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The history of Manchester encompasses its change from a minor township in Lancashire to an industrial metropolis in the United Kingdom and the world. Manchester began expanding "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century as part of a process of unplanned urbanisation brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. The transformation took little more than a century.

Having evolved from a Roman castrum in Celtic Britain, in the Victorian era Manchester was a major locus of the Industrial Revolution, and was the site of one of the world's first passenger railway stations as well as important scientific achievements. Manchester also led the political and economic reform of 19th-century Britain as the vanguard of free trade. The mid-20th century saw a decline in Manchester's industrial importance, prompting a depression in social and economic conditions. Subsequent investment, gentrification and rebranding from the 1990s onwards changed its fortunes and reinvigorated Manchester as a post-industrial city with multiple sporting, broadcasting and educational institutions.

Manchester has been on a provisional list for UNESCO World Heritage City on numerous occasions. However, since the 1996 bombing, local authorities have persisted on a course of economic evolution rather than prioritising the past. This economic evolution is perhaps best illustrated with the 558-foot (170-metre) Beetham Tower which instantly "torpedoed" any possibility of World Heritage City status according to one author. Despite this, areas perceived as internationally important in the Industrial Revolution, such as Castlefield and Ancoats, have been sympathetically redeveloped.