Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 530,300 as of 2015. It lies within the United Kingdom's second-most populous urban area, with a population of 2.55 million.[
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. The Castlefield conservation area’s 18th-century canal system recalls the city’s days as a textile powerhouse, and visitors can trace this history at the interactive Museum of Science & Industry.
The entire metropolitan area of Greater Manchester has undergone major economic changes, and Manchester’s economy has been moving from an industrial to a post-industrial nature. The textile industry has been reduced to a mere vestige of the enormous manufacture that once underpinned the economy of the city. Today services have become the chief employers. Some services, such as transport and distribution, are declining, but the professions, finance and banking, administration, and general personal services are growing with explosive force.
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