Oldham

Oldham 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. The demise of textile processing in Oldham depressed and heavily affected the local economy. The town centre is the focus of a project that aims to transform Oldham into a centre for further education and the performing arts. It is, however, still distinguished architecturally by the surviving cotton mills and other buildings associated with that industry. In the 2021 United Kingdom census Oldham built-up area subdivision, as defined by the Office for National Statistics, had a population of 110,718 and an area of 1,639 hectares (6.33 sq mi), giving a population density of 6,757 inhabitants per hectare (1,750,000/sq mi), while the Borough of Oldham had a population of 242,003, an area of 1,424 hectares (5.50 sq mi), and a population density of 1,729 inhabitants per hectare (448,000/sq mi).