Greater Manchester
Metropolitan and Ceremonial county
Deansgate Square towers; Peel Monument; Wigan
Location of Greater Manchester within England
Coordinates: 53°30′09″N 2°18′36″W / 53.5025°N 2.3100°W / 53.5025; -2.3100
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Constituent country	England
Region	North West England
Established	1 April 1974
Established by	Local Government Act 1972
Time zone	UTC+0 (GMT)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+1 (BST)
Members of Parliament	27 MPs
Police	Greater Manchester Police
Ceremonial county
Lord Lieutenant	Diane Hawkins[1]
High Sheriff	Lorraine Worsley-Carter[2]
Area	1,276 km2 (493 sq mi)
• Ranked	39th of 48
Population (2022)	2,812,569
• Ranked	3rd of 48
Density	2,204/km2 (5,710/sq mi)
Ethnicity	List 76.4% White 13.5% Asian 4.7% Black 3.1% mixed 2.4% other 2021 census[3]
Metropolitan county
Government	Greater Manchester Combined Authority • Mayor Andy Burnham (L)
GSS code	E11000001
ITL	TLD3
Website	greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk
Districts
Districts of Greater Manchester   Metropolitan districts
Districts	List Manchester Stockport Tameside Oldham Rochdale Bury Bolton Wigan Salford Trafford

Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester.

The county has an area of 493 sq mi (1,277 km²)^[4] and is highly urbanised, with a population of 2.8 million. The majority of the county's settlements are part of the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, which extends into Cheshire and Merseyside and is the second most populous urban area in the UK. The city of Manchester is the largest settlement. Other large settlements are Bolton, Rochdale, Sale, Salford, Stockport and Wigan. Greater Manchester contains ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan, the councils of which collaborate through Greater Manchester Combined Authority. The county was created on 1 April 1974 from parts of north-west Cheshire, south-east Lancashire, and a small part of the West Riding of Yorkshire.

The centre and south-west of Greater Manchester are lowlands, similar to the West Lancashire Coastal Plain to the north-west and the Cheshire Plain to the south-west. The north and east are part of the Pennines: the West Pennine Moors in the northwest, the South Pennines in the northeast and the Peak District in the east. Most of the county's rivers rise in the Pennines and are tributaries of the Mersey and Irwell, the latter of which is itself a tributary of the Mersey. The county is connected to the Mersey Estuary by the Manchester Ship Canal, which for its entire length within Greater Manchester consists of canalised sections of the Mersey and Irwell.

What is now Greater Manchester was a largely rural area until the Industrial Revolution, when the region rapidly industrialised. The area's towns and cities became major centres for the manufacture of cotton textiles, aided by the exploitation of the Lancashire coalfield. The region was also an engineering and scientific centre, leading to achievements such as the first inter-city railway and Ernest Rutherford's pioneering work on nuclear fission. Since deindustrialisation in the mid-20th century the county has emerged as a major centre for services, media and digital industries, and is renowned for guitar and dance music and its football teams.^[5]

History

Britons

Although Greater Manchester was not created until 1974, the history of its settlements go back centuries. There is evidence of Iron Age habitation, particularly at Mellor,^[6] and a known Celtic Britons settlement named Chochion, believed to have been an area of Wigan settled by the Brigantes.^[7] Stretford was also part of the land believed to have been occupied by the Celtic Brigantes tribe, and lay on their border with the Cornovii on the southern side of the River Mersey.^[8] The remains of 1st-century forts at Castlefield in Manchester,^[9] and Castleshaw Roman Fort in Saddleworth,^[10] are evidence of Roman occupation.

Salfordshire

From the River Mersey to River Ribble was recorded as an area surveyed with Cheshire in the Domesday Book of 1086; it is thought that the area was partially surveyed.^[11]

Between Lancashire's creation to the 18th century an ancient division of the shire, with a similar but smaller area to the current county, was known as Salfordshire. The division (a wapentake which later became a hundred) had several parishes, townships and market towns. Other areas of what would become the county centuries later, to south of the Mersey and Tame, were governed under Cheshire while the Saddleworth area and a small part of Mossley are historically part of Yorkshire.

Manchesterthum

In the late 18th to early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution transformed the local domestic system; mechanisation enabled the industrialisation of the region's textile trade, triggering rapid growth in the cotton industry and expansion in ancillary trades.^[12] The area became central to England's woollen trade with domestic flannel and fustian cloth production, which encouraged a system of cross-regional trade.^[13][14][15] In the 18th century, German traders had coined the name Manchesterthum to cover the region in and around Manchester.^[16]

Infrastructure such as rows of terraced housing, factories and roads were constructed to house labour, transport goods, and produce cotton goods on an industrial scale for a global market.^[12][15] The townships in and around Manchester began expanding "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century as part of a process of unplanned urbanisation brought on by a boom in industrial textile production and processing.^[17] This population increase resulted in the "vigorous concentric growth" of a conurbation between Manchester and an arc of surrounding mill towns, formed from a steady accretion of houses, factories and transport infrastructure.^[18] Places such as Bury, Oldham and Bolton played a central economic role nationally, and by the end of the 19th century had become some of the most important and productive cotton-producing towns in the world.^[19] However, it was Manchester that was the most populous settlement, a major city, the world's largest marketplace for cotton goods,^[20][21] and the natural centre of its region.^[22] By 1835 "Manchester was without challenge the first and greatest industrial city in the world";^[21] and by 1848 urban sprawl had fused the city to its surrounding towns and hinterland to form a single continuous conurbation.^[18] The area is recorded in planning documents for the Manchester Ship Canal dated 1883, as "Manchester, Salford and the Out-Townships".^[23]

The conurbation was "a Victorian metropolis, achieving its commercial peak during 1890–1915".^[24] In the 1910s, local government reforms to administer this conurbation as a single entity were proposed.^[25] Use in a municipal context appeared in a 1914 report submitted in response to what was considered to have been the successful creation of the County of London in 1889.^[25] The report suggested that a county should be set up to recognise the "Manchester known in commerce", and referred to the areas that formed "a substantial part of South Lancashire and part of Cheshire, comprising all municipal boroughs and minor authorities within a radius of eight or nine miles of Manchester".^[25][26]

In his 1915 book Cities in Evolution, urban planner Sir Patrick Geddes wrote "far more than Lancashire realises, is growing up another Greater London".^[27] The Manchester Evening Chronicle brought to the fore the issue of "regional unity" for the area in April 1935 under the headline "Greater Manchester – The Ratepayers' Salvation". It reported on the "increasing demands for the exploration of the possibilities of a greater merger of public services throughout Manchester and the surrounding municipalities".^[28] The issue was frequently discussed by civic leaders in the area at that time, particularly those from Manchester and Salford. The Mayor of Salford pledged his support to the idea, stating that he looked forward to the day when "there would be a merging of the essential services of Manchester, Salford, and the surrounding districts constituting Greater Manchester."^[28] Proposals were halted by the Second World War, though in the decade after it, the pace of proposals for local government reform for the area quickened.^[29] In 1947, Lancashire County Council proposed a three "ridings" system to meet the changing needs of the county of Lancashire, including those for Manchester and surrounding districts.^[29] Other proposals included the creation of a Manchester County Council, a directly elected regional body. In 1951, the census in the UK began reporting on South East Lancashire as a homogeneous conurbation.^[29]

SELNEC

The Local Government Act 1958 designated the south east Lancashire area (which, despite its name, included part of north east Cheshire), a Special Review Area. The Local Government Commission for England presented draft recommendations, in December 1965, proposing a new county based on the conurbation surrounding and including Manchester, with nine most-purpose boroughs corresponding to the modern Greater Manchester boroughs (excluding Wigan). The review was abolished in favour of the Royal Commission on Local Government before issuing a final report.^[30]

The Royal Commission's 1969 report, known as the Redcliffe-Maud Report, proposed the removal of much of the then existing system of local government. The commission described the system of administering urban and rural districts separately as outdated, noting that urban areas provided employment and services for rural dwellers, and open countryside was used by town dwellers for recreation. The commission considered interdependence of areas at many levels, including travel-to-work, provision of services, and which local newspapers were read, before proposing a new administrative metropolitan area.^[31] The area had roughly the same northern boundary as today's Greater Manchester (though included Rossendale), but covered much more territory from Cheshire (including Macclesfield, Warrington, Alderley Edge, Northwich, Middlewich, Wilmslow and Lymm), and Derbyshire (the towns of New Mills, Whaley Bridge, Glossop and Chapel-en-le-Frith – a minority report suggested that Buxton be included).^[32] The metropolitan area was to be divided into nine metropolitan districts, based on Wigan, Bolton, Bury/Rochdale, Warrington, Manchester (including Salford and Old Trafford), Oldham, Altrincham, Stockport and Tameside.^[32] The report noted "The choice even of a label of convenience for this metropolitan area is difficult".^[33] Seven years earlier, a survey prepared for the British Association intended to define the "South-East Lancashire conurbation" noted that "Greater Manchester it is not ... One of its main characteristics is the marked individuality of its towns, ... all of which have an industrial and commercial history of more than local significance".^[34] The term Selnec (or SELNEC) was already in use as an abbreviation for south east Lancashire and north east Cheshire; Redcliffe-Maud took this as "the most convenient term available", having modified it to south east Lancashire, north east and central Cheshire.^[32]

Following the Transport Act 1968, in 1969 the SELNEC Passenger Transport Executive (an authority to co-ordinate and operate public transport in the region) was set up, covering an area smaller than the proposed Selnec, and different again to the eventual Greater Manchester. Compared with the Redcliffe-Maud area, it excluded Macclesfield, Warrington, and Knutsford but included Glossop in Derbyshire and Saddleworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire. It excluded Wigan, which was both in the Redcliffe-Maud area and in the eventual Greater Manchester (but had not been part of the 1958 act's review area).^[35]

Redcliffe-Maud's recommendations were accepted by the Labour-controlled government in February 1970.^[36] Although the Redcliffe-Maud Report was rejected by the Conservative government after the 1970 general election, there was a commitment to local government reform, and the need for a metropolitan county centred on the conurbation surrounding Manchester was accepted. The new government's original proposal was much smaller than the Redcliffe-Maud Report's Selnec, with areas such as Winsford, Northwich, Knutsford, Macclesfield and Glossop retained by their original counties to ensure their county councils had enough revenue to remain competitive (Cheshire County Council would have ceased to exist).^[36] Other late changes included the separation of the proposed Bury/Rochdale authority (retained from the Redcliffe-Maud report) into the Metropolitan Borough of Bury and the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale. Bury and Rochdale were originally planned to form a single district (dubbed "Botchdale" by local MP Michael Fidler)^[37][38] but were divided into separate boroughs. To re-balance the districts, the borough of Rochdale took Middleton from Oldham.^[39] During the passage of the bill, the towns of Whitworth, Wilmslow and Poynton successfully objected to their incorporation in the new county.^[36]

Post-1974[40]		Pre-1974
Metropolitan county	Metropolitan borough	County boroughs	Municipal boroughs	Urban districts	Parts of rural districts (civil parishes)
Greater Manchester is an amalgamation of 70 former local government districts, including eight county boroughs and 16 municipal boroughs.[41]	Bury	Bury	Prestwich • Radcliffe	Ramsbottom • Tottington • Whitefield
	Bolton	Bolton	Farnworth	Blackrod • Horwich • Kearsley • Little Lever • Turton • Westhoughton
	Manchester	Manchester			Bucklow (Ringway)[42]
	Oldham	Oldham		Chadderton • Crompton • Failsworth • Lees • Royton • Saddleworth
	Rochdale	Rochdale	Middleton • Heywood	Littleborough • Milnrow • Wardle
	Salford	Salford	Eccles • Swinton and Pendlebury	Irlam • Worsley
	Stockport	Stockport		Bredbury and Romiley • Cheadle and Gatley • Hazel Grove and Bramhall • Marple
	Tameside		Ashton-under-Lyne • Dukinfield • Hyde • Mossley • Stalybridge	Audenshaw • Denton • Droylsden • Longendale
	Trafford		Altrincham • Sale • Stretford	Bowdon • Hale • Urmston	Bucklow (Carrington • Dunham Massey • Partington • Warburton)[42]
	Wigan	Wigan	Leigh	Abram • Ashton in Makerfield • Aspull • Atherton • Billinge and Winstanley • Hindley • Ince-in-Makerfield • Golborne • Orrell • Standish-with-Langtree • Tyldesley	Wigan (Haigh • Shevington • Worthington)[43]

1974–1997

The areas that were incorporated into Greater Manchester in 1974 previously formed parts of the administrative counties of Cheshire, Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, and eight independent county boroughs.^[41] By the early 1970s, this system of demarcation was described as "archaic" and "grossly inadequate to keep pace both with the impact of motor travel, and with the huge increases in local government responsibilities".^[44]

The Local Government Act 1972 reformed local government in England, with the act enacted on the 1 April 1974. The area was given the name Greater Manchester and a metropolitan county designation. This was a two-tier counties and districts system.^[40] The act formally ,^[45] although Greater Manchester County Council (GMCC) had been running since elections in 1973.^[46] The leading article in The Times on the day the Local Government Act came into effect noted that the "new arrangement is a compromise which seeks to reconcile familiar geography which commands a certain amount of affection and loyalty, with the scale of operations on which modern planning methods can work effectively".^[47] Frangopulo noted that the creation of Greater Manchester "was the official unifying of a region which, through history and tradition, had forged for itself over many centuries bonds ... between the communities of town and village, each of which was the embodiment of the character of this region".^[48] The name Greater Manchester was adopted, having been favoured over Selnec following public consultation,^[49] despite opposition claiming that "Greater Manchester is a myth. An abomination. A travesty.".^[50]

By January 1974, a joint working party representing Greater Manchester had drawn up its county Structure Plan, ready for implementation by the Greater Manchester County Council. The plan set out objectives for the forthcoming metropolitan county.^[51] The highest priority was to increase the quality of life for its inhabitants by improving the county's physical environment and cultural facilities which had suffered following deindustrialisation—much of Greater Manchester's basic infrastructure dated from its 19th-century growth, and was unsuited to modern lifestyles.^[52] Other objectives were to reverse the trend of depopulation in central-Greater Manchester, to invest in country parks to improve the region's poor reputation on leisure facilities, and to improve the county's transport infrastructure and patterns.^[53]

Because of political objection, particularly from Cheshire, Greater Manchester covered only the inner, urban 62 of the 90 former districts that the Royal Commission had outlined as an effective administrative metropolitan area.^[54] In this capacity, GMCC found itself "planning for an arbitrary metropolitan area ... abruptly truncated to the south", and so had to negotiate several land-use, transport and housing projects with its neighbouring county councils.^[54] However a "major programme of environmental action" by GMCC broadly succeeded in reversing social deprevation in its inner city slums.^[54] Leisure and recreational successes included the Greater Manchester Exhibition Centre (better known as the G-Mex centre and now branded Manchester Central), a converted former railway station in Manchester city centre used for cultural events,^[55] and GMCC's creation of five new country parks within its boundaries.^[56] GMCC was, however, criticised for being too Manchester-centric by representatives from the outer suburbs.^[57]

A decade after they were established, the mostly Labour-controlled metropolitan county councils and the Greater London Council (GLC) had several high-profile clashes with the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, with regards overspending and high rates charging. Government policy on the issue was considered throughout 1982, and the Conservative Party put a "promise to scrap the metropolitan county councils" and the GLC, in their manifesto for the 1983 general election.^[58][59] Greater Manchester County Council was abolished on 31 March 1986 under the Local Government Act 1985. That the metropolitan county councils were controlled by the Labour Party led to accusations that their abolition was motivated by party politics:^[58] the general secretary of the National Association of Local Government Officers described it as a "completely cynical manoeuvre".^[60] Most of the functions of GMCC were devolved to the ten Greater Manchester metropolitan district councils, though functions such as emergency services and public transport were taken over by joint boards and continued to be run on a county-wide basis.^[61] The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA) was established to continue much of the county-wide services of the county council.^[62] The metropolitan county continues to exist in law, and as a geographic frame of reference,^[63] for example as a NUTS 2 administrative division for statistical purposes within the European Union.^[64] Although having been a Lieutenancy area since 1974, Greater Manchester was included as a ceremonial county by the Lieutenancies Act 1997 on 1 July 1997.^[65]

Combined Authority

In 1998, the people of Greater London voted in a referendum in favour of establishing a new Greater London Authority, with mayor and an elected chamber for the county.^[66] The New Local Government Network proposed the creation of a new Manchester City Region based on Greater Manchester and other metropolitan counties as part of on-going reform efforts, while a report released by the Institute for Public Policy Research's Centre for Cities proposed the creation of two administrative city regions based on Manchester and Birmingham.

The Manchester City Region initially appeared in government documents as one of eight city regions defined in the 2004 strategic document Moving Forward: The Northern Way.^[67] In July 2007, The Treasury published its Review of sub-national economic development and regeneration, which stated that the government would allow those city regions that wished to work together to form a statutory framework for city regional activity, including powers over transport, skills, planning and economic development.^[68] The Manchester City Region encompassed fifteen local government districts: the cities of Manchester and Salford plus the metropolitan boroughs of Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale and Wigan , together with the boroughs of High Peak, Warrington and the former boroughs of Congleton, Macclesfield and Vale Royal.^[69]

In January 2008, AGMA suggested that a formal government structure be created to cover Greater Manchester.^[70] The issue resurfaced in June 2008 with regards to proposed congestion charging in Greater Manchester; Sir Richard Leese (leader of Manchester City Council) said "I've come to the conclusion that because we don't have an indirectly or directly elected body for Greater Manchester that has the power to make this decision".^[71] On 14 July 2008 the ten local authorities in Greater Manchester agreed to a strategic and integrated cross-county Multi-Area Agreement; a voluntary initiative aimed at making district councils "work together to challenge the artificial limits of boundaries" in return for greater autonomy from the central government of the UK.^[72] A referendum on the Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund was held in December 2008,^[73] in which voters "overwhelmingly rejected" plans for public transport improvements linked to a peak-time weekday-only congestion charge.^[74]

Following a bid from AGMA highlighting the potential benefits in combatting the financial crisis of 2007–2008, it was announced in the 2009 United Kingdom Budget that Greater Manchester and the Leeds City Region would be awarded Statutory City Region Pilot status, allowing (if they desired) for their constituent district councils to pool resources and become statutory Combined Authorities with powers comparable to the Greater London Authority.^[75] The stated aim of the pilot was to evaluate the contributions to economic growth and sustainable development by Combined Authorities.^[76] The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 enabled the creation of a Combined Authority for Greater Manchester with devolved powers on public transport, skills, housing, regeneration, waste management, carbon neutrality and planning permission, pending approval from the ten councils.^[75][77] Such strategic matters would be decided on via an enhanced majority rule voting system involving ten members appointed from among the councillors of the metropolitan boroughs (one representing each borough with each council nominating one substitute) without the input of central government. The ten district councils of Greater Manchester approved the creation of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) on 29 March 2010, and submitted final recommendations for a constitution to the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Transport and two days later the Communities Secretary John Denham approved the constitution and launched a 15-week public consultation on the draft bill together with the approved constitution.^[78]

Following requests by the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities, which was superseded by the GMCA,^[79][80][81] the new authority was created on 1 April 2011.^[82] On the same day, the Transport for Greater Manchester Committee was also formed from a pool of 33 councillors allocated by council population (roughly one councillor per 75,000 residents) to scrutinise the running of Greater Manchester's transport bodies and their finances, approve the decisions and policies of said bodies and form strategic policy recommendations or projects for the approval of the Combined Authority.^[75] On 3 November 2014, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced that there would be an eleventh member of the GMCA – a directly elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, with "powers over transport, housing, planning and policing" from 2017.^[83]

Geography

Greater Manchester is a landlocked county spanning 493 sq mi (1,277 km²).^[4] The Pennines rise to the north and east of the county with the West Pennine Moors in the northwest, the South Pennines in the northeast and the Peak District in the east. Several coalfields (mainly sandstones and shales) lie in the west of the county while the Cheshire Plain fringes the south.^[12] The rivers Mersey, Irwell and Tame run through Greater Manchester, all of which rise in the Pennines.^[12] Other rivers traverse the region as tributaries to the major rivers, including the Douglas, the Irk, and the Roch.^[12] Black Chew Head is the highest point in Greater Manchester which forms part of the Peak District National Park, rising 1,778 ft (542 m) above sea-level, within the parish of Saddleworth.^[84] Greater Manchester is characterised by its dense urban and industrial developments, which include centres of commerce, finance, retail and administration, as well as commuter suburbs and housing, interspersed with transport infrastructure such as light rail, roads and motorway, and canals.^[12] There is a mix of high density urban areas, suburbs, semi-rural and rural locations in Greater Manchester, but land use is mostly urban.^[85] The built environment of Greater Manchester utilises red brick and sandstone prominently as a building material, alongside structures composed of modern materials, high-rise towers, and landmark 19th, 20th and 21st century buildings in the city and town centres.^[12]

Manchester city centre is the commercial and geographic heart of Greater Manchester,^[86][87][88] and with the adjoining parts of Salford and Trafford, is defined as Greater Manchester's "Regional Centre" for purposes of urban planning and public transport.^{[86][88][89][90][91]} Political and economic ties between the city centre and neighbouring Salford and Trafford have strengthened with the shift from town and district centres to metropolitan-level centres in England,^[92][89] and this area's high-rise landmark buildings provide a visual orientation point of reference as a central business district.^[12] However, Greater Manchester is also a polycentric county with ten metropolitan districts,^[85] each of which has a major town centre – and in some cases more than one – and many smaller settlements.^[85] The major towns encircle Manchester city centre, and between them are other outlying towns (such as Denton, Middleton and Failsworth) which are suburban to both the Regional Centre and the major town centres.^[93] Combined, these factors make Greater Manchester the most complex "polycentric functional urban region" in the UK outside London.^[85][57]

Metropolitan borough		Administrative centre	Constituent Towns
Bolton		Bolton	Blackrod, Farnworth, Horwich, Kearsley, Little Lever, South Turton, Westhoughton
Bury		Bury	Prestwich, Radcliffe, Ramsbottom, Tottington, Whitefield
Manchester		Manchester	Blackley, Cheetham Hill, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Didsbury, Ringway, Withington, Wythenshawe
Oldham		Oldham	Chadderton, Shaw and Crompton, Failsworth, Lees, Royton, Saddleworth
Rochdale		Rochdale	Heywood, Littleborough, Middleton, Milnrow, Newhey, Wardle
Salford		Swinton	Eccles, Clifton, Little Hulton, Walkden, Worsley, Salford, Irlam, Pendlebury, Cadishead, Patricroft, Monton
Stockport		Stockport	Bramhall, Bredbury, Cheadle, Gatley, Hazel Grove, Marple, Romiley Woodley
Tameside		Ashton-under-Lyne	Audenshaw, Denton, Droylsden, Dukinfield, Hyde, Longdendale, Mossley, Stalybridge
Trafford		Stretford	Altrincham, Bowdon, Hale, Sale, Urmston, Partington
Wigan		Wigan	Abram, Ashton-in-Makerfield, Aspull, Astley, Atherton, Bryn, Golborne, Higher End, Hindley, Ince-in-Makerfield, Leigh, Orrell, Shevington, Standish, Tyldesley, Winstanley

The Greater Manchester Built-up Area is the conurbation or continuous urban area based around Greater Manchester, as defined by the Office for National Statistics. In 2011, it had an estimated population of 2,553,379, making it the second most populous built-up area in the UK, and occupied an area of 630.3 km² (243.4 sq mi) at the time of the 2011 census.^[94] The European Union designate the conurbation as a single homogeneous urban city region.^[95] The Built-up Area includes most of Greater Manchester, omitting areas of countryside and small villages, as well as noncontiguous urban towns such as Wigan and Marple.^[94] Outside the boundary of Greater Manchester it includes several adjacent areas of settlement and a few outliers connected to the conurbation by ribbon development, such as Wilmslow and Alderley Edge in Cheshire, Glossop and Hadfield in Derbyshire, and Whitworth in Lancashire.^[94] This conurbation forms part of a megalopolis of 9.4 million across northern England.^[96][97][98]

A view over Greater Manchester from the Peel Monument. The county is heavily urbanised and consists of vast built up areas and many settlements, fringed by sparsely populated countryside such as the West Pennine Moors.

Climate

Greater Manchester experiences a temperate maritime climate, like most of the British Isles, with relatively cool summers and mild winters. The county's average annual rainfall is 806.6 mm (31.76 in)^[99] compared to the UK average of 1,125.0 mm (44.29 in),^[100] and its mean rain days are 140.4 mm (5.53 in) per annum,^[99] compared to the UK average of 154.4 mm (6.08 in).^[100] The mean temperature is slightly above average for the United Kingdom.^[100] Greater Manchester has a relatively high humidity level, which lent itself to the optimised and breakage-free textile manufacturing process that took place around the county. Snowfall is not common in the built up areas because of the urban warming effect but the West Pennine Moors in the northwest, South Pennines in the northeast and Peak District in the east receive more snow, and roads leading out of the county can be closed due to heavy snowfall.^[101] They include the A62 road via Standedge,^[102] the Pennine section of the M62^[103] and the A57, Snake Pass, towards Sheffield.^[104] At the most southern point of Greater Manchester, Woodford's Met Office weather station recorded a temperature of −17.6 °C (0.3 °F) on 8 January 2010.^[105]