MANCHESTER, city, county of a city, municipal county and parliamentary borough, Lancashire, England, 189 m. N.W. of London, and 31 m. E. of Liverpool. It stands for the most part on a level plain, the rising ground being chiefly on the north side. The rivers are the Irwell, the Medlock, the Irk and the Tib, the last being entirely overarched. The Irwell, which separates Manchester from Salford (q.v.), is crossed by a series of bridges and discharges itself into the Mersey, which is about io m., distant. Most of the district is covered with superficial drift of sand, gravel and clay, beneath which is red sandstone (Trias) with Permian marls, sandstone and limestone, and carboniferous shales and clays of the contiguous coal-fields. The city, as its thousands of brick-built houses show, has been for the most part dug out of its own clay-fields.
There are four large railway stations :—Victoria (L.M.S.), Ex change (L.M.S. and G.W.)—these stations, being contiguous, are in process of amalgamation,—London Road (L.M.S. and L.N.E.), Central (L.M.S., L.N.E. and Cheshire lines), and many sub sidiary stations for local traffic. Tramways, as well as railways, run from Manchester to all the large neighbouring towns. A direct trunk-road to Liverpool has been projected. As a mat ter of fact, the whole of south-east Lancashire and some por tions of Cheshire are so linked that they form one great urban area. Manchester is also the centre of a network of canals, chief amongst them being the Manchester ship canal (q.v.). The making of this waterway was an event only less important than the open ing of the Manchester and Liverpool railway in 183o. The town ship of Manchester, which forms the nucleus of the city, is com paratively small, and outlying hamlets having been added, its size has increased without regularity of plan. Manchester, prob ably more than other cities, has suffered by this method of growth and even to-day, after frequent widening, the streets are far too narrow. The congestion of traffic is very serious at times and an extensive regional planning scheme has recently been elaborated. The housing problem has been felt in its acutest form in Man chester and nowhere has it been attacked with such determination, for between 1919 and 1928, 12,000 municipal houses were built, apart from those under private contract. The centre of the city is occupied by business premises; the factories and workshops are mainly on the outskirts. The opening of the Manchester ship canal has caused the establishment of a large engineering and industrial centre around the chicks, and another similar centre has sprung up on the eastern side of the town upon a small coalfield. The most important of the public buildings are in the centre and the south. The latter is also the most favoured residential
district, and its extremity is semi-rural in character. Large masses of the population live beyond the city boundary and come to their daily work by train or tram. Manchester attracts citizens from every part of the globe; there are considerable numbers of German, Armenian and Jewish residents. The houses are for the most part brick, the public buildings of stone which is speedily blackened by the smoky atmosphere. Many of the warehouses are of considerable architectural merit, and in recent years the use of terra-cotta has become more common. The air is laden with black dust, and the rivers in spite of all efforts, are in the central part of the city mere dirty ditches. The city owes its importance to the cotton industry favoured by damp at mosphere, by soft water from the millstone grit with a heavy run off and consequent large water power, also to the proximity of coal and to the chemical industries helped by the salt of Cheshire to the south.