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Manchester ARTICLES

The Tale of Two Cities and Eight Metropolitan Boroughs

18th April 2008

Greater Manchester Metropolitan County was created in 1974 as an administrative entity. It was stated that the title Greater Manchester was largely a convenient entity created for practical administrative purposes such as gaining postal and political distinction.

All the 10 metropolitan borough towns have a real confederation and act as one body in most cases.

The Greater Manchester Metropolitan County consists of two cities and eight boroughs.

The new Metropolitan boundaries included Manchester and Salford as two separate cities in their own right.

Six former County Boroughs, Bury, Bolton, Oldham, Stockport, Rochdale and Wigan, where renamed as towns.

Tameside and Trafford were the newly introduced boroughs that do not geographically exist.

The old and historic county of Lancashire is mainly to the north and west of the City of Manchester.

The county town is Preston and is also the administrative centre of the county.

Like the City of Manchester, Salford was independent of county status and was a city.

Before the regional reorganisation of 1974 the City of Manchester was surrounded by County Boroughs. The boroughs Bury, Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale and Wigan were all located in Lancashire, with Stockport being in the County of Cheshire.

Many residents in the old Lancashire townships felt that they were losing their native county and to this day most of them refer to themselves as Lancastrians.

The loss felt by some was so great that they even started an organisation called ‘Friends of Real Lancashire’.

The organisation purports, ‘Our County is called Lancashire, not Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Merseyside or part of Cheshire’.

Many Boltonians, Oldhamers, Wiganers and Rochdalians still declare that they live in Lancashire and not in Greater Manchester.

Furthermore parts of Trafford and Stockport are within the County of Cheshire, which also adds to the confusion of the boroughs.

SOURCE:
Wikipedia