City of Manchester

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Region: North West
Country: England

§ This page provides an overview of an officially designated city in the UK, bringing together various information to help you better understand this city.

Manchester was granted city status in 1853 and this was confirmed on 1 April 1974; it grew from a Roman and medieval town into the world’s first industrial city, powered by textiles, the 1894 Ship Canal and railway innovation, then reinvented itself after mid-20th-century deindustrialisation and the 1996 bombing through major regeneration and the 2002 Commonwealth Games; since 1974 it has been a metropolitan district within Greater Manchester and, from 2011, part of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority with a directly elected mayor since 2017, strengthened by a 2023 “trailblazer” devolution deal and a 2025 integrated single funding settlement.

City Council Status

Manchester City Council is a metropolitan district council and a constituent of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (mayoral since 2017), which provides the strategic regional layer.

Civic Honours: Lord Mayors & Lord Provost

Manchester was granted a Lord Mayoralty on 3 August 1893.

In the UK, city status and the dignity of Lord Mayor (or Lord Provost in Scotland) are separate honours, each granted by the monarch via letters patent. Of the 76 cities, 28 have a Lord Mayoralty and 4—Scotland’s four cities—have a Lord Provost; these titles don’t automatically follow from city status. A Lord Mayoralty exists in 24 cities in England, 2 in Wales, and 2 in Northern Ireland.

Only 24 cities in England have Lord Mayors: Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Canterbury, Chester, Coventry, Exeter, Kingston-upon-Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, the City of London, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Sheffield, Southampton, Stoke-on-Trent, the City of Westminster, and York.

In the UK, a city is not defined by size or population but by formal status granted by the monarch, often through historical charters or, more recently, civic honours competitions. There are 76 officially recognised cities, some of which are relatively small compared to other urban areas. In contrast, local authority districts (361 in total) are administrative areas created for local government purposes and may include a mix of urban centres, suburbs, and rural communities. Within districts, there may be one or more towns, which generally refer to sizeable urban settlements but do not hold city status unless it has been formally granted. In practice, a city can exist within a district, and a district can cover multiple towns, showing the clear distinction between legal status, administrative boundaries, and everyday usage.

Cities in North West