Second city of the United Kingdom

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Birmingham's Centenary Square.

Manchester's Exchange Square.

The second city of a country is the city that is thought to be the second-most important, usually after the capital or first city, according to some criteria such as population size, economic or commercial importance, political importance or some cultural sense. There is no official mechanism by which second city status is conferred on a city, rather, it is a description which is unofficial carrying no authority, and arguments often take place between citizens and civic leaders of rival cities making conflicting claims.

In England, Birmingham has generally been described as the second city since around the First World War ^[1]. More recently, many have claimed that Manchester deserves the distinction ^[2] ^[3]. Many Birmingham residents agree, with the tongue-in-cheek stipulation that Birmingham be the 'First City'.^{[citation needed]}

In the past, Glasgow, Belfast and Liverpool all had a claim to being the second city of the UK or indeed of the entire British Empire. All three cities were prominent because of their economic importance, especially the central role which they played in overseas trade. UK cities with claims to ancient second or even capital city status include Lincoln, York, Norwich, Winchester and Hamwick (now in Southampton).

Since devolution, Edinburgh is the second most important city in terms of government. It is also an important city financially, home to two of the UK's big five banks.

1 City boundaries
2 Cultural factors
3 Other criteria
4 References

[edit] City boundaries

Based on formal city boundaries the City of Birmingham is larger than the City of Manchester, although these formal city boundaries should not be regarded as the sole criteria; for instance, the City of London is very small.

The surrounding conurbations and the areas that can be considered informally part of each city are hard to define. However after the 1974 re-organisation of local government and the creation of the Metropolitan county, the City of Birmingham was included with the City of Coventry and five other "Boroughs" into a new administrative county called West Midlands. The City of Manchester joined with the neighbouring City of Salford and eight other "Boroughs" to become Greater Manchester, which for many years, in population terms at least, was slightly larger than the West Midlands, giving some credence to its claim on second city status.

The City of Birmingham has a population of 992,400 (2004 estimate). It forms part of the larger West Midlands conurbation, which has a population of 2,284,093 (2001 census) and includes several neighbouring towns and cities, such as Solihull, Wolverhampton and the towns of the Black Country. The City of Manchester (the area directly run by Manchester City Council) has a population of 437,000, while the Greater Manchester Urban Area is home to 2,240,230 people, and includes towns like Salford, Trafford, Bolton, and Stockport.

[edit] Cultural factors

It is perhaps even more difficult to make a distinction based on cultural factors, as all major UK cities play an important role in the cultural make-up of the country. Edinburgh, the second largest city of Scotland, has played host to the world's largest arts festival for 60 consecutive years, something other UK cities have attempted to emulate in a small scale in recent years with varying degrees of success. In England, and outside of London, a 1970s BBC drama series called "Second City Firsts" was based in Birmingham, as was the mythical Crossroads motel. Similarly, the longest running TV soap opera, Coronation Street and a number of other recent popular TV series like Shameless, Queer as Folk and the Royle Family are clearly very Mancunian. In early 2006, the BBC moved many broadcasting positions from their base in London to Manchester and in turn many programes have been produced regarding Manchester and the local area. Waterloo Road, The Street and Ideal are to name but a few.

[edit] Other criteria

Certain other indices of city size/status may also be considered - for example Postal Code or number of subscribers in the telephone dialling code area. However these can also lead to distortions as historically there are many anomalies. Rochdale, Wigan, and Bolton - all part of Greater Manchester - have their own separate dialling codes; likewise Wolverhampton, Walsall, Dudley, and Coventry are not included under the Birmingham code.

Other city comparisons might use airport size, football or other sport successes, number of orchestras, pop music artists, public transport or metro (both Birmingham and Manchester have trams but Glasgow has an Underground Railway). Manchester Metrolink, which transported 18.7 million passengers to their destinations in 2004 is one of the UK's leading transport networks outside of London in the UK ^[4]^[5]. Also the busiest bus route in the whole of Europe is Oxford Road/Wilmslow Road, Manchester.