Greater Manchester refers to an area roughly encompassing the conurbation of which the city of Manchester is the centre. It is situated in North West England. It has a population of about 2.5 million.
It is made up of ten Metropolitan boroughs - Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan.
Greater Manchester was invented as a Metropolitan county in 1974. Previous to this, the area it covered was a part of the county of Lancashire.
The Metropolitan boroughs are now mostly independent councils, although they pool resources to run several Greater Manchester-wide services, including:
- Greater Manchester Police Authority
- Greater Manchester County Fire Service
- Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive
Other services are directly funded and managed by the local councils.