title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Tim Rose and Mike Quinn reprise their respective roles as Admiral Ackbar and Nien Nunb from "Return of the Jedi", with Erik Bauersfeld and Kipsang Rotich returning their respective voices. Kenny Baker, originally announced as part of the cast, was credited as "consultant" for R2-D2, with Jimmy Vee performing some of the work for R2-D2. Ewan McGregor has an uncredited vocal cameo as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Rey's vision sequence, while archival audio of Frank Oz and Alec Guinness as Yoda and Kenobi, respectively, are also used in the same scene; Oz recorded new dialogue for the film, but it was replaced with preexisting audio from "The Empire Strikes Back". "" voice actor James Arnold Taylor, who has voiced Obi-Wan Kenobi in different "Star Wars" media, originally recorded Kenobi's dialogue, but his recordings were replaced with McGregor's.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Gwendoline Christie portrays Captain Phasma, the commander of the First Order's legions of stormtroopers. Dave Chapman and Brian Herring served as puppeteers for BB-8, with Bill Hader and Ben Schwartz credited as "Vocal Consultants". Ken Leung appears as Statura, an admiral in the Resistance. Simon Pegg appears as Unkar Plutt, the Junk parts dealer on Jakku. Greg Grunberg plays Temmin "Snap" Wexley, an X-wing pilot. Kiran Shah plays Teedo, a scavenger on Jakku who rides a semi-mechanical Luggabeast. Jessica Henwick appears as Jess "Testor" Pava or Jess Testor, an X-wing pilot. Brian Vernel appears as Bala-Tik, the leader of the Guavian Death Gang. Yayan Ruhian and Iko Uwais appear as Tasu Leech and Razoo Qin-Fee, members of the Kanjiklub Gang, a criminal organization. Warwick Davis appears as Wollivan, a tavern-dweller in Maz Kanata's castle. Anna Brewster appears as Bazine Netal, a First Order spy, also at Maz Kanata's castle. Hannah John-Kamen appears as a First Order officer. Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Kate Fleetwood play First Order Petty Officers, Thanisson and Unamo, respectively. Billie Lourd, daughter of Carrie Fisher, appears as Connix, a lieutenant in the Resistance. Members of the Resistance include Emun Elliott as Brance and Maisie Richardson-Sellers as Korr Sella while Harriet Walter appears as Kalonia, the doctor who tends to Chewbacca. Mark Stanley appears as a Knight of Ren. Sebastian Armesto portrays Lieutenant Mitaka and Pip Torrens portrays Colonel Kaplan, both serving the First Order.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Daniel Craig, Michael Giacchino, and Nigel Godrich cameo as stormtroopers. Abrams' assistant, Morgan Dameron, appears as a Resistance officer, while his father, Gerald W. Abrams, appears as Captain Cypress. Dialect coach Andrew Jack portrays Resistance Major Caluan Ematt. Additionally, Crystal Clarke, Pip Andersen, Christina Chong, Miltos Yerolemou, Amybeth Hargreaves, Leanne Best, Judah Friedlander, and Kevin Smith appear in minor roles. Riot control stormtrooper FN-2199, who calls Finn a traitor during the battle on Takodana, was portrayed by stunt performer Liang Yang and voiced by sound editor David Acord.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: "Star Wars" creator George Lucas discussed ideas for a sequel trilogy several times after the conclusion of the original trilogy, but denied any intent to make it. In October 2012, he sold his production company Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company. Speaking alongside Lucasfilm's new president, Kathleen Kennedy, Lucas said: "I always said I wasn't going to do any more and that's true, because I'm not going to do any more, but that doesn't mean I'm unwilling to turn it over to Kathy to do more."


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: As creative consultant on the film, Lucas attended early story meetings and advised on the details of the "Star Wars" universe. Among the materials he turned over to the production team were his rough story treatments for "Episodes VII–IX", which Lucas requested be read only by Kennedy, Bob Iger, Alan F. Horn, and Kevin A. Mayer. Lucas later said Disney had discarded his story ideas and that he had no further involvement with the film. Lucas' son Jett told "The Guardian" that his father was "very torn" about having sold the rights to the franchise and that his father was "there to guide" but that "he wants to let it go and become its new generation".


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: "The Force Awakens" first screenplay was written by Michael Arndt. At the time of his hiring, Arndt was also tapped to pen story treatments for the following installments. Arndt took part in a writers room with Simon Kinberg, Lawrence Kasdan, Pablo Hidalgo, and Kiri Hart to discuss and plan the overall trilogy. Early drafts had Luke Skywalker appear midway through the film, but Arndt found that "every time Luke came in and entered the movie, he just took it over. Suddenly you didn't care about your main character anymore." The writers decided to use Luke as the film's MacGuffin and, as something that the protagonists needed to find, would not appear in person until the final scene. Arndt also developed some backstory elements for the returning characters from the original trilogy, such as how Leia was instrumental in rebuilding the Republic after the fall of the Empire before being discredited when it was publicly revealed that her biological father was Darth Vader (this would go on to become a central plot point in the canonical novel "").


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Several directors were considered, including David Fincher, Brad Bird, Jon Favreau, and Guillermo del Toro. Bird was reportedly "top choice" to helm the film, but his commitments to "Tomorrowland" forced him to withdraw. Matthew Vaughn was an early candidate for the job, even dropping out of "" in favor for the film. Colin Trevorrow was also under consideration by the studio, while Ben Affleck and Neill Blomkamp passed on the project. After a suggestion by Steven Spielberg to Kennedy, J. J. Abrams was named director in January 2013, with Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg as project consultants. Kasdan worked to convince Abrams to direct the film after the filmmaker initially rejected the offer. Arndt worked on the script for eight months, but said he needed 18 more, which was more time than Disney or Abrams could give him. The production announced Arndt's exit from the project on October 24, 2013. That same day, Kasdan and Abrams took over script duties, both of whom planned the story while walking in Santa Monica, California, New York City, Paris, and London. The first draft was completed in six weeks. Abrams said the key to the film was [returned] to the roots of the first "Star Wars" films and be based more on emotion than explanation. In January 2014, Abrams confirmed that the script was complete. In April 2014, Lucasfilm clarified that "Episodes VII–IX" would not feature storylines from the "Star Wars" expanded universe, though other elements could be included, as with the TV series "Star Wars Rebels".


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Abrams stated that he purposely withheld some plot elements from "The Force Awakens", such as Rey and Finn's last names and backgrounds. Kennedy admitted that "we haven't mapped out every single detail [of the sequel trilogy] yet", but said that Abrams was collaborating with "The Last Jedi" director Rian Johnson, and that Johnson would work with "The Rise of Skywalker"s then-director Colin Trevorrow to ensure a smooth transition and that "everybody's got a say in how we move forward with this". Daisy Ridley later recounted that J. J. Abrams had written drafts for episodes 8 and 9.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: A fictional language was developed for use in the film by YouTube star Sara Forsberg, who created the viral video series "What Languages Sound Like To Foreigners"; Forsberg developed the language by studying various languages, such as Hindi and Gujarati.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: In November 2015, Lucas recorded an hour-long interview with CBS News reporter Charlie Rose in which he said Disney had not been "keen" to involve him and conceded: "If I get in there, I'm just going to cause trouble because they're not going to do what I want them to do, and I don't have the control to do that any more, and all it would do is just muck everything up." He also said, "They wanted to do a retro movie. I don't like that. Every movie, I worked very hard to make them different [...] I made them completely different—different planets, different spaceships to make it new." In early December 2015, Kathleen Kennedy told "The Hollywood Reporter" that Lucas had seen the movie and "liked it". In the same month, at the Kennedy Center Honors, Lucas stated, "I think the fans are going to love it, It's very much the kind of movie they've been looking for." Abrams felt that, as the first in a new trilogy, the film "needed to take a couple of steps backwards into very familiar terrain" and use plot elements from previous "Star Wars" films.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: In May 2013, it was confirmed that "The Force Awakens" would be filmed in the United Kingdom. Representatives from Lucasfilm met with Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to agree to produce "The Force Awakens" in the UK. Osborne committed £25 million of public money towards the film, claiming it was a boost for British culture and its film industry. According to production company account filings in the United Kingdom, "The Force Awakens" ultimately received a total of £31.6 million ($47.4 million) from the government.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Beginning in September 2013, production spaces at the Bad Robot facility were converted for shooting of "The Force Awakens" for the benefit of shooting a minor portion of the film in the United States. The film's costume designer was Michael Kaplan, who had previously worked with Abrams on the films "Star Trek" (2009) and "Star Trek Into Darkness" (2013). Film editors Mary Jo Markey and Maryann Brandon, long-term collaborators with Abrams, were also signed. In August 2013, it was announced that cinematographer Daniel Mindel would be shooting the film on 35 mm film (specifically Kodak 5219). In October 2013, other crew members were confirmed, including sound designer Ben Burtt, director of photography Mindel, production designers Rick Carter and Darren Gilford, costume designer Michael Kaplan, special effects supervisor Chris Corbould, re-recording mixer Gary Rydstrom, supervising sound editor Matthew Wood, visual effects supervisors Roger Guyett, and executive producer Jason McGatlin.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Open auditions were held in the United Kingdom and the United States in November 2013 for the roles of "Rachel" and "Thomas". Casting began in earnest in January 2014, because of changes to the script by Kasdan and Abrams. Screen tests with actors continued until at least three weeks before the official announcement in April 2014, with final casting decisions made only a few weeks earlier. Actors testing had strict nondisclosure agreements, preventing them, their agents or their publicists from commenting on their involvement. Though Lucas intimated that previous cast members Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, and Mark Hamill would return for the new film as early as March 2013, their casting was not confirmed until over a year later.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Abrams set out to have a more diverse cast than previous installments. A very early report claimed the studio wanted Ryan Gosling, Leonardo DiCaprio, Zac Efron for a role. In September 2013, Michael B. Jordan, Saoirse Ronan, and David Oyelowo were among the first to meet with the director. In January 2014, "The Hollywood Reporter" revealed Benedict Cumberbatch, Jack O'Connell, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Alex Pettyfer. Jesse Plemons, Sullivan Stapleton, Tye Sheridan, Hugo Weaving, Michael Fassbender, and Adam Driver all met with Abrams for the film. The role Sheridan met for was ultimately rewritten to be played by a 40 year old actor, while Weaving was in talks for an "Imperial commander". Ronan, Jordan, Frida Gustavsson, and later Miles Teller would go on to confirm their auditions for the film. Industry publications speculated that Plemons could possibly be playing Luke Skywalker's son. In February, Driver was in final negotiations for an unnamed villain, while Gary Oldman revealed he was approached for an undisclosed role. In March, John Boyega, Plemons, Ray Fisher, Matthew James Thomas and Ed Speleers were Abrams' top choice for the lead role. Boyega began talks after dropping out of the Jesse Owens biopic "Race". That same month, Lupita Nyong'o was said to have met also met with Abrams for the female lead. In April 2014, Plemons and Thomas were no longer in contention for the film. That same month, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, an "unknown Oxford actress", and Dev Patel were up for unknown roles. Ronan, Richardson-Sellers, Eiza Gonzalez, Elizabeth Olsen and Jessica Henwick auditioned for Rey. Joseph David-Jones, Tom Holland, and Daryl McCormack were later reported to have auditioned for Finn while McCormack made it to the final round of auditions for the part. Eddie Redmayne and Joel Kinnaman tested for Kylo Ren.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Daisy Ridley was cast by February 2014, and by the end of that month a deal had been worked out with Driver, who was able to work around his "Girls" schedule. Talks with Andy Serkis and Oscar Isaac began by March and continued into April. Denis Lawson, who played Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy, declined to reprise his role, saying it would have "bored" him.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: In April, Ridley, Boyega, Isaac, Driver, Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow were announced as part of the cast; while Ford, Hamill, Fisher, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Baker reprised their roles from the original trilogy. In June, cast additions Lupita Nyong'o and Gwendoline Christie were announced. To prepare for his role, Hamill was assigned a personal trainer and a nutritionist at the request of the producers, who wanted him to resemble an older Luke. Fisher was also assigned a personal trainer and a nutritionist. Abrams initially considered using Daniels only in a voice role for C-3PO, but Daniels opted to reprise the role physically as well; the production team built a new C-3PO costume to accommodate him. A flashback scene was cut from Rey's vision (following her discovery of Luke's lightsaber), which would have featured Robert Boulter standing in for Luke as he appeared in his duel with Vader in "The Empire Strikes Back".


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: In May, Abrams announced a donation contest for UNICEF from the "Star Wars" set in Abu Dhabi; the winner was allowed to visit the set, meet members of the cast and appear in the film. In October, Warwick Davis, who played Wicket in "Return of the Jedi", as well as Wald and Weazle in "The Phantom Menace" (1999), announced that he would appear in "The Force Awakens", but did not reveal his role. In November, Debbie Reynolds confirmed that her granddaughter (Fisher's daughter), Billie Lourd, was in the film. Lourd first auditioned for the role of Rey prior to her casting.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: In February 2014, Abrams said filming would begin in May and last about three months. The official announcement came in March, when Disney and Lucasfilm announced that principal photography would commence in May and be based at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, England. That month, it was revealed that pre-production filming would take place in Iceland prior to the start of official filming in May, consisting of landscape shots that would be used for scenery in the film. In April, Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn confirmed that filming had begun, filming in secret in the United Arab Emirates around Liwa Oasis, part of the emirate of Abu Dhabi, by a second unit. Later that month, it was revealed that in addition to 35 mm film, segments of the film were being shot in the 65 mm IMAX format. In July, Bad Robot reported via Twitter that the film would be at least partially shot on IMAX cameras.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Principal photography began in Abu Dhabi on May 16, 2014. The budget was reported to be between $259 million and $306 million. Abrams and the cast members went to Abu Dhabi in early May, where large sets were built on location—including a shuttle-like spacecraft, a large tower, and a big market—and where explosives were used to create a "blast crater". Cast members were spotted practicing driving vehicles that would be used during filming. Production moved to Pinewood Studios in June.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: That same month, Harrison Ford fractured his leg while filming at Pinewood after a hydraulic door on the "Millennium Falcon" set fell on him, and was taken to a hospital. According to Abrams, Ford's ankle "went to a 90-degree angle". Production was suspended for two weeks because of Ford's injury. Ford's son Ben said the ankle would likely need a plate and screws and that filming could be altered slightly, with the crew needing to shoot Ford from the waist up for a short time until he recovered. A month later, Jake Steinfeld, Ford's personal trainer, said Ford was recovering rapidly. Abrams also suffered a fractured vertebra in his back when he was trying to help lift the door after Ford's accident, but he kept this to himself for over a month. In February 2016, it was reported that the Health and Safety Executive brought four criminal charges against Disney subsidiary Foodles Production (UK), Ltd. for alleged health and safety breaches relating to Ford's accident. Foodles Production (UK) Ltd was subsequently fined $1.95 million in October 2016 for two health and safety breaches, after admitting the counts at an earlier hearing.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: On July 28, 2014 filming took place over three days at Skellig Michael, an island off the coast of County Kerry, Ireland, with a cast including Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley. Landscape shots for the planet Takodana were shot in July in the Lake District in the northwest of England. Production was halted for two weeks in early August 2014 so Abrams could rework shooting in Ford's absence and resumed with a fully healed Ford in mid-August. In September, the former RAF Greenham Common military base in Berkshire was used and featured set constructions of several spaceships. Puzzlewood in the Forest of Dean Gloucestershire England was used for some scenes. Principal photography ended on November 3, 2014.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Kennedy said "The Force Awakens" would use real locations and models over computer-generated imagery. Johnson reiterated that Abrams would use little CGI and more practical, traditional special effects, saying: "I think people are coming back around to [practical effects]. It feels like there is sort of that gravity pulling us back toward it. I think that more and more people are hitting kind of a critical mass in terms of the CG-driven action scene lending itself to a very specific type of action scene, where physics go out the window and it becomes so big so quick." Abrams' intention in prioritizing practical special effects was to recreate the visual realism and authenticity of the original "Star Wars". To that end, the droid BB-8 was a physical prop developed by Disney Research, created by special effects artist Neal Scanlan and operated live on set with the actors. The Holochess sequence was created using stop-motion, which was supervised by Tippett Studio and overseen by Phil Tippett, who also worked on the stop-motion sequence in the original "Star Wars" film.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: In February 2014, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) announced plans to open a facility in London, citing Disney's "Star Wars" films as a catalyst for the expansion. ILM's Vancouver branch also worked on the special effects for the film. Abrams supervised post-production and editing of the film at Bad Robot Productions' headquarters in Santa Monica. In August 2015, he gave the film's estimated running time of 124 minutes. Abrams made changes to the film's plot in the editing process to simplify the film, by removing some sequences shown in trailers: "At one point, Maz used to continue along with the characters back to the Resistance base, but we realised that she really had nothing to do there of value [...] So we ended up leaving those things out." The final cut of the film runs for 138 minutes.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: On November 6, 2014, the film's title was announced as "Star Wars: The Force Awakens". In December 2015, Pablo Hidalgo, the creative executive at the Lucasfilm Story Group which handles all the canonical continuity for the "Star Wars" universe, revealed that the working title for the film was "Shadow of the Empire" "for the longest time".


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: In July 2013, John Williams was confirmed to return to compose the sequel trilogy, beginning with "The Force Awakens". He began working on the film in December 2014, and by June 2015 had been through most of the film reels, working on a daily basis. In May 2015, Williams said he would return to themes from the previous films, such as those for Luke, Leia, and Han, in ways that "there are a few that I think are important and will seem very much a part of the fabric of the piece in a positive and constructive way." He said that working with Abrams was similar to the process he went through with Lucas in the earlier films.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Recording sessions for "The Force Awakens" began in June 2015 at the Sony Pictures Studios' Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage in Culver City, with William Ross conducting most of the music. The first day of recording was June 1, 2015. Williams attended the sessions and conducted the remainder of the recordings in Los Angeles.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: The score was recorded in 12 sessions within a five-month period between June and mid-November. The 90-piece orchestra recorded 175 minutes of music; however, Abrams reedited the film, which discarded, modified, or rerecorded the score's part for nearly an hour. Williams' theme for Snoke was recorded by a 24-voice men's chorus. Gustavo Dudamel conducted the opening and end title music for the film at Williams' behest. Recording of the score was completed on November 14, 2015. The film's soundtrack was released by Walt Disney Records on December 18, 2015. Williams' score is more than two hours long.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Lin-Manuel Miranda and Abrams contributed music to the film's cantina scene. Abrams met Miranda at a performance of his Broadway musical "Hamilton", where Miranda jokingly offered to compose cantina music, should it be needed. Unknown to Miranda, Williams had previously told Abrams that he did not want to compose the music for that scene, wanting to focus on the orchestral score. Abrams then contacted Miranda, and the two collaborated on the music for the scene over a period of two months.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Disney backed "The Force Awakens" with extensive marketing campaigns. "Deadline Hollywood" estimated the media value was $175 million; its costs alongside home media revenues had later risen to $423 million by "The Guardian". On November 28, 2014, Lucasfilm released an 88-second teaser trailer. It was screened in selected cinemas across the United States and Canada and in theaters worldwide in December 2014. It was also released on YouTube and the iTunes Store, generating 58.2 million views on YouTube in its first week. Critics compared the brief footage favorably to the production values of the original trilogy. "The Hollywood Reporter" called the trailer "perfectly potent nostalgia", praising its mix of old and new. "Empire" was impressed by the continuity with the first films—"the "feel" of classic "Star Wars""—but noted the absence of Hamill, Ford, and Fisher and speculated about the significance of the new characters. "The Guardian" wrote that the use of the "Star Wars" fanfare by John Williams reinforced brand loyalty among fans.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: On December 11, 2014, Abrams and Kennedy released a series of eight mock Topps trading cards revealing the names of several characters. On April 16, 2015, a second teaser trailer, this one lasting two minutes, was shown at the opening panel at the "Star Wars" Celebration in Anaheim, California. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said the reaction to the trailer was "staggering [...] the entire room of almost eight thousand people just leapt to their feet and roared, I mean I can't think of anything I've ever been to—other than a rock concert—that felt quite like that". The trailer was viewed over 88million times within the first 24 hours of release. The trailer shows many of the new characters and the first footage of Chewbacca and Han Solo. "The Huffington Post"s Graham Milne wrote that the trailer "was an affirmation of something that we'd long been told was never going to happen. This was a gift. This was faith rewarded. About damn time."


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: "Vanity Fair" was the first magazine to release an exclusive cover issue devoted to "The Force Awakens". The magazine, released on May 7, 2015, featured exclusive interviews and photos of the cast photographed by Annie Leibovitz. At the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con International, in addition to a panel with many of the actors, a behind-the-scenes look at the film demonstrated the film's use of practical sets and effects. It was positively received, with Nigel M. Smith of "The Guardian" writing: "The featurette's angle is a strong one and connects with fans of the original trilogy in an incredibly poignant way. It also does a sly job of teasing Fisher's new look as Leia and Simon Pegg's mysterious involvement as a rumored alien in the movie, without actually showing the actors in action." Smith compared the marketing strategy for the film to that of a previous Abrams film, "Super 8", saying "the promos [...] are notable for what they tease, not what they give away."


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Walt Disney Studios and Lucasfilm presented a look at "The Force Awakens" at Disney's D23 Expo in August 2015. Drew Struzan—who designed the poster artwork for the previous "Star Wars" films—produced a commemorative poster given to the event's attendees. In October 2015, Lucasfilm unveiled the theatrical release poster and a third trailer. The poster omitted Luke Skywalker and revealed a Death Star-like "orb". The trailer debuted during the halftime break of "Monday Night Football", before being released online. The reaction to the trailer by fans on social media was "frenzied", with Lizo Mzimba of the BBC writing that "perhaps the most significant thing about the final trailer before the film's release is how little of the story it reveals." Robbie Collin of "The Daily Telegraph" felt the trailer was "a perfect blend of old and new, in keeping with the old-fashioned "Star Wars" aesthetic". The trailer received 128million views in 24 hours. 16 million of the views came from its airing on "Monday Night Football". At the end of October, Air France announced a "Flight and Cinema" package, providing customers who book select flights to Paris transportation to a theater to see the film, since France was one of the first countries to release the film. On November 23, a partnership with Google was announced, in which Google users could choose to affiliate themselves with either the Dark or Light Side, which would change the appearance of their Google websites. Additionally, Disney teamed up with Verizon to create a virtual-reality experience for Google Cardboard.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: On December 17, 2015, select theaters across the United States and Canada aired a "Star Wars" marathon, airing the six previous "Star Wars" episode films in 2D, followed by "The Force Awakens" in 3D. Attendees received a special lanyard featuring exclusive marathon art.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Disney Publishing Worldwide and Lucasfilm announced a series of at least 20 books and comics, "", which were released by multiple publishers starting in late 2015, prior to the film's premiere. The series includes books by Del Rey and Disney-Lucasfilm publishers and comic books from Marvel Comics. All titles under the program are canonical to the "Star Wars" universe. Alan Dean Foster wrote of "The Force Awakens" which was released in e-book form on December 18. In an effort to avoid revealing plot details before the film's release, the print release of the novelization was delayed until January 2016. Marvel Comics published a six-issue comic book adaptation of "The Force Awakens" between June and November 2016.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Disney Consumer Products and Lucasfilm announced that September 4, 2015 would be deemed "Force Friday" and would be the official launch of all the merchandise for "The Force Awakens". Beginning at 12:01 am, fans could buy toys, books, clothing and various other products at Disney Stores and other retailers throughout the world. Disney and Maker Studios hosted an 18-hour live-streaming presentation on YouTube, showcasing multiple merchandise products beginning on September 3, 2015. Among these products were a remote-controlled BB-8 developed by Sphero. Sphero had participated in a Disney-run startup accelerator in July 2014, where they were invited into a private meeting with Disney CEO Bob Iger, in which they were shown on-set photos and imagery of BB-8 before its public unveiling. Many retailers, such as Toys "R" Us, were unable to meet demand for "Star Wars" products due to the event.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: "The Force Awakens" is the first "Star Wars" film to not have a direct tie-in game to accompany it. Instead, select characters, scenes and/or locations from the film became part of other "Star Wars" video games: Characters from the film were added to an update to the mobile game "", available for iOS and Android and released by Electronic Arts; free downloadable content for Electronic Arts' "Star Wars Battlefront" reboot allowed players to battle on the planet Jakku; an update to the mobile game "Star Wars Commander", released by Disney Mobile for iOS, Android and the Windows Store, allowed players to battle on the planet Takodana during the Galactic Civil War era; and a condensed version of the film's plot becomes an add-on "playset" in the toys-to-life game "Disney Infinity 3.0", with Finn, Rey, Poe Dameron, and Kylo Ren as playable characters. Eventually, the film got a full Lego video game adaptation, titled "", which was released by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on June 28, 2016.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" premiered in Los Angeles at the TCL Chinese Theatre, El Capitan Theatre, and Dolby Theatre on December 14, 2015. A white tent stretched along Hollywood Boulevard from Orange Drive to Highland Avenue, covering the "massive" premiere event that hosted more than five thousand guests. The film was originally scheduled for a mid-2015 release, but in November 2013, it was pushed back to December 18, 2015. It was also released in 3D and IMAX 3D formats.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: In the United States and Canada, it had the widest release of December across 4,134 theaters, of which 3,300 were 3D locations, a record 392 IMAX screens (13 of which were 70mm), 451 premium large format screens, 146 D-Box locations, as well as releasing in the Dolby Vision format (high-dynamic range, Rec. 2020 color) in Dolby Cinema. Worldwide, it was released across 940 IMAX theaters, a new record. On December 18, 2015, the film began playing on every IMAX screen in the United States and Canada for four straight weeks up to January 14, 2016. This made it the first film since Warner Bros.' "The Hobbit" trilogy to receive such a release. The film finally shed some of its IMAX screens with the release of "The Revenant" (2015) and "The Finest Hours" (2016) in mid-January 2016.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Advance ticket sales for the film began on October 19, 2015, and were in strong demand, resulting in online movie ticket sites crashing. Vue Cinemas, the United Kingdom's third-largest theater chain, sold 45,000 tickets in 24 hours, 10,000 of which were sold in 90 minutes, a record for the theater. In the United States, the film pre-sold a record-breaking $6.5 million worth of IMAX ticket sales on a single day. IMAX has never previously registered more than $1 million in pre-sales on a single day. In total, it sold over $50 million in pre-sales, breaking the record. This number was raised to $100 million including $50–60 million in advance ticket sales by December 14. However, not all tickets that were pre-sold were for the film's opening weekend, with Fandango President Paul Yanover saying "people have set aside tickets for screenings in January, weeks after the big opening [...] We have people buying "Star Wars" ["The Force Awakens"] into 2016. It's not just an opening-weekend phenomenon." Similarly, the film broke pre-sales records in the UK, Canada, and Germany.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: "The Force Awakens" is the first live-action "Star Wars" film not to be released theatrically by 20th Century Fox; accordingly the film is not introduced with either that company's logo, or its signature fanfare composed by Alfred Newman. Instead, the film is the first in the series to be distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, and the film is presented with only Lucasfilm's production logo shown silently before the main titles. Disney chairman Bob Iger explained that the decision not to place Disney branding on the film was "for the fans".


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: A poster from mainland China was criticized for being racist due to shrinking the size of the Black character Finn compared to non-Chinese posters.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" through digital download and Disney Movies Anywhere on April 1, 2016, and on Blu-ray and DVD on April 5. Physical copies include behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes, interviews, and additional footage with eight bonus features. In its first week, "The Force Awakens" sold 669,318 DVDs and 3.4million Blu-rays as the most sold film on both formats in the United States. That same week, "The Force Awakens" topped the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert chart, which tracks overall disc sales, as well as the dedicated Blu-ray sales chart with 83% of unit sales coming from Blu-ray. Overall, "The Force Awakens" sold 2.1million DVDs and 5.9million Blu-rays, adding them up to get a total of 8million copies, and made $191million through home media releases.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: A Blu-ray 3D "collector's edition" of the film was released on November 15, including all the features of the original home releases, as well as several new bonus features, including new deleted scenes and audio commentary by director J. J. Abrams. The package includes a Blu-ray 3D, regular Blu-ray, DVD, and digital copy of the film, as well as an additional Blu-ray disc for the bonus features. In 2020, a 27-disc Skywalker Saga box set was released, containing the nine films in the series, with each film on three discs, a Blu-ray version, a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, and special features found on the 2011 release for the first six episodic films.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: The premium cable network Starz had U.S. broadcast syndication rights for "The Force Awakens" in January 2016, just before the end of Starz's output deal covering most Disney films through 2015. That September, "The Force Awakens" began broadcasting on all Starz networks.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" grossed $936.7million in the United States and Canada and $1.132billion in other countries for a worldwide total of $2.068billion, making it the highest-grossing film of 2015 and the third highest-grossing film of all time. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold close to 110million tickets in the United States and Canada. "The Force Awakens" earned 8.6% of the total 2015 releases in the United States and Canada, second only to the 8.8% of the box office earned by "Titanic" in 1997. It was the 24th film in cinematic history to gross $1 billion worldwide, standing as the fastest film to surpass the mark at the time, doing so in 12 days. It was also the third film in history to surpass $2 billion worldwide, doing so on its 53rd day of release. "Deadline Hollywood" calculated the film's net profit as $780.1 million, accounting for production budgets, marketing, talent participations, and other costs; box office grosses and home media revenues placed it first on their list of 2015's "Most Valuable Blockbusters".


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Analysts said that the box office receipts of the film, when compared to predecessors, must be adjusted for inflation, and that the first "Star Wars" film made more when this adjustment is made. It has further been observed that each of the first three films in the series was more profitable in calculating revenue against production costs.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: While "The Force Awakens" was very successful in the United States and Canada, the same success was not witnessed in many overseas individual markets such as India, other certain parts of Asia and Latin America. This was attributed to it being "a retro film" and how overseas audiences do not have the same nostalgia or affinity for the film as those in North America. The "Star Wars" franchise has traditionally lacked resonance with filmgoers in China, and marketing for "The Force Awakens" heavily focused on appealing to that market.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Nancy Tartaglione of "Deadline Hollywood" argued that, if accounting for its 40/60 domestic to international split, "The Force Awakens" did well overseas. While the film had special effects, analysts felt that it lacked the novelty factor; they also stated that its gross was stilted due to markets making way for new films sooner than was previously done. Dergarabedian stated, "No matter what, ["The Force Awakens"] is an absolute, all-out blockbuster without peer in terms of the sheer speed at which it has crossed all of these major box-office milestones." Moreover, Mike Fleming Jr. of "Deadline Hollywood" argued that the movie was the "most valuable movie" of the year, with "the net profit to Disney was an astounding $780.11M, and the Cash on Cash Return was twice that of any other film [released in 2016], at 2.00".


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: In the United States and Canada, "The Force Awakens" was released on December 18, 2015. It made a record-breaking $57 million from Thursday night previews, of which IMAX screenings generated a record-breaking $5.7 million from 391 screens. On its opening day, the film grossed $119.1 million, marking the biggest single- and opening-day record and the first time a film has earned more than $100 million in a single day. Without Thursday-night grosses, the film earned the second-largest opening-day gross and a record of $247.9 million for its opening weekend. The debut was 19% bigger than the previous record holders "The Avengers" (2012) ($207 million) and "Jurassic World" (2015) ($208 million). The opening weekend figure included an IMAX opening-weekend record of $30.1 million (12.65%) from 391 IMAX theaters, which nearly amounts to the $252.5 million total earned by "Return of the Jedi"—the second-lowest-grossing film in the series—in its original run. 2D screenings accounted for 53% of the total opening gross while 3D accounted for 47%. RealD 3D comprised $78 million of the opening gross, setting a new record. At that time, the film had the biggest December opening weekend, breaking the previous record held by "" (2012). It would hold this record until it was surpassed by "" (2021) six years later. Revenues in the film's second weekend decreased by only 39.8% in the United States and Canada, earning $149.2 million, to remain in first place at the box office and recording the biggest second weekend of all time.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: On January 2, after just 16 days of release, it became the second film (following "Avatar") to gross over $700 million in the United States and Canada, and on January 6 became the highest-grossing film of all time domestically, doing so in 20 days. On January 9, it became the first film in cinematic history to cross $800 million domestically unadjusted for inflation. On February 5, "The Force Awakens" became the first film to earn over $900 million, unadjusted for inflation, in the United States and Canada. The film fell outside of the top ten for the first time in its eleventh weekend during the weekend February 26–28, 2016, and did not achieve $1 million in ticket sales for the first time in its fourteenth weekend.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Internationally, the film was released in over 30,000 screens. It opened on December 16, 2015, in 12 international markets and earned $14.1 million on its opening day, debuting at first place in all of them. It expanded in an additional 42 countries on December 17, generating $58.6 million for a two-day international total of $72.7 million, reaching first place in all 44 markets. It grossed a total of $129.5 million in three days after adding $56.8 million on its third day, and set a new midnight record in the United Kingdom with $3.6 million. It broke opening-day records in the United Kingdom ($14.4 million), Germany ($7.1 million), Australia ($6.8 million), Sweden ($1.7 million), Norway ($1.1 million), and in 12 other countries. Other markets which generated large opening days were Spain ($3.5 million) and Japan ($3 million). After the five days, "The Force Awakens" had a total international opening gross of $281 million from 30,000 screens, a new record for December opening and the third-biggest international opening of all time. International markets generating opening-weekend tallies of at least $10 million were the United Kingdom ($50.6 million), Germany ($27.5 million), France ($22.5 million), Australia ($19.6 million), Japan ($13.4 million), and Russia ($12.3 million). The film had the biggest opening of all time in 18 countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Russia, and Sweden.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: After five days, the film had a total worldwide opening record of $529 million from 74 territories, which was the biggest worldwide opening at that time, making it only the second time in cinematic history—after "Jurassic World"—that a film had opened to more than $500 million globally. This included an IMAX opening record of $48 million. Revenues from IMAX dipped slightly, generating $19 million in its second weekend, for a record total of over $70 million in 11 days. IMAX generated $17.9 million from 276 IMAX theaters. The film had a steeper decline in its second weekend, falling 51% to $136.9 million. The film had an unsuccessful opening in India where it opened third against two local blockbusters with a mere $1.51 million. As of February 2016, the highest-grossing markets outside of the United States and Canada were the United Kingdom ($180.7 million), China ($124.5 million), Germany ($109.7 million), Japan ($92.6 million), and France ($88.2 million). On January 17, 2016, it passed the $1 billion mark overseas becoming the first film of Disney, the third film of 2015 and the fifth film overall to achieve this feat. It topped the international box office chart for five consecutive weekends, becoming the first film since "" (2015) to have five straight wins, before being dethroned by "The Revenant" in its sixth weekend. In Japan, it topped the box office for six straight weekends.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 93% of 447 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's consensus reads, "Packed with action and populated by both familiar faces and fresh blood, "The Force Awakens" successfully recalls the series' former glory while injecting it with renewed energy". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale; women, and people under the ages of 25 and 18 gave it an "A+", while 98% of audiences gave it either an "A" or a "B". Audiences polled by PostTrak gave the film an 88% "definite recommend" while 96% said it met or exceeded their expectations.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Robbie Collin of "The Daily Telegraph" said the film "sets out to shake "Star Wars" from its slumber, and reconnect the series with its much-pined-for past", and "it achieves this both immediately and joyously is perhaps the single greatest relief of the movie-going year." Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" said that it was "both a narrative progression from the earlier three films and a shrewdly affectionate next-gen reboot", and it was "ridiculous and melodramatic and sentimental, but exciting and brimming with energy and its own kind of generosity." "Variety"'s Justin Chang wrote that the film has "sufficient style, momentum, love, and care to prove irresistible to any who have ever considered themselves fans." Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" described it as "a beautiful, thrilling, joyous, surprising, and heart-thumping adventure". Ann Hornaday, writing for "The Washington Post", thought the film had "enough novelty to create yet another cohort of die-hard fans", and the film struck "all the right chords, emotional, and narrative, to feel both familiar and exhilaratingly new." "The Charlotte Observer"s Lawrence Toppman said Abrams had "pulled off a delicate balancing act, paying clever homage to the past." Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" gave the film his highest rating and called it "the best "Star Wars" sequel yet and one of the best films of 2015". Frank Pallotta, reviewing the film for CNN Business, found it was the best "Star Wars" film since the original trilogy and that it "is bound to be a film experience long remembered by fans and non-fans alike".


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Tom Long of "The Detroit News" wrote that though some may find the film too similar to the original "Star Wars", it leaves "the ungainly and unneeded clumsiness of the subsequent prequels far behind", with "the energy, humor, and simplicity of direction [has] been recaptured". The Tribune-Star called it "basically the same" as the original film but "isn't that what we all wanted anyway?" Stephanie Zacharek of "Time" wrote that Abrams had delivered "everything we expect, as opposed to those nebulous wonders we didn't know we wanted". Reviewing for "Forbes", Scott Mendelson cited the film's "top-tier production values and a strong sense of scale and scope", but felt it was so much "an exercise in fan service [that] it is only due to the charisma and talent of our newbies and J. J. Abrams' undeniable skill as a visual storyteller that the Mad Libs narrative doesn't outright destroy the picture." Brian Merchant of "Motherboard" said that the film "is supposed to be all about exploring the unexplored, not rehashing the well-trod", and that "one of the most unabashedly creative enterprises of the 20th century has been rendered another largely enjoyable, but mostly forgettable Hollywood reboot." "RogerEbert.com"s Gerardo Valero said the movie "plagiarized" "A New Hope" and resorting to nostalgia. He felt that it "didn't [justify] a return to the universe" from not having an original story of its own to tell in the plot, characters, and musical score, negatively comparing it to George Lucas' prequel trilogy, and that some of its climactic moments felt unearned.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: In an interview with journalist Charlie Rose that aired on December 24, 2015, Lucas likened his decision to sell Lucasfilm to Disney to a "divorce" and outlined the creative differences between him and the producers of "The Force Awakens". Lucas described the previous "Star Wars" films as his "children" and criticized the "retro feel" of "The Force Awakens", saying: "I worked very hard to make [my films] completely different, with different planets, with different spaceships—you know, to make it new." Lucas also likened Disney to "white slavers", which drew some criticism; he subsequently apologized. In a 2019 memoir, Disney chairman Bob Iger said that George Lucas "couldn't even hide his disappointment" towards J. J. Abrams' interpretation. According to Iger, Lucas said, "there's nothing new" after seeing the film, and that "there weren't enough visual or technical leaps forward". Lucas preferred Rian Johnson's sequel "The Last Jedi" and the anthology film "Rogue One" (2016).


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: In 2016, when directly confronted about Lucas' complaints of "The Force Awakens" being too derivative of previous films, Abrams said, "What was important for me was introducing brand new characters using relationships that were embracing the history that we know to tell a story that is new – to go backwards to go forwards". In 2019, Abrams apologized for how he handled Chewbacca and Leia's meeting after Han Solo's death, noting that Han Solo's best friend and widow ignore each other, with Leia instead hugging Rey (whom Leia is meeting for the first time). Johnson's sequel included Leia hugging Chewbacca at the end of "The Last Jedi" as a way to apologize for the previous film's oversight. After being confronted about "The Force Awakens", Abrams further apologized about it, saying he "wished it would have been Lucas' favorite movie", and that he was "grateful for Lucas", while understanding his complaints about the film being highly derivative of "A New Hope". Abrams also said the scene of Starkiller Base destroying a solar system would have had a similar emotional impact to the Death Star destroying planet Alderaan in the original film, had he not chosen to delete scenes of a character who Leia interacted with, prior to the deleted character dying on one of the exploding planets.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Johnson's initial response to the script of "The Force Awakens" included the suggestion of minor adjustments to the ending. According to Abrams, these improved the movie and made it line up more with "The Last Jedi". Abrams intended for BB-8 to help Rey search for Luke, which Johnson changed to R2-D2 (due to being Luke's droid, as well as BB-8 belonging to Poe and not knowing Luke). Additionally, Abrams' ending featured Rey finding Luke lifting rocks with the Force, which was changed due to Johnson's plot of Luke having disconnected himself from the Force. In 2019, in another response to the criticisms towards "The Force Awakens", Abrams stated that Rian Johnson advised him "not to just do something that you've seen before." In the same interview, Abrams said that he liked Snoke's death in the sequel. He also said that Johnson's boldness of "The Last Jedi", mainly in his choice of Snoke's death, inspired him to be more original when returning for "The Rise of Skywalker". Abrams also has affirmed his dedication not to retroactively release alternate versions of the films, saying, "I feel like [when] you're done with a thing, ... that's what it is."


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: Several awards held their nominations before the December release of "The Force Awakens", making the film ineligible for the 73rd Golden Globe Awards and some other awards ceremonies. However, the film was added to the 21st Critics' Choice Awards' slate of best picture nominees after a special vote by the board of directors, and the announcement of the 2015 American Film Institute Awards was delayed until after the release of "The Force Awakens", where it was named one of Top Ten Films of the year.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: At the 88th Academy Awards, "The Force Awakens" received nominations for Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects. The film's other nominations include four British Academy Film Awards (winning one) and a Critics' Choice Movie Award.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: "The Force Awakens" was followed by "The Last Jedi" in 2017. The film's plot follows the Resistance escaping from the First Order. Like the previous film, "The Last Jedi" was a financial success and fared well with critics.


title: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

text: A sequel to "The Last Jedi" was released in 2019, titled "The Rise of Skywalker". As the conclusion to the Skywalker narrative, it focuses on the Resistance assault on the Final Order, a reorganized First Order. Critics' reactions to "The Rise of Skywalker" were mixed.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The two cities and the surrounding towns form one of the United Kingdom's most populous conurbations, the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, which has a population of 2.87 million.


title: Manchester

text: The history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort ("castra") of "Mamucium" or "Mancunium", established in about AD 79 on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. Historically part of Lancashire, areas of Cheshire south of the River Mersey were incorporated into Manchester in the 20th century, including Wythenshawe in 1931. Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a manorial township, but began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchester's unplanned urbanisation was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, and resulted in it becoming the world's first industrialised city. Manchester achieved city status in 1853. The Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894, creating the Port of Manchester and linking the city to the Irish Sea, to the west. Its fortune declined after the Second World War, owing to deindustrialisation, and the IRA bombing in 1996 led to extensive investment and regeneration. Following considerable redevelopment, Manchester was the host city for the 2002 Commonwealth Games.


title: Manchester

text: The city is notable for its architecture, culture, musical exports, media links, scientific and engineering output, social impact, sports clubs and transport connections. Manchester Liverpool Road railway station was the world's first inter-city passenger railway station. At the University of Manchester, Ernest Rutherford first split the atom in 1917, Frederic C. Williams, Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill developed the world's first stored-program computer in 1948, and Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov isolated the first graphene in 2004.


title: Manchester

text: The name "Manchester" originates from the Latin name "Mamucium" or its variant "Mancunio" and the citizens are still referred to as Mancunians (). These names are generally thought to represent a Latinisation of an original Brittonic name. The generally accepted etymology of this name is that it comes from Brittonic *"mamm-" ("breast", in reference to a "breast-like hill"). However, more recent work suggests that it could come from *"mamma" ("mother", in reference to a local river goddess). Both usages are preserved in Insular Celtic languages, such as "mam" meaning "breast" in Irish and "mother" in Welsh. The suffix "-chester" is from Old English "ceaster" ("Roman fortification", itself a loanword from Latin "castra", "fort; fortified town").


title: Manchester

text: The Brigantes were the major Celtic tribe in what is now known as Northern England; they had a stronghold in the locality at a sandstone outcrop on which Manchester Cathedral now stands, opposite the bank of the River Irwell. Their territory extended across the fertile lowland of what is now Salford and Stretford. Following the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century, General Agricola ordered the construction of a fort named Mamucium in the year 79 to ensure that Roman interests in Deva Victrix (Chester) and Eboracum (York) were protected from the Brigantes. Central Manchester has been permanently settled since this time. A stabilised fragment of foundations of the final version of the Roman fort is visible in Castlefield. The Roman habitation of Manchester probably ended around the 3rd century; its civilian settlement appears to have been abandoned by the mid-3rd century, although the fort may have supported a small garrison until the late 3rd or early 4th century. After the Roman withdrawal and Saxon conquest, the focus of settlement shifted to the confluence of the Irwell and Irk sometime before the arrival of the Normans after 1066. Much of the wider area was laid waste in the subsequent Harrying of the North.


title: Manchester

text: In the Domesday Book of 1086, Manchester is recorded as within the hundred of Salford and held as tenant in chief by a Norman named Roger of Poitou, later being held by the family of Grelley, lord of the manor and residents of Manchester Castle until 1215 before a Manor House was built. By 1421 Thomas de la Warre founded and constructed a collegiate church for the parish, now Manchester Cathedral; the domestic premises of the college house Chetham's School of Music and Chetham's Library. The library, which opened in 1653 and is still open to the public today, is the oldest free public reference library in the United Kingdom.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester is mentioned as having a market in 1282. Around the 14th century, Manchester received an influx of Flemish weavers, sometimes credited as the foundation of the region's textile industry. Manchester became an important centre for the manufacture and trade of woollens and linen, and by about 1540, had expanded to become, in John Leland's words, "The fairest, best builded, quickest, and most populous town of all Lancashire." The cathedral and Chetham's buildings are the only significant survivors of Leland's Manchester.


title: Manchester

text: During the English Civil War Manchester strongly favoured the Parliamentary interest. Although not long-lasting, Cromwell granted it the right to elect its own MP. Charles Worsley, who sat for the city for only a year, was later appointed Major General for Lancashire, Cheshire and Staffordshire during the Rule of the Major Generals. He was a diligent puritan, turning out ale houses and banning the celebration of Christmas; he died in 1656.


title: Manchester

text: Significant quantities of cotton began to be used after about 1600, firstly in linen/cotton fustians, but by around 1750 pure cotton fabrics were being produced and cotton had overtaken wool in importance. The Irwell and Mersey were made navigable by 1736, opening a route from Manchester to the sea docks on the Mersey. The Bridgewater Canal, Britain's first wholly artificial waterway, was opened in 1761, bringing coal from mines at Worsley to central Manchester. The canal was extended to the Mersey at Runcorn by 1776. The combination of competition and improved efficiency halved the cost of coal and halved the transport cost of raw cotton. Manchester became the dominant marketplace for textiles produced in the surrounding towns. A commodities exchange, opened in 1729, and numerous large warehouses, aided commerce. In 1780, Richard Arkwright began construction of Manchester's first cotton mill. In the early 1800s, John Dalton formulated his atomic theory in Manchester.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester was one of the centres of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. The great majority of cotton spinning took place in the towns of south Lancashire and north Cheshire, and Manchester was for a time the most productive centre of cotton processing.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester became known as the world's largest marketplace for cotton goods and was dubbed "Cottonopolis" and "Warehouse City" during the Victorian era. In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, the term "manchester" is still used for household linen: sheets, pillow cases, towels, etc. The industrial revolution brought about huge change in Manchester and was key to the increase in Manchester's population.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester began expanding "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century as people flocked to the city for work from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and other areas of England as part of a process of unplanned urbanisation brought on by the Industrial Revolution. It developed a wide range of industries, so that by 1835 "Manchester was without challenge the first and greatest industrial city in the world." Engineering firms initially made machines for the cotton trade, but diversified into general manufacture. Similarly, the chemical industry started by producing bleaches and dyes, but expanded into other areas. Commerce was supported by financial service industries such as banking and insurance.


title: Manchester

text: Trade, and feeding the growing population, required a large transport and distribution infrastructure: the canal system was extended, and Manchester became one end of the world's first intercity passenger railway—the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Competition between the various forms of transport kept costs down. In 1878 the GPO (the forerunner of British Telecom) provided its first telephones to a firm in Manchester.


title: Manchester

text: The Manchester Ship Canal was built between 1888 and 1894, in some sections by canalisation of the Rivers Irwell and Mersey, running from Salford to Eastham Locks on the tidal Mersey. This enabled oceangoing ships to sail right into the Port of Manchester. On the canal's banks, just outside the borough, the world's first industrial estate was created at Trafford Park. Large quantities of machinery, including cotton processing plant, were exported around the world.


title: Manchester

text: A centre of capitalism, Manchester was once the scene of bread and labour riots, as well as calls for greater political recognition by the city's working and non-titled classes. One such gathering ended with the Peterloo massacre of 16 August 1819. The economic school of Manchester Capitalism developed there, and Manchester was the centre of the Anti-Corn Law League from 1838 onward.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester has a notable place in the history of Marxism and left-wing politics; being the subject of Friedrich Engels' work "The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844"; Engels spent much of his life in and around Manchester, and when Karl Marx visited Manchester, they met at Chetham's Library. The economics books Marx was reading at the time can be seen in the library, as can the window seat where Marx and Engels would meet. The first Trades Union Congress was held in Manchester (at the Mechanics' Institute, David Street), from 2 to 6 June 1868. Manchester was an important cradle of the Labour Party and the Suffragette Movement.


title: Manchester

text: At that time, it seemed a place in which anything could happen—new industrial processes, new ways of thinking (the Manchester School, promoting free trade and "laissez-faire"), new classes or groups in society, new religious sects, and new forms of labour organisation. It attracted educated visitors from all parts of Britain and Europe. A saying capturing this sense of innovation survives today: "What Manchester does today, the rest of the world does tomorrow." Manchester's golden age was perhaps the last quarter of the 19th century. Many of the great public buildings (including Manchester Town Hall) date from then. The city's cosmopolitan atmosphere contributed to a vibrant culture, which included the Hallé Orchestra. In 1889, when county councils were created in England, the municipal borough became a county borough with even greater autonomy.


title: Manchester

text: Although the Industrial Revolution brought wealth to the city, it also brought poverty and squalor to a large part of the population. Historian Simon Schama noted that "Manchester was the very best and the very worst taken to terrifying extremes, a new kind of city in the world; the chimneys of industrial suburbs greeting you with columns of smoke". An American visitor taken to Manchester's blackspots saw "wretched, defrauded, oppressed, crushed human nature, lying and bleeding fragments".


title: Manchester

text: The number of cotton mills in Manchester itself reached a peak of 108 in 1853. Thereafter the number began to decline and Manchester was surpassed as the largest centre of cotton spinning by Bolton in the 1850s and Oldham in the 1860s. However, this period of decline coincided with the rise of the city as the financial centre of the region. Manchester continued to process cotton, and in 1913, 65% of the world's cotton was processed in the area. The First World War interrupted access to the export markets. Cotton processing in other parts of the world increased, often on machines produced in Manchester. Manchester suffered greatly from the Great Depression and the underlying structural changes that began to supplant the old industries, including textile manufacture.


title: Manchester

text: Like most of the UK, the Manchester area was mobilised extensively during the Second World War. For example, casting and machining expertise at Beyer, Peacock & Company's locomotive works in Gorton was switched to bomb making; Dunlop's rubber works in Chorlton-on-Medlock made barrage balloons; and just outside the city in Trafford Park, engineers Metropolitan-Vickers made Avro Manchester and Avro Lancaster bombers and Ford built the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines to power them. Manchester was thus the target of bombing by the Luftwaffe, and by late 1940 air raids were taking place against non-military targets. The biggest took place during the Christmas Blitz on the nights of 22/23 and 24 December 1940, when an estimated of high explosives plus over 37,000 incendiary bombs were dropped. A large part of the historic city centre was destroyed, including 165 warehouses, 200 business premises, and 150 offices. 376 were killed and 30,000 houses were damaged. Manchester Cathedral, Royal Exchange and Free Trade Hall were among the buildings seriously damaged; restoration of the cathedral took 20 years.


title: Manchester

text: Cotton processing and trading continued to fall in peacetime, and the exchange closed in 1968. By 1963 the port of Manchester was the UK's third largest, and employed over 3,000 men, but the canal was unable to handle the increasingly large container ships. Traffic declined, and the port closed in 1982. Heavy industry suffered a downturn from the 1960s and was greatly reduced under the economic policies followed by Margaret Thatcher's government after 1979. Manchester lost 150,000 jobs in manufacturing between 1961 and 1983.


title: Manchester

text: Regeneration began in the late 1980s, with initiatives such as the Metrolink, the Bridgewater Concert Hall, the Manchester Arena, and (in Salford) the rebranding of the port as Salford Quays. Two bids to host the Olympic Games were part of a process to raise the international profile of the city.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester has a history of attacks attributed to Irish Republicans, including the Manchester Martyrs of 1867, arson in 1920, a series of explosions in 1939, and two bombs in 1992.


title: Manchester

text: On Saturday 15 June 1996, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) carried out the 1996 Manchester bombing, the detonation of a large bomb next to a department store in the city centre. The largest to be detonated on British soil, the bomb injured over 200 people, heavily damaged nearby buildings, and broke windows away. The cost of the immediate damage was initially estimated at £50 million, but this was quickly revised upwards. The final insurance payout was over £400 million; many affected businesses never recovered from the loss of trade.


title: Manchester

text: Spurred by the investment after the 1996 bomb and aided by the XVII Commonwealth Games, the city centre has undergone extensive regeneration. New and renovated complexes such as The Printworks and Corn Exchange have become popular shopping, eating and entertainment areas. Manchester Arndale is the UK's largest city-centre shopping centre.


title: Manchester

text: Large city sections from the 1960s have been demolished, re-developed or modernised with the use of glass and steel. Old mills have been converted into apartments. Hulme has undergone extensive regeneration, with million-pound loft-house apartments being developed. The 47-storey, Beetham Tower was the tallest UK building outside of London and the highest residential accommodation in Europe when completed in 2006. It was surpassed in 2018 by the South Tower of the Deansgate Square project, also in Manchester. In January 2007, the independent Casino Advisory Panel licensed Manchester to build the UK's only supercasino, but plans were abandoned in February 2008.


title: Manchester

text: On 22 May 2017, an Islamist terrorist carried out a bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in the Manchester Arena; the bomb killed 23, including the attacker, and injured over 800. It was the deadliest terrorist attack and first suicide bombing in Britain since the 7 July 2005 London bombings. It caused worldwide condemnation and changed the UK's threat level to "critical" for the first time since 2007.


title: Manchester

text: Birmingham has historically been considered to be England or the UK's second city, but in the 21st century claims to this unofficial title have also been made for Manchester.


title: Manchester

text: The City of Manchester is governed by the Manchester City Council. The Greater Manchester Combined Authority, with a directly elected mayor, has responsibilities for economic strategy and transport, amongst other areas, on a Greater Manchester-wide basis. Manchester has been a member of the English Core Cities Group since its inception in 1995.


title: Manchester

text: The town of Manchester was granted a charter by Thomas Grelley in 1301, but lost its borough status in a court case of 1359. Until the 19th century local government was largely in the hands of manorial courts, the last of which was dissolved in 1846.


title: Manchester

text: From a very early time, the township of Manchester lay within the historic or ceremonial county boundaries of Lancashire. Pevsner wrote "That [neighbouring] Stretford and Salford are not administratively one with Manchester is one of the most curious anomalies of England". A stroke of a baron's pen is said to have divorced Manchester and Salford, though it was not Salford that became separated from Manchester, it was Manchester, with its humbler line of lords, that was separated from Salford. It was this separation that resulted in Salford becoming the judicial seat of Salfordshire, which included the ancient parish of Manchester. Manchester later formed its own Poor Law Union using the name "Manchester". In 1792, Commissioners – usually known as "Police Commissioners" – were established for the social improvement of Manchester. Manchester regained its borough status in 1838, and comprised the townships of Beswick, Cheetham Hill, Chorlton upon Medlock and Hulme. By 1846, with increasing population and greater industrialisation, the Borough Council had taken over the powers of the "Police Commissioners". In 1853, Manchester was granted city status.


title: Manchester

text: In 1885, Bradford, Harpurhey, Rusholme and parts of Moss Side and Withington townships became part of the City of Manchester. In 1889, the city became a county borough, as did many larger Lancashire towns, and therefore not governed by Lancashire County Council. Between 1890 and 1933, more areas were added to the city, which had been administered by Lancashire County Council, including former villages such as Burnage, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Didsbury, Fallowfield, Levenshulme, Longsight, and Withington. In 1931, the Cheshire civil parishes of Baguley, Northenden and Northen Etchells from the south of the River Mersey were added. In 1974, by way of the Local Government Act 1972, the City of Manchester became a metropolitan district of the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester. That year, Ringway, the village where the Manchester Airport is located, was added to the city.


title: Manchester

text: In November 2014, it was announced that Greater Manchester would receive a new directly elected mayor. The mayor would have fiscal control over health, transport, housing and police in the area. Andy Burnham was elected as the first mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017.


title: Manchester

text: At , northwest of London, Manchester lies in a bowl-shaped land area bordered to the north and east by the Pennines, an upland chain that runs the length of northern England, and to the south by the Cheshire Plain. Manchester is north-east of Liverpool and north-west of Sheffield, making the city the halfway point between the two. The city centre is on the east bank of the River Irwell, near its confluences with the Rivers Medlock and Irk, and is relatively low-lying, being between above sea level. The River Mersey flows through the south of Manchester. Much of the inner city, especially in the south, is flat, offering extensive views from many highrise buildings in the city of the foothills and moors of the Pennines, which can often be capped with snow in the winter months. Manchester's geographic features were highly influential in its early development as the world's first industrial city. These features are its climate, its proximity to a seaport at Liverpool, the availability of water power from its rivers, and its nearby coal reserves.


title: Manchester

text: The name Manchester, though officially applied only to the metropolitan district within Greater Manchester, has been applied to other, wider divisions of land, particularly across much of the Greater Manchester county and urban area. The "Manchester City Zone", "Manchester post town" and the "Manchester Congestion Charge" are all examples of this.


title: Manchester

text: For purposes of the Office for National Statistics, Manchester forms the most populous settlement within the Greater Manchester Urban Area, the United Kingdom's third-largest conurbation. There is a mix of high-density urban and suburban locations. The largest open space in the city, at around , is Heaton Park. Manchester is contiguous on all sides with several large settlements, except for a small section along its southern boundary with Cheshire. The M60 and M56 motorways pass through Northenden and Wythenshawe respectively in the south of Manchester. Heavy rail lines enter the city from all directions, the principal destination being Manchester Piccadilly station.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester experiences a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb"), like much of the British Isles, with warm summers and cool winters. Summer daytime temperatures regularly top 20°C, quite often reaching 25°C on sunny days during July and August in particular. In more recent years, temperatures have occasionally reached over 30°C. There is regular but generally light precipitation throughout the year. The city's average annual rainfall is compared to a UK average of , and its mean rain days are 140.4 per annum, compared to the UK average of 154.4. Manchester has a relatively high humidity level, and this, along with abundant soft water, was one factor that led to advancement of the textile industry in the area. Snowfalls are not common in the city because of the urban warming effect but the West Pennine Moors to the north-west, South Pennines to the north-east and Peak District to the east receive more snow, which can close roads leading out of the city. They include the A62 via Oldham and Standedge, the A57, Snake Pass, towards Sheffield, and the Pennine section of the M62. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Manchester was on 7 January 2010.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester lies at the centre of a green belt region extending into the wider surrounding counties. This reduces urban sprawl, prevents towns in the conurbation from further convergence, protects the identity of outlying communities, and preserves nearby countryside. It is achieved by restricting inappropriate development within the designated areas and imposing stricter conditions on permitted building.


title: Manchester

text: Due to being already highly urban, the city contains limited portions of protected green-belt area within greenfield throughout the borough, with minimal development opportunities, at Clayton Vale, Heaton Park, Chorlton Water Park along with the Chorlton Ees & Ivy Green nature reserve and the floodplain surrounding the River Mersey, as well as the southern area around Manchester Airport. The green belt was first drawn up in 1961.


title: Manchester

text: Historically the population of Manchester began to increase rapidly during the Victorian era, estimated at 354,930 for Manchester and 110,833 for Salford in 1865, and peaking at 766,311 in 1931. From then the population began to decrease rapidly, due to slum clearance and the increased building of social housing overspill estates by Manchester City Council after the Second World War such as Hattersley and Langley.


title: Manchester

text: The 2012 mid-year estimate for the population of Manchester was 510,700. This was an increase of 7,900, or 1.6 per cent, since the 2011 estimate. Since 2001, the population has grown by 87,900, or 20.8 per cent, making Manchester the third fastest-growing area in the 2011 census. The city experienced the greatest percentage population growth outside London, with an increase of 19 per cent to over 500,000. Manchester's population is projected to reach 532,200 by 2021, an increase of 5.8 per cent from 2011. This represents a slower rate of growth than the previous decade.


title: Manchester

text: The Greater Manchester Built-up Area in 2011 had an estimated population of 2,553,400. In 2012 an estimated 2,702,200 people lived in Greater Manchester. An 6,547,000 people were estimated in 2012 to live within of Manchester and 11,694,000 within .


title: Manchester

text: Between the beginning of July 2011 and end of June 2012 (mid-year estimate date), births exceeded deaths by 4,800. Migration (internal and international) and other changes accounted for a net increase of 3,100 people between July 2011 and June 2012. Compared with Greater Manchester and with England, Manchester has a younger population, with a particularly large 20–35 age group.


title: Manchester

text: There were 76,095 undergraduate and postgraduate students at Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Manchester and Royal Northern College of Music in the 2011/2012 academic year.


title: Manchester

text: Of all households in Manchester, 0.23 per cent were Same-Sex Civil Partnership households, compared with an English national average of 0.16 per cent in 2011.


title: Manchester

text: The Manchester Larger Urban Zone, a Eurostat measure of the functional city-region approximated to local government districts, had a population of 2,539,100 in 2004. In addition to Manchester itself, the LUZ includes the remainder of the county of Greater Manchester. The Manchester LUZ is the second largest within the United Kingdom, behind that of London.


title: Manchester

text: Since the 2001 census, the proportion of Christians in Manchester has fallen by 22 per cent from 62.4 per cent to 48.7 per cent in 2011. The proportion of those with no religious affiliation rose by 58.1 per cent from 16 per cent to 25.3 per cent, whilst the proportion of Muslims increased by 73.6 per cent from 9.1 per cent to 15.8 per cent. The size of the Jewish population in Greater Manchester is the largest in Britain outside London.


title: Manchester

text: In terms of ethnic composition, the City of Manchester has the highest non-white proportion of any district in Greater Manchester. Statistics from the 2011 census showed that 66.7 per cent of the population was White (59.3 per cent White British, 2.4 per cent White Irish, 0.1 per cent Gypsy or Irish Traveller, 4.9 per cent Other White – although the size of mixed European and British ethnic groups is unclear, there are reportedly over 25,000 people in Greater Manchester of at least partial Italian descent alone, which represents 5.5 per cent of the population of Greater Manchester). 4.7 per cent were mixed race (1.8 per cent White and Black Caribbean, 0.9 per cent White and Black African, 1.0 per cent White and Asian, 1.0 per cent other mixed), 17.1 per cent Asian (2.3 per cent Indian, 8.5 per cent Pakistani, 1.3 per cent Bangladeshi, 2.7 per cent Chinese, 2.3 per cent other Asian), 8.6 per cent Black (5.1 per cent African, 1.6 per cent other Black), 1.9 per cent Arab and 1.2 per cent of other ethnic heritage.


title: Manchester

text: Kidd identifies Moss Side, Longsight, Cheetham Hill, Rusholme, as centres of population for ethnic minorities. Manchester's Irish Festival, including a St Patrick's Day parade, is one of Europe's largest. There is also a well-established Chinatown in the city with a substantial number of Chinese restaurants and supermarkets. The area also attracts large numbers of Chinese students to the city who, in attending the local universities, contribute to Manchester having the third-largest Chinese population in Europe.


title: Manchester

text: The Office for National Statistics does not produce economic data for the City of Manchester alone, but includes four other metropolitan boroughs, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, in an area named Greater Manchester South, which had a GVA of £34.8 billion. The economy grew relatively strongly between 2002 and 2012, when growth was 2.3 per cent above the national average. The wider metropolitan economy is the third largest in the United Kingdom. It is ranked as a beta world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.


title: Manchester

text: As the UK economy continues to recover from its 2008–2010 downturn, Manchester compares favourably according to recent figures. In 2012 it showed the strongest annual growth in business stock (5 per cent) of all core cities. The city had a relatively sharp increase in the number of business deaths, the largest increase in all the core cities, but this was offset by strong growth in new businesses, resulting in strong net growth.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester's civic leadership has a reputation for business acumen. It owns two of the country's four busiest airports and uses its earnings to fund local projects. Meanwhile, KPMG's competitive alternative report found that in 2012 Manchester had the 9th lowest tax cost of any industrialised city in the world, and fiscal devolution has come earlier to Manchester than to any other British city: it can keep half the extra taxes it gets from transport investment.


title: Manchester

text: KPMG's competitive alternative report also found that Manchester was Europe's most affordable city featured, ranking slightly better than the Dutch cities of Rotterdam and Amsterdam, which all have a cost-of-living index of less than 95.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester is a city of contrast, where some of the country's most deprived and most affluent neighbourhoods can be found. According to 2010 Indices of Multiple Deprivation, Manchester is the 4th most deprived local council in England. Unemployment throughout 2012–2013 averaged 11.9 per cent, which was above national average, but lower than some of the country's comparable large cities. On the other hand, Greater Manchester is home to more multi-millionaires than anywhere outside London, with the City of Manchester taking up most of the tally. In 2013 Manchester was ranked 6th in the UK for quality of life, according to a rating of the UK's 12 largest cities.


title: Manchester

text: Women fare better in Manchester than the rest of the country in comparative pay with men. The per hours-worked gender pay gap is 3.3 per cent compared with 11.1 per cent for Britain. 37 per cent of the working-age population in Manchester have degree-level qualifications, as opposed to an average of 33 per cent across other core cities, although its schools under-perform slightly compared with the national average.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester has the largest UK office market outside London, according to GVA Grimley, with a quarterly office uptake (averaged over 2010–2014) of some 250,000 square ft – equivalent to the quarterly office uptake of Leeds, Liverpool and Newcastle combined and 90,000 square feet more than the nearest rival, Birmingham. The strong office market in Manchester has been partly attributed to "northshoring", (from offshoring) which entails the relocation or alternative creation of jobs away from the overheated South to areas where office space is possibly cheaper and the workforce market less saturated.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester's buildings display a variety of architectural styles, ranging from Victorian to contemporary architecture. The widespread use of red brick characterises the city, much of the architecture of which harks back to its days as a global centre for the cotton trade. Just outside the immediate city centre are a large number of former cotton mills, some of which have been left virtually untouched since their closure, while many have been redeveloped as apartment buildings and office space. Manchester Town Hall, in Albert Square, was built in the Gothic revival style and is seen as one of the most important Victorian buildings in England.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester also has a number of skyscrapers built in the 1960s and 1970s, the tallest being the CIS Tower near Manchester Victoria station until the Beetham Tower was completed in 2006. The latter exemplifies a new surge in high-rise building. It includes a Hilton hotel, a restaurant and apartments. The largest skyscraper is now Deansgate Square South Tower, at 201 metres (659 feet).The Green Building, opposite Oxford Road station, is a pioneering eco-friendly housing project, while the recently completed One Angel Square, is one of the most sustainable large buildings in the world.


title: Manchester

text: The award-winning Heaton Park in the north of the city borough is one of the largest municipal parks in Europe, covering of parkland. The city has 135 parks, gardens, and open spaces.


title: Manchester

text: Two large squares hold many of Manchester's public monuments. Albert Square has monuments to Prince Albert, Bishop James Fraser, Oliver Heywood, William Gladstone and John Bright. Piccadilly Gardens has monuments dedicated to Queen Victoria, Robert Peel, James Watt and the Duke of Wellington. The cenotaph in St Peter's Square is Manchester's main memorial to its war dead. Designed by Edwin Lutyens, it echoes the original on Whitehall in London. The Alan Turing Memorial in Sackville Park commemorates his role as the father of modern computing. A larger-than-life statue of Abraham Lincoln by George Gray Barnard in the eponymous Lincoln Square (having stood for many years in Platt Fields) was presented to the city by Mr and Mrs Charles Phelps Taft of Cincinnati, Ohio, to mark the part Lancashire played in the cotton famine and American Civil War of 1861–1865. A Concorde is on display near Manchester Airport.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester has six designated local nature reserves: Chorlton Water Park, Blackley Forest, Clayton Vale and Chorlton Ees, Ivy Green, Boggart Hole Clough and Highfield Country Park.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester Liverpool Road was the world's first purpose-built passenger and goods railway station and served as the Manchester terminus on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway – the world's first inter-city passenger railway. It is still extant and its buildings form part of the Science & Industry Museum.


title: Manchester

text: Two of the city's four main line termini did not survive the 1960s: Manchester Central and Manchester Exchange each closed in 1969. In addition, Manchester Mayfield station closed to passenger services in 1960; its buildings and platforms are still extant, next to Piccadilly station, but are due to be redeveloped in the 2020s.


title: Manchester

text: Today, the city is well served by its rail network although it is now working to capacity, and is at the centre of an extensive county-wide railway network, including the West Coast Main Line, with two mainline stations: Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Victoria. The Manchester station group – comprising Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Victoria, Manchester Oxford Road and Deansgate – is the third busiest in the United Kingdom, with 44.9 million passengers recorded in 2017/2018. The High Speed 2 link to Birmingham and London is also planned, which if built will include a tunnel under Manchester on the final approach into an upgraded Piccadilly station.


title: Manchester

text: Recent improvements in Manchester as part of the Northern Hub in the 2010s have been numerous electrification schemes into and through Manchester, redevelopment of Victoria station and construction of the Ordsall Chord directly linking Victoria and Piccadilly. Work on two new through platforms at Piccadilly and an extensive upgrade at Oxford Road had not commenced as of 2019. Manchester city centre, specifically the Castlefield Corridor, suffers from constrained rail capacity that frequently leads to delays and cancellations – a 2018 report found that all three major Manchester stations are among the top ten worst stations in the United Kingdom for punctuality, with Oxford Road deemed the worst in the country.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester became the first city in the UK to acquire a modern light rail tram system when the Manchester Metrolink opened in 1992. In 2016–2017, 37.8 million passenger journeys were made on the system.<ref name="16/17DfTstats"></ref> The present system mostly runs on former commuter rail lines converted for light rail use, and crosses the city centre via on-street tram lines. The network consists of eight lines with 99 stops. A new line to the Trafford Centre opened in 2020.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester city centre is also serviced by over a dozen heavy and light rail-based park and ride sites.


title: Manchester

text: The city has one of the most extensive bus networks outside London, with over 50 bus companies operating in the Greater Manchester region radiating from the city. In 2011, 80 per cent of public transport journeys in Greater Manchester were made by bus, amounting to 220 million passenger journeys each year. After deregulation in 1986, the bus system was taken over by GM Buses, which after privatisation was split into GM Buses North and GM Buses South. Later these were taken over by First Greater Manchester and Stagecoach Manchester. Much of the First Greater Manchester business was sold to Diamond North West and Go North West in 2019. Go North West operate a three-route zero-fare Manchester Metroshuttle, which carries 2.8 million commuters a year around Manchester's business districts. Stagecoach Manchester is the Stagecoach Group's largest subsidiary and operates around 690 buses.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester Airport serves Manchester, Northern England and North Wales. The airport is the third busiest in the United Kingdom, with over double the number of annual passengers of the next busiest non-London airport. Services cover many destinations in Europe, North America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia (with more destinations from Manchester than any other airport in Britain). A second runway was opened in 2001 and there have been continued terminal improvements. The airport has the highest rating available: ""Category 10"", encompassing an elite group of airports able to handle ""Code F"" aircraft, including the Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-8. From September 2010 the airport became one of only 17 airports in the world and the only UK airport other than Heathrow Airport and Gatwick Airport to operate the Airbus A380.


title: Manchester

text: A smaller City Airport Manchester exists to the west of Manchester city centre. It was Manchester's first municipal airport and became the site of the first air traffic control tower in the UK, and the first municipal airfield in the UK to be licensed by the Air Ministry. Today, private charter flights and general aviation use City. It also has a flight school, and both the Greater Manchester Police Air Support Unit and the North West Air Ambulance have helicopters based there.


title: Manchester

text: An extensive canal network, including the Manchester Ship Canal, was built to carry freight from the Industrial Revolution onward; the canals are still maintained, though now largely repurposed for leisure use. In 2012, plans were approved to introduce a water taxi service between Manchester city centre and MediaCityUK at Salford Quays. It ceased to operate in June 2018, citing poor infrastructure.


title: Manchester

text: Cycling for transportation and leisure enjoys popularity in Manchester and the city also plays a major role in British cycle racing.


title: Manchester

text: Bands that have emerged from the Manchester music scene include Van der Graaf Generator, Oasis, The Smiths, Joy Division and its successor group New Order, Buzzcocks, The Stone Roses, The Fall, The Durutti Column, 10cc, Godley & Creme, The Verve, Elbow, Doves, The Charlatans, M People, The 1975, Simply Red, Take That, Dutch Uncles, Everything Everything, Pale Waves and The Outfield. Manchester was credited as the main driving force behind British indie music of the 1980s led by The Smiths, later including The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, and James. The later groups came from what became known as the "Madchester" scene that also centred on The Haçienda nightclub developed by the founder of Factory Records, Tony Wilson. Although from southern England, The Chemical Brothers subsequently formed in Manchester. Former Smiths frontman Morrissey, whose lyrics often refer to Manchester locations and culture, later found international success as a solo artist. Previously, notable Manchester acts of the 1960s include The Hollies, Herman's Hermits, and Davy Jones of the Monkees (famed in the mid-1960s for their albums and their American TV show), and the earlier Bee Gees, who grew up in Chorlton. Another notable contemporary band from near Manchester is The Courteeners consisting of Liam Fray and four close friends. Singer-songwriter Ren Harvieu is also from Greater Manchester.


title: Manchester

text: Its main pop music venue is Manchester Arena, voted "International Venue of the Year" in 2007. With over 21,000 seats, it is the largest arena of its type in Europe. In terms of concertgoers, it is the busiest indoor arena in the world, ahead of Madison Square Garden in New York and The O2 Arena in London, which are second and third busiest. Other venues include Manchester Apollo, Albert Hall, Victoria Warehouse and the Manchester Academy. Smaller venues include the Band on the Wall, the Night and Day Café, the Ruby Lounge, and The Deaf Institute. Manchester also has the most indie and rock music events outside London.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester has two symphony orchestras, the Hallé and the BBC Philharmonic, and a chamber orchestra, the Manchester Camerata. In the 1950s, the city was home to a so-called "Manchester School" of classical composers, which was composed of Harrison Birtwistle, Peter Maxwell Davies, David Ellis and Alexander Goehr. Manchester is a centre for musical education: the Royal Northern College of Music and Chetham's School of Music. Forerunners of the RNCM were the Northern School of Music (founded 1920) and the Royal Manchester College of Music (founded 1893), which merged in 1973. One of the earliest instructors and classical music pianists/conductors at the RNCM, shortly after its founding, was the Russian-born Arthur Friedheim, (1859–1932), who later had the music library at the famed Peabody Institute conservatory of music in Baltimore, Maryland, named after him. The main classical music venue was the Free Trade Hall on Peter Street until the opening in 1996 of the 2,500 seat Bridgewater Hall.


title: Manchester

text: Brass band music, a tradition in the north of England, is important to Manchester's musical heritage; some of the UK's leading bands, such as the CWS Manchester Band and the Fairey Band, are from Manchester and surrounding areas, and the Whit Friday brass-band contest takes place annually in the neighbouring areas of Saddleworth and Tameside.


title: Manchester

text: Manchester has a thriving theatre, opera and dance scene, with a number of large performance venues, including Manchester Opera House, which feature large-scale touring shows and West End productions; the Palace Theatre; and the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester's former cotton exchange, which is the largest theatre in the round in the UK.


title: Manchester

text: Smaller venues include the Contact Theatre and Z-arts in Hulme. The Dancehouse on Oxford Road is dedicated to dance productions. In 2014, HOME, a new custom-built arts complex opened. Housing two theatre spaces, five cinemas and an art exhibition space, it replaced the Cornerhouse and The Library Theatre.


title: Manchester

text: Since 2007 the city has hosted the Manchester International Festival, a biennial international arts festival with a focus on original work, which has included major new commissions by artists, including Bjork. A government statement in 2014 announced a £78 million grant for a new "large-scale, ultra-flexible arts space" for the city. Later the council stated it had secured a further £32 million. The £110 million venue was confirmed in July 2016. The theatre, to be called The Factory, after Manchester's Factory Records, will provide a permanent home for the Manchester International Festival. It is due to open at the end of 2019.