Everything about Second City Of The United Kingdom totally explained
Identifying the
second city of the United Kingdom is a subject of some disagreement. A
country's
second city is the
city that's thought to be the second-most important, usually after the
capital or first city (
London, in this case), 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's a description which is unofficial carrying no authority, and arguments often take place between citizens and civic leaders of rival cities making conflicting claims.
While
Birmingham has generally been described as the second city of the
United Kingdom since around the
First World War, recent polls and media references have quoted
Manchester as the second city. Other cities, including some in Scotland and Ireland, such as
Glasgow, which was in the past called The Second City of the Empire,
Dublin, and others in England, have also at times been considered to be the second city, either historically or due to their economic importance.
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: in addition to Birmingham and Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow (
European Capital of Culture for 1990), Liverpool (
European Capital of Culture for 2008),
Leeds,
Newcastle,
Sheffield, and others all boast internationally recognised sporting, music and performing arts scenes.
History
Since the formation of the United Kingdom, several places have been described as the "second city".
Dublin was the second most populous city at the time of the formation of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, though it lost that position later in the 19th century as other cities grew through industrialisation. As such, it was often described as the second city of the UK. Dublin, and the rest of the
Republic of Ireland, ceased to be a part of the UK in the 1920s.
By the early 19th century,
Glasgow was frequently named as the second city; and in the 20th century it had a population of over one million, comparable with that of
Birmingham. The Official
Census population for Glasgow was 0.784 million in April 1911; 1.034 million in April 1921; 1.088 million in April 1931 and 1.090 million in April 1951. However, slum clearances in the 1960s led to displacement of residents from the city centre to new communities, called schemes, located outside the city boundaries. This, together with local government reorganisation, resulted in the official population of Glasgow appearing to fall sharply. The Glasgow City Council area currently has a population of 600,000 although the overall population of Greater Glasgow is around 2.3 million. In contrast, the population of the city of Birmingham has remained steadily around the one million mark; its central population fell like Glasgow's but the city boundaries were extended several times in the early 20th century. Occasional claims were made for
Liverpool,
Birmingham and
Manchester.
The title Second city of Empire or Second city of the British Empire has been claimed by a number of cities with respect to their status in the
British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. These include Dublin, Glasgow (which continues to use the title as a marketing slogan), Liverpool; and (outside the UK)
Kolkata (known as Calcutta through the British Empire) and
Philadelphia.
Prior to the
Acts of Union 1707 of the
Parliaments of England and
Scotland, which led to the creation of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707, from the
English Civil War until the 18th century,
Norwich was the second-largest city of England, being a major
trading centre, Britain's richest provincial city and county town of
Norfolk, at that time the most populous county of England.
Bristol was the second wealthiest city in England in the 16th century; and by the 18th century,
Bristol was often described as the second city of England. During the 19th century, claims were made for
Manchester,
Liverpool and
York. York had also been named as the second city in earlier centuries.
Current
Birmingham or Manchester
Since the
First World War Birmingham has historically been considered the second city of the United Kingdom, but recent polls and media references have concluded with
Manchester being seen as the second city.
In a recent survey commissioned by the
BBC investigating the subject of the "'Second city' of England", 48% of 1,000 people claimed that
Manchester deserves the distinction with 40% choosing Birmingham. The BBC further report that Manchester is close to being the second city of the UK. In a similar survey conducted by Ipsos MORI North (based in Manchester), commissioned by "Destination Manchester" (Manchester City's PR and Tourism department) Manchester received the highest response for the category of second city at 34% compared to Birmingham at 29% but also in the same poll, the highest response for the category of third city with 27% of the vote, marginally more than the 21% for Birmingham. Interestingly only 85% of respondents put London as first City.
Manchester is both reported by international news media as the UK's second city, and sometimes as the UK's third city. Whereas Birmingham is almost always reported as the UK's second city in similar international news media.
Based on population within official city boundaries the City of Birmingham, the most populous local government district in the UK, is substantially larger than the City of Manchester, which is the fifth largest in the UK (2006 estimates, see
List of English districts by population). However, most sources don't use formal city boundaries as the sole criterion for population comparison; for instance, the
City of London, with a population of only 7,185 (2001 census), is very small, though
London as a whole is the
most populous city within city limits in the
European Union with an official population of 7.6 million (as of 2006) and has a
metropolitan area population of between 12 and 14 million people.
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
metropolitan counties, the City of Birmingham was included with the City of
Coventry and five other
metropolitan boroughs (one,
Wolverhampton gained city status in 2000) into a new
West Midlands county. The City of Manchester joined with the neighbouring
City of Salford and eight other Metropolitan boroughs within the County of
Greater Manchester.
The City of Birmingham has a population of 1,006,500 (2006 estimate). It forms part of the larger
West Midlands conurbation, which has a population of 2,284,093 (2001 census) and also includes the city of
Wolverhampton, the towns of the
Black Country, and other towns such as
Solihull. The City of Manchester has a population of 452,000 (2006 estimate), while the
Greater Manchester Urban Area is home to 2,240,230 people (2001 census) and also includes the city of
Salford, and towns like
Bolton,
Bury,
Oldham,
Rochdale, and
Stockport. The population of Metropolitan counties such as the West Midlands and Greater Manchester also vary slightly from both the urban areas and other population statistics criteria like the
Travel to Work Area.
Birmingham City Council (BCC) is the largest local authority in Europe and is notable for having the largest wards, by population, in the whole of the UK (each ward has approximately 18,000 voters). BCC is also the UK's largest landlord with its Housing Department managing over 70,000 council homes, .
There has been a variety of Ministerial opinion on the subject for some time, opinions include:
- David Miliband the current Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Member of Parliament for the constituency of South Shields, Tyne and Wear "However, if you look at Birmingham, I think a lot of people would say that it's a city, Britain's second city..."
- Sir Digby Jones (born and raised in Birmingham), Minister of State at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Foreign Office (former Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said "Birmingham is naturally the second most important city in Britain after London because of where she's and how important she's as part of that crossroads,". Jones later said "As a Brummie it's not easy to say, but I can find no better place than the north west in terms of having a diverse manufacturing base, whether it's engineering manufacturing at Rolls-Royce, automotive manufacturing at Bentley or pharmaceuticals manufacturing at AstraZeneca." which contradicts what he said about Birmingham being the most important base outside London. He also praised "Manchester's 'first-class global' university, knowledge and transport infrastructure were the two key factors that determined the success of a city or region."
- John Prescott (born in Wales and raised in Merseyside), former Deputy Prime Minister and current Member of Parliament for the constituency of Hull East was also quoted as saying "Manchester - our second city", but this was later played down by his department, claiming they were made in a "light-hearted context".
- Graham Stringer (born, raised and currently representing Manchester), MP for Manchester Blackley responded with "Manchester has always been the second city after the capital, in many ways it's the first. Birmingham has never really been in the competition."
Other candidates for the title
Edinburgh also has a claim on the title of "second city" by virtue of its status as the capital city of Scotland. In addition, it's the second busiest tourist destination after London, and since
devolution has become the most important city after London in governmental terms, housing the
Scottish Parliament. It is a growing financial centre and houses, amongst other financial and insurance companies,
Royal Bank of Scotland and
HBOS, two of the UK's big five banks.
Edinburgh is also home to the world's largest arts festival every August; is the only British city to have hosted the
Commonwealth Games twice (1970 & 1986); and has in recent years been one of the main alternatives in the UK to London for hosting major political summits, having seen visits from the EU heads of Government, G8 heads of government, and the Commonwealth heads of government.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Second City Of The United Kingdom'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://second_city_of_the_united_kingdom.totallyexplained.com">Second city of the United Kingdom Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
