Discover Manchester and Liverpool
Manchester...
Manchester is truly a city in its prime, a city built on success. One of the largest economic regions outside London, it is also home to Europe's biggest academic institution and the UK's third largest airport.
Eighty of the UK's Top 100 Companies operate out of Manchester and growth sectors include Information and Computer Technology, aerospace, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Manchester's "supercampus" of four universities is a worldwide resource for research and development and is the preferred source of graduated for the UK's top employers.
World focus turned on Manchester when, as host city for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, the city welcomed over a million visitors, including 100,000 from overseas. Thanks to Manchester's strong transport infrastructure, along with its superb venues, accommodation and high standards of service, the event became known as "the Friendly Games" and was proclaimed the most successful Commonwealth Games ever staged.
You can chart the city's success story through its landmark buildings. Many of them have changed their function, but they remain proud, beautiful and bustling with 21st century life, in celebration of all the entrepreneurs, the academics, the industries, the people who helped to make Manchester the world-class city it is today.
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Liverpool...
Liverpool, European Capital of Culture 2008, is famous throughout the world for the Beatles, for football, for the Ferry across the Mersey and for the Liver Birds. It is the 6th largest city in the UK, with a population of almost 1/2 million people, excellent road and rail connections, rapid trans-global sea routes and Liverpool John Lennon Airport, just eight miles from the city centre. Over 800 years of maritime history have created a hub of cultural wealth and diversity and Liverpool today is home to more museums, theatres and galleries than any other UK city outside London.
Grand, iconic architecture has earned Liverpool its new status as World Heritage Site. On the waterfront, the famous Three Graces - the Cunard Building, Port of Liverpool Building and Liver Building all symbolise the city's importance during the period of Britain's greatest global influence. And the handsome Grade I listed buildings of the Albery Dock made up one of the city's major visitor attractions, with restaurants, bars, shops, museums and galleries. The city's two cathedrals - Anglican and Catholic - are world famous, and even the toilets of the Philharmonic Pub feature among the city's architectural highlights.
At the heart of Liverpool, Britain's original redbrick university is one of the city's major conference venues. With nearly 20,000 students, an annual research income of £75 million and over 400 industry partners, the historic University of Liverpool is renowned for its teaching and research excellence. And as one of Merseyside's largest employers, the University is as major source of innovation and plays a key role in the economic development of the region in terms of employment, skills, research and technology.
And if you want a city double, Liverpool could well play the part - its streets and buildings have already played the parts of Moscow, Paris, Chicago and London in various major films, and the city nurtures a successful and growing film and TV production industry, spearheaded by Liverpool Film Studios and Mersey Television.
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