Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.7 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the cities of Manchester and Salford. Greater Manchester was created on 1 April 1974 as a result of the Local Government Act 1972; and designated a City Region on 1 April 2011.

Greater Manchester spans 493 square miles (1,277 km²), which roughly covers the territory of the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, the second most populous urban area in the UK. It is landlocked and borders Cheshire (to the south-west and south), Derbyshire (to the south-east), West Yorkshire (to the north-east), Lancashire (to the north) and Merseyside (to the west). There is a mix of high-density urban areas, suburbs, semi-rural and rural locations in Greater Manchester, but land use is mostly urban — the product of concentric urbanisation and industrialisation which occurred mostly during the 19th century when the region flourished as the global centre of the cotton industry. It has a focused central business district, formed by Manchester city centre and the adjoining parts of Salford and Trafford, but Greater Manchester is also a polycentric county with ten metropolitan districts, each of which has at least one major town centre and outlying suburbs.

Manchester

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

Manchester (/ˈmæntʃɪstər/) is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 514,417 as of 2013. It lies within the United Kingdom's second-most populous urban area, with a population of 2.55 million. Manchester is fringed by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east and an arc of towns with which it forms a continuous conurbation. The local authority is Manchester City Council.

The recorded history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort of Mamucium or Mancunium, which was established in about 79 AD on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. It was historically a part of Lancashire, although areas of Cheshire south of the River Mersey were incorporated during the 20th century. Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a manorial township but 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.

City council

A city council, town council, town board, or board of aldermen is the legislative body that governs a city, town, municipality or local government area.

Australia and New Zealand

Because of the differences in legislation between the States, the exact definition of a City Council varies. However, it is generally only those local government areas which have been specifically granted city status (usually on a basis of population) that are entitled to refer to themselves as cities. The official title is "Corporation of the City of ------" or similar.

Some of the larger urban areas of Australia are governed mostly by a single entity (see Brisbane and other Queensland cities), while others maybe controlled by a multitude of much smaller city councils. Also some significant urban areas can be under the jurisdiction of otherwise rural local governments. Periodic re-alignments of boundaries attempt to rationalize these situations and adjust the deployment of assets and resources.

Local councils in New Zealand do vary in structure, but are overseen by the government department Local Government New Zealand. For many decades until the local government reforms of 1989, a borough with more than 20,000 people could be proclaimed a city. The boundaries of councils tended to follow the edge of the built-up area, so little distinction was made between the urban area and the local government area.

Greater Manchester Police

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is the Police Force responsible for law enforcement within the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester in North West England. GMP is the fourth largest police service in the United Kingdom after the Metropolitan Police Service, Police Scotland and West Midlands Police; and is also the third largest of the English police forces.

In total, Greater Manchester Police employs; 7,565 police officers, 519 Volunteer Special Constables, 739 Police Community Support Officers, and 2,741 members of police staff. The GMP headquarters are at Central Park, on Northampton Road, in the Newton Heath area of Manchester.

History

Greater Manchester Police had its early origins in the Metropolitan Manchester City Police which formed sometime in the 1830s, just after the Metropolitan Police Force in London. The service then changed its name to Manchester Borough Police. Upon Manchester gaining city status in 1853, the police service then changed its name again to Manchester City Police to reflect this status. The name of Manchester City Police remained for over a century until 1968 when Salford City Police was merged in Manchester City Police, resulting in the new name of Manchester and Salford Police. Then in 1974, in accordance with the Local Government Act 1972, Greater Manchester Police was formed with parts of the Cheshire Constabulary and Lancashire Constabulary merged into GMP.

Manchester City F.C.

Manchester City Football Club is a football club in Manchester, England. Founded in 1880 as St. Mark's (West Gorton), they became Ardwick Association Football Club in 1887 and Manchester City in 1894. The club moved to the City of Manchester Stadium in 2003, having played at Maine Road since 1923.

The club's most successful period was in the late 1960s and early 1970s when they won the League Championship, FA Cup, League Cup and European Cup Winners' Cup under the management team of Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison. After losing the 1981 FA Cup Final, the club went through a period of decline, culminating in relegation to the third tier of English football for the only time in their history in 1998.

Having regained Premier League status, the club was purchased in 2008 by Abu Dhabi United Group and has become one of the wealthiest in the world. In 2011, Manchester City qualified for the UEFA Champions League and won the FA Cup. The following year, they won the Premier League, their first league title for 44 years. In 2014, they won the League Cup and a second Premier League title.