In the United Kingdom, the term "second city" is applied to the next most-important city after the capital and largest city of London. Traditionally it has been held by Birmingham, although the title has been disputed by the popular press in the 21st century with the city of Manchester,. "Manchester is frequently lauded as the UK's 'second city' ... While the claim to the 'second city' title may stir debate, particularly among those from Birmingham, experts are in unanimous agreement that Manchester is forging ahead" or with other candidates historically.
The United Kingdom has a primate city structure where London significantly surpasses other cities in size and importance and all other cities have much more in common with one another than with the capital, but various cities have held some claim to the title of second city through history. Eboracum (York), the northern capital of Britannia Inferior, would have been considered the second city by virtue of its prominence in Roman times.John Macky, A Journey Through England, p.208, 1722 By the nineteenth century, the label "second city of the British Empire" had emerged and was widely applied to Dublin, the capital of Ireland. In later years, when broadened to "second city of the Empire" rather than "second city of the United Kingdom," the title was occasionally applied to Hong Kong, Calcutta, Bombay, or Melbourne. Dublin was eclipsed over the coming decades by several rapidly industrialising cities in Britain.Sidney Edwards Morse and Jedidiah Morse, A New System of Geography, Ancient and Modern, p.177, 1824 Glasgow was sometimes described as the second city of the Empire during the Victorian era.
Currently, Manchester and Birmingham are both commonly referred to as the UK's second city. Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast also have alternative claims due to their status as capital cities of the other countries of the United Kingdom: Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland respectively.The New York Times, 6 August 1989: "Edinburgh's castle high on the rock has looked down on many a triumph and tragedy in the proud Scots capital, but every year since 1947, Britain's Second City steals the spotlight from London during the three weeks of the international festival."
History York was named the second city in earlier centuries, by virtue of its prominence in Roman times as the northern capital, Eboracum, of the Roman province of Britannia Inferior.
The title Second City of the Empire or Second City of the British Empire was claimed by a number of cities in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. Commercial trading city Liverpool was regarded as holding this title with its massive port, merchant fleet and world-wide trading links. Liverpool University: "... the city's pre-eminent position at the turn of the 19th century resulted from the port's willingness to handle a very wide range of cargo (including millions of migrants to the new world). Liverpool was second only to London in this respect – and this, together with its great ethnic diversity, was the basis of its claim to being the 'second city of empire'." Liverpool was constantly referred to as the New York of Europe. Glasgow (which continues to use the "second city" title as a marketing slogan), and (outside of Britain or Ireland) Calcutta (modern Kolkata) and Philadelphia were also claimed at various times to be second cities of the Empire.
Prior to the union with Scotland in 1707, from the English Civil War until the 18th century, Norwich was the second-largest city of the Kingdom of England, being a major trading centre, Britain's richest provincial city and county town of Norfolk, at that time the most populous county of England. Bristol was the second-wealthiest city in England in the 16th century;J. E. T. and A. G. L. Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, p.82, 1887 and by the 18th century, Bristol was often described as the second city of England.Charles Knight, The Popular History of England, p.8, 1859 During the 19th century, claims were made for Manchester,Robert Southey, Letters from England, p.177, 1836 LiverpoolJames Richard Joy, An Outline History of England, p.26, 1890 and York.John Major, Aeneas James George Mackay and Thomas Graves Law, A History of Greater Britain as Well England as Scotland, p.xxxvi, 1892 By the early 19th century, Glasgow was frequently referred to as the second city;For example, see T. H. B. Oldfield, The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland, p.566, 1816 or Spencer Walpole, A History of England from the Conclusion of the Great War in 1815, p.103, 1878 and during much of the 20th century it had a population of over one million, larger than that of Birmingham until the 1951 census. For example, the Official Census population for Glasgow was 0.784 million in April 1911; 1.034 million in April 1921; 1.088 million in April 1931 and 1.090 million in April 1951.Roberson, D. J. (1958). "Population, Past and Present". Chapter 2 in: Cunnison, J. and Gilfillan, J. B. S. (1958). The Third Statistical Account of Scotland, Volume V. The City of Glasgow. Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. However, slum clearance in the 1960s led to displacement of residents from the city centre to new communities located outside the city boundaries. This, together with local government reorganisation, resulted in the official population of Glasgow falling sharply. The Glasgow City Council area currently has a population of 600,000 although the surrounding conurbation of Greater Glasgow has a population of 1,199,629. In contrast, the population of the city of Birmingham has remained steady around the one million mark; its central population fell like Glasgow's, but the city boundaries were extended several times in the early 20th century. Occasional claims were made for Liverpool,D. Appleton, Appletons' American Standard Geographies, p.130, 1881. BirminghamW. Stewart & Co., The Journal of Education, p.38, 1867. and Manchester.Chetham Society, Remains, Historical and Literary, Connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancashire and Chester, 1862, p.531.
Modern points of view Since the time of World War I, Birmingham has been generally considered the second city, although Manchester has become a serious contender for the title.
Population Birmingham is the more populous city and is recognised as such by His Majesty's Government. However, confusion surrounding the correct way to define the two cities' populations, along with the publication of outdated, inaccurate, or estimated population statistics, has sometimes led to erroneous comparisons between them.
According to the 2021 United Kingdom census, the City of Birmingham is the most populous local government district (and therefore in terms of population actually the UK’s largest city-proper) with a population of 1.145 million — substantially larger than the City of Manchester, which at 552,000 is only the sixth-largest, behind Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Bradford, and Sheffield.
However, municipal boundaries are problematic for comparing modern cities: many suburbs of Bristol, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Manchester fall outside city limits largely drawn up in Victorian times, and the surrounding conurbations and areas that can be considered part of each city are hard to define. Manchester is regarded as a particularly 'under-bounded' city, whose archaic boundaries no longer accurately reflect its true size. To reflect this, the City of Manchester is conflated with Greater Manchester, the metropolitan county and combined authority which includes the neighbouring City of Salford and eight other metropolitan boroughs that broadly define the conurbation. According to 2025 estimates, Greater Manchester had a total population of 2.86 million. The equivalent West Midlands metropolitan county, which Birmingham resides in, had a population of 2.92 million.
There are several drawbacks to this approach. The first is the arbitrary nature of the metropolitan county boundaries, which were drawn up in the early-1970s as administrative divisions and do not necessarily reflect the present state of either conurbation. A second drawback is the implication that each county is, in itself, homogeneous, thus ignoring the sensitivities of the distinct settlements which fall within the boundaries of the county but may not identify strongly with its principal city, for example the Black Country in the West Midlands, or Bolton in Greater Manchester. Relatedly, a third drawback is in the names of the counties themselves: Manchester has been able to leverage the name of its metropolitan county to build a cohesive "place brand", whereas Birmingham's comparative sphere of influence tends to be hidden within the West Midlands moniker.
In an attempt to circumvent the first of these drawbacks, the population of each city is sometimes taken to be the contiguous built-up urban area of their respective conurbations. According to a methodology defined by the Office for National Statistics in 2011, the Greater Manchester Built-up Area's population of 2.55 million is marginally bigger than that of the West Midlands conurbation, at 2.44 million. This disparity is explained by the area of green belt known as the Meriden Gap, which separates the City of Coventry from the rest of the West Midlands built-up area.
An alternative methodology, based around the concept of primary urban areas, is used by Centre for Cities to publish urban policy research. Primary urban areas are intended to allow economic and social comparisons between cities, using definitions less arbitrary than the administrative boundaries of local authorities, but avoiding some of the issues associated with agglomerating distinct urban settlements into single cities. According to the Centre for Cities Data Tool, Birmingham's population in 2020 was 2.56 million, marginally ahead of Manchester's 2.52 million.
At other times, the wider metropolitan areas of the two cities are considered. Compared directly, the Birmingham Metropolitan Area is the smaller of the two, with an estimated 2021 population of 4.34 million as opposed to Manchester's 7.42 million.
In the media The media typically describes Birmingham as the second city.
Reporting on the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games in July and August 2022, ten of the twelve nationally distributed daily newspapers in the United Kingdom published articles referring to Birmingham as the "second city" of either the United Kingdom, Britain or England: The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The i, The Guardian, The Independent, and The Daily Mirror. The same phrasing appeared in the freesheet press, including The Metro and City A.M., regional publications including The London Evening Standard, The Scottish Herald, The Northern Echo and The Yorkshire Post, special interest publications including The Voice, and a number of international publications including The New Zealand Herald, The Times Colonist and The National. Publications including the Financial Times and The Scotsman have also referred to Birmingham's second city status.
During the same period, the BBC published a "Brummies' guide to Birmingham and beyond" which contained the subheading "Something for everyone in the second city", while Sky published a piece discussing the concerns of "people who live in Britain's second city". Other national broadcasters whose websites have, at different times, referred to Birmingham as the second city include ITV, and Channel 4.
Since 2010, major international news providers including Reuters, the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Bloomberg News, CNN International, Al Jazeera and The New York Times Company have all referred to Birmingham as the second city of either Britain or England. In 2019, an article in The New York Times suggested that both Birmingham and Liverpool might lay claim to being England's cultural second city.