England’s North West region has more than seven million people and is made up of five distinct but interconnected sub regions: the two major cities and urban agglomerations that surround Manchester and Liverpool and the more rural regions of Lancashire and Cumbria to the North and Cheshire to the south. The region is home to more than 7 million people and is the third most populated region in the UK but in the middle range of regions in terms of of the level of productivity. However, there are marked inter-regional differences too with Cheshire East being the 19th most productive of the UK’s 170 NUTS3 areas and North East Greater Manchester ranking 160th.
