Rochdale in the context of "Dale (landform)"

Greater Manchester is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, West Yorkshire and Derbyshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester.

The county has an area of 1,276 km (493 sq mi) and is highly urbanised, with a population of 3,009,664 in 2024. Manchester is located in the centre of the county, with the city of Salford immediately adjacent to the west. Other large settlements include Rochdale in the north-east, Stockport in the south-east, Sale in the south-west, Wigan in the far north-west, and Bolton in the north-west. The majority of the county's settlements are part of the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, which extends into Cheshire and Merseyside and is the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. For local government purposes the county comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan. The borough councils collaborate through the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. The county was created on 1 April 1974 from parts of north-east Cheshire, south-east Lancashire, and a small part of the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Rochdale Town Hall is a Victorian-era municipal building in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. It is "widely recognised as being one of the finest municipal buildings in the country", and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building.

The town hall functions as the ceremonial headquarters of Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council and houses local government departments, including the borough's civil registration office.

The Metropolitan Borough of Bury is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester in England. It is north of Manchester, to the east of Bolton and west of Rochdale. The borough is centred around the town of Bury but also includes the other towns of Ramsbottom, Tottington, Radcliffe, Whitefield and Prestwich. Bury bounds the Lancashire districts of Rossendale and Blackburn with Darwen to the north. With a population of 198,921 in 2024, it is the smallest borough in Greater Manchester.

Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, which covers 99 square kilometres (38 sq mi), was created on 1 April 1974, with the transfer of functions from the County Borough of Bury and the boroughs of Prestwich and Radcliffe, along with the urban districts of Tottington and Whitefield, and part of the urban district of Ramsbottom, all previously in Lancashire.

The Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester in England. Its largest town is Rochdale and the wider borough covers other outlying towns and villages, including Heywood, Littleborough, Middleton & Milnrow. It is the ninth-largest district by population in Greater Manchester with a population of 235,561 in 2024.

Whitworth is a town and civil parish in Rossendale, Lancashire, England, amongst the foothills of the Pennines between Bacup, to the north, and Rochdale, to the south. It had a population of 7,500 at the 2011 Census.

Whitworth spans the Whitworth Valley, a 7 square miles (18.1 km) area consisting of Healey, Broadley, Whitworth, Facit and Shawforth, linked by the A671 road. Several smaller hamlets are now part of Whitworth, such as Cowm Top, which was removed to make way for Cowm Reservoir.

Oldham /ˈoʊldəm/ is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, 5 miles (8 km) southeast of Rochdale, and 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, which had a population of 242,003 in 2021.

Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, and with little early history to speak of, Oldham rose to prominence in the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and among the first ever industrialised towns, rapidly becoming "one of the most important centres of cotton and textile industries in England." At its zenith, it was the most productive cotton spinning mill town in the world, producing more cotton than France and Germany combined. Oldham's textile industry fell into decline in the mid-20th century; the town's last mill closed in 1998.

Bacup (/ˈbeɪkəp/ BAY-kəp, /ˈbeɪkʊp/) is a town in the Rossendale Borough in Lancashire, England, in the South Pennines close to Lancashire's boundaries with West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. The town is in the Rossendale Valley and the upper Irwell Valley, 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Rawtenstall, 6 miles (9.7 km) north of Rochdale, and 7 miles (11 km) south of Burnley. At the 2011 Census, Bacup had a population of 13,323.

Bacup emerged as a settlement following the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the Early Middle Ages. For centuries, it was a small and obscure centre of domestic flannel and woollen cloth production, and many of the original weavers' cottages survive today as listed buildings. Following the Industrial Revolution, Bacup became a mill town, growing up around the now covered over bridge crossing the River Irwell and the north–south / east-west crossroad at its centre. During that time its landscape became dominated by distinctive and large rectangular woollen and cotton mills. Bacup received a charter of incorporation in 1882, giving it municipal borough status and its own elected town government, consisting of a mayor, aldermen and councillors to oversee local affairs.