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Second city of the United Kingdom
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Identifying the second city of the United Kingdom is a subject of some disagreement. A country's second city is the city that is 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 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.
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.
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Encyclopedia
Identifying the second city of the United Kingdom is a subject of some disagreement. A country's second city is the city that is 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 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.
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 in both England and Scotland have at times been considered to the second city. For example: Glasgow, in Scotland, was in the past called The Second City of the Empire. For the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the whole of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. During some of this time Dublin was considered to be second city.
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 (joint European Capital of Culture 2008), Leeds, 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, became independent 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 union with Scotland 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
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