of around 570,000. Greater Manchester — ten boroughs including Salford, Stockport, Bolton, Oldham, Bury, Rochdale, Wigan, Tameside and Trafford — has about 2.9 million, making it the second largest urban area in the United Kingdom.
Almost everything a visitor wants is in a rectangle about a mile and a half by a mile.
The shape of the centre
The core is bounded by the inner ring road and by the River Irwell on its western side. Walking north to south from the cathedral to Deansgate Square takes about twenty-five minutes.
Deansgate runs the length of it, north to south, and is the spine. Market Street and Piccadilly are the retail centre and the busiest ground in the city. Oxford Road leaves the south-east corner and runs down past the universities to Rusholme. The Northern Quarter is north-east of Piccadilly Gardens. Castlefield and the canals are at the south-west corner. Ancoats is east of the Northern Quarter, across the Rochdale Canal.
St Peter’s Square is the Metrolink interchange and the point everything else is measured from.
Salford is not Manchester
This surprises people constantly. Salford is a separate city with its own council, cathedral and identity, and the boundary is the River Irwell, which runs through the middle of what looks like one continuous centre.
Spinningfields is in Manchester. The other bank is Salford. MediaCity and The Lowry at Salford Quays are Salford. Old Trafford is in Trafford, not Manchester at all, and Manchester City’s ground is the one actually inside the city boundary — a fact that Mancunians deploy in arguments.
Nobody polices this in conversation, but knowing it explains a lot of local sensitivity.
The names
Mancunian is the demonym, from the Roman Mamucium.
Cottonopolis is the Victorian nickname.
The Bee is the city’s symbol, from the seven worker bees on the 1842 coat of arms representing industry. After the 2017 Arena attack it became a spontaneous memorial symbol and it is now on everything — bins, bollards, tattoos, the tram network’s name.
Madchester refers specifically to the late 1980s and early 1990s music scene and using it about the city generally marks you as a visitor.
How it is run
Greater Manchester has an elected mayor with real devolved powers over transport, policing, housing and health — the most extensive English devolution outside London.
That is why the buses were brought back under public control as the Bee Network, the first English region outside London to do it.
The weather
It rains often and not much. Manchester’s annual rainfall is not far off the English average; what is unusual is the number of days on which some rain falls, which is around 150.
It is a city of drizzle rather than downpours. Bring a coat with a hood; an umbrella is more nuisance than help in the wind off the Pennines.
The accent and the manner
Direct, dry, and quick to deflate anybody being grand about themselves — including the city. Mancunians are extremely proud of Manchester and will spend an evening listing what is wrong with it, and both of those are sincere.
Strangers talk to each other here more than in most large British cities. This is not a prelude to anything.
Where to start
Three days in Manchester for a route. Getting around for the trams and buses. What you should know for the practical rules.