The second city of a country is the city that is (or was) the second-most important, usually after the capital or first city, according to some criteria.
Criteria for second city status include population size, economic or commercial importance, political importance or some cultural sense. Since it is often difficult to draw a precise boundary where cities end, deciding which city is second in a country is not always straightforward. If the cultural definition is used, then the choice of second city is highly subjective and a matter of opinion rather than fact. In many counties, more than one city might have a legitimate claim to being second city, depending on the definition or criteria used.
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In Australia, Melbourne is sometimes referred to as the second city, behind the largest city Sydney (although neither is the capital; this is the comparatively small Canberra).
In Canada, Toronto was referred to as the second city before the late 1970s when it overtook Montreal in population and the centre of the financial industury moved from St. James Street to Bay Street.
In the United Kingdom, Birmingham is generally considered to be the second city. However, this claim is also sometimes made for Manchester, as the metropolitan counties surrounding the two cities - Greater Manchester and the West Midlands - each have a population of just over 2.5 million according to 2002 estimates.
Each of these metropolitan counties contain towns or cities that are clearly distinct from their mother city. The West Midlands contains Coventry and Wolverhampton, which are cities in their own right, as well as the towns of the Black Country. Similarly, Greater Manchester includes separate towns like Wigan and Bolton. However, Greater Manchester does include some towns that run directly into Manchester such as Salford or Trafford that are usually considered part of Manchester.
These examples illustrate the problems caused by confusing cities and their conurbations, as does the fact that Birmingham is the second most populous UK city after Greater London (as a conurbation), but is of course more populous than the relatively small City of London.
It is sometimes argued that since Manchester is further from London, it is less under the capital's influence, and so has more identity of its own, although the extent of London's influence over Birmingham may be exaggerated.
In the past, Glasgow and Liverpool each had a claim to being the UK's second city, by virtue of their economic importance through ship building and associated industries.
In the United States, the term is a nickname for Chicago, often thought to be playing upon the fact that for many years it was second in population only to New York City (although Los Angeles is currently the second largest city). In actuality, it refers to the "second city" that Chicago rebuilt after the Great Chicago Fire.