Coordinates: 53°28′45″N 2°14′39″W / 53.479167°N 2.244167°W / 53.479167; -2.244167

Manchester city centre – known formally as City Centre or Central Manchester – is the central business district of both Manchester and Greater Manchester, in North West England. The city centre, as defined by Manchester City Council, lies within the Manchester Inner Ring Road, straddling the River Irwell, and thereby encompassing a small part of the neighbouring City of Salford. The electoral ward of Manchester Central has an area of 2.2 square miles (5.7 km²) and a population of 11,689.

The city centre evolved from the civilian vicus of the Roman fort of Mamucium, on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. In the Middle Ages, what is now the city centre was the township of Manchester.

Extensively redeveloped since the Manchester Blitz of 1941 and 1996 IRA bomb, the city centre remains the commercial and cultural centre of Manchester. The majority of the tallest buildings and structures in Manchester are located in the city centre, including Manchester Town Hall in Albert Square and the Beetham Tower, the tallest building in the United Kingdom outside London.

Coordinates: 53°28′N 2°14′W / 53.467°N 2.233°W / 53.467; -2.233

Manchester ⁱ/ˈmæntʃɛstər/ is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England with an estimated population of 498,800 in 2010. Manchester lies within one of the United Kingdom's largest urban areas; the Greater Manchester Urban Area which has a population of 2.2 million. The demonym of Manchester is Mancunian and the local authority is Manchester City Council.

Manchester is situated in the south-central part of North West England, fringed by the Cheshire Plain to the south and the Pennines to the north and east. The recorded history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort of Mamucium, which was established in c. 79 AD on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. Historically, most of the city was a part of Lancashire, although areas south of the River Mersey were in Cheshire. Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a manorial township, but it began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchester's unplanned urbanisation was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, and resulted in it becoming the world's first industrialised city. An early 19th-century factory building boom transformed Manchester from a township into a major mill town and borough that was granted city status in 1853. In 1894 the Manchester Ship Canal was built, creating the Port of Manchester.

A city centre is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart of a city.

The city centre is the (often historical) area of a city where commerce, entertainment, shopping and political power are concentrated. The term is most commonly used in the United Kingdom and Ireland, as opposed to "downtown", which is most commonly used in North America. While in most cases, the CBD is within the city centre, the concept "city centre" differs from the Central business district. The latter solely revolves around economic and financial power, while the former also includes historical, political and cultural factors (e.g. La Défense is the central business district of Paris, but is not the city centre).

A city centre is often the first settled part of a city, which can make it the most historical part of a city.

In Dutch the terms binnenstad, centrum, stadscentrum or stadskern are used to describe the city centre. Amsterdam is a clear example of the city centre and the central business district not being the same area. The city centre of Amsterdam is Centrum, the historical heart of the city, while the CBD of Amsterdam is the Zuidas in the south.