Millennium Quarter

- Exchange Square, St Ann Square, Manchester Cathedral, River Irwell, CIS Tower, One Angel Square, Arndale Centre

Around Exchange Square in the heart of Manchester, you find the former Corn Exchange, the gothic Cathedral, the charming timberhouse pub Old Wellington, the futuristic National Football Museum glass building, several modern department stores (Selfridge's, Debenhams, Harvey Nichols, Mark&Spencer, House of Fraser, Next) and Printworks. Printworks is a former industrial building that was turned into a really nice entertainment and restaurants complex, with neon lights and high dark passages that make it looks like night, even daytime. Here you find UK:s largest Hard Rock Café. The area around Exchange Square is sometimes called the Millennium Quarter.

Manchester Cathedral is an important gothic cathedral from 1421-1882, situated near the River Irwell, that flows through the city. This sandstone and limestone building is the city's parish church. The interior is dark, and not especially large for a cathedral. St Ann's Church at St Ann Square is a smaller church. Here you find a couple of nice historical buildings.

The nearby 25-storey CIS Tower from 1962, with a blue glass exterior, is Manchester's second tallest building (118m) until 2018. You also find the futuristic One Angel Square, also called the Co-op Bldg, built in 2013, with its wavelike glass facade and tall atrium here.

Arndale Centre, a huge shopping mall built in 1975, is the largest mall in Manchester and largest one of all Arndale Centres. It consists of several buildings, 210 stores, 7 anchor tenants modern skybridges and an office tower. There are also small nice speciality stores and second hand stores. With a retail space of 140,000 m², it is Europe's 3rd largest city centre shopping mall.

In 1996 IRA placed the heaviest bomb in UK history at Arndale Centre (on Corporation St next to Exchange Square), a truck bomb leading to large destruction and damage of the city centre. Because of evacuations noone was killed, but 200 people were injured! Much of the city centre needed redevelopment after that, leading to modern construction.