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Manchester is the third-most visited city in the United Kingdom by foreign visitors and the most visited in England outside London. Manchester is the commercial, educational and cultural focus for North West England, and in 2010, was ranked as the fourth biggest central retail area in the UK by sales. The city centre retail area contains shops from chain stores up to high-end boutiques such as Vivienne Westwood, Emporio Armani, DKNY, Harvey Nichols, Chanel and Hermès.

Manchester has a thriving theatre, opera and dance scene, and is home to a number of large performance venues, including the Manchester Opera House, which feature large-scale touring shows and West End productions; the Palace Theatre; the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester’s former cotton exchange; and the Lowry Centre, a touring venue in Salford which often hosts performances by Opera North. Smaller performance spaces include the Library Theatre, a producing theatre in the basement of the Central Library; the Green Room; the Contact Theatre; and Studio Salford. Manchester also has a thriving live music scene, its main pop music venue is the Manchester Evening News Arena, situated next to Victoria station. It seats over 21,000, is the largest arena of its type in Europe, and has been voted International Venue of the Year. In terms of concert goers, it is the busiest indoor arena in the world ahead of Madison Square Garden in New York and the O2 Arena in London, the second and third busiest respectively. Other major venues include the Manchester Apollo and the Manchester Academy. Smaller venues are the Band on the Wall Roadhouse, the Night and Day Cafe, the Ruby Lounge, and The Deaf Institute. The Hallé is a symphony orchestra resident at the Bridgewater Hall. It is the UK's oldest extant symphony orchestra (and the fourth oldest in the world), supports a choir, youth choir and a youth orchestra.

The Museum of Science and Industry, housed in the former Liverpool Road railway station, has a large collection of steam locomotives, industrial machinery and aircraft. The Museum of Transport displays a collection of historic buses and trams. Salford Quays, a short distance from the city centre in the adjoining borough of Trafford, is home to the Imperial War Museum North. The Manchester Museum opened to the public in the 1880s, has notable Egyptology and natural history collections. The municipally-owned Manchester Art Gallery on Mosley Street houses a permanent collection of European painting, and has one of Britain's most significant collections of Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

http://www.visitmanchester.com/

http://www.manchester.com/