Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Oldham, Stockport, Trafford and the cities of Manchester and Salford. Greater Manchester was created on 1 April 1974 as a result of the Local Government Act 1972, designated a functional city region on 1 April 2011. Greater Manchester spans 493 square miles, which covers the territory of the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, the second most populous urban area in the UK, it is landlocked and borders Cheshire, West Yorkshire and Merseyside. There is a mix of high-density urban areas, semi-rural and rural locations in Greater Manchester, but land use is urban—the product of concentric urbanisation and industrialisation which occurred during the 19th century when the region flourished as the global centre of the cotton industry, it has a focused central business district, formed by Manchester city centre and the adjoining parts of Salford and Trafford, but Greater Manchester is a polycentric county with ten metropolitan districts, each of which has at least one major town centre and outlying suburbs.

Greater Manchester is governed by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which consists of political leaders from each of the ten metropolitan borough councils, plus a directly elected mayor, with responsibility for economic development and transport. Andy Burnham is the inaugural Mayor of Greater Manchester, elected in 2017. For the 12 years following 1974 the county had a two-tier system of local government; the county council was abolished in 1986, so its districts became unitary authority areas. However, the metropolitan county continued to exist in law and as a geographic frame of reference, as a ceremonial county, with a Lord Lieutenant and a High Sheriff. Several county-wide services were co-ordinated through the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities between 1985 and 2011. Before the creation of the metropolitan county, the name SELNEC was used for the area, from the initials of "South East Lancashire North East Cheshire". Greater Manchester is an amalgamation of 70 former local government districts from the former administrative counties of Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire and eight independent county boroughs.

Since deindustrialisation in the mid-20th century, Greater Manchester has emerged as an exporter of media and digital content and dance music, association football. Although Greater Manchester was not created until 1974, the history of its constituent settlements goes back centuries. There is evidence of Iron Age habitation at Mellor, Celtic activity in a settlement named Chochion, believed to have been an area of Wigan settled by the Brigantes. Stretford was part of the land believed to have been occupied by the Celtic Brigantes tribe, lay on their border with the Cornovii on the southern side of the River Mersey; the remains of 1st-century forts at Castlefield in Manchester, Castleshaw Roman fort in Saddleworth, are evidence of Roman occupation. Much of the region was omitted from the Domesday Book of 1086. During the Middle Ages, much of what became Greater Manchester lay within the hundred of Salfordshire – an ancient division of the county of Lancashire. Salfordshire encompassed several parishes and townships, some of which, like Rochdale, were important market towns and centres of England's woollen trade.

The development of what became Greater Manchester is attributed to a shared tradition of domestic flannel and fustian cloth production, which encouraged a system of cross-regional trade. In the late 18th century, the Industrial Revolution transformed the local domestic system. Infrastructure such as rows of terraced housing and roads were constructed to house labour, transport goods, produce cotton goods on an industrial scale for a global market; the townships in and around Manchester began expanding "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century as part of a process of unplanned urbanisation brought on by a boom in industrial textile production and processing. This population increase resulted in the "vigorous concentric growth" of a conurbation between Manchester and an arc of surrounding mill towns, formed from a steady accretion of houses and transport infrastructure. Places such as Bury and Bolton played a central economic role nationally, by the end of the 19th century had become some of the most important and productive cotton-producing towns in the world.

However, it was Manchester, the most populous settlement, a major city, the world's largest marketplace for cotton goods, the natural centre of its region. By 1835 "Manchester was without challenge the first and greatest industrial city in the world". In the 1910s, local government reforms to administer this conurbation as a single entity were proposed. In the 18th century, German traders had coined the name Manchesterthum to cover t

George William Cook, sometimes known as Billy Cook, was an English professional football inside left, best remembered for his spells with Huddersfield Town and Aston Villa. Cook was born in Evenwood, County Durham and began his career with spells as a youth at Evenwood Juniors and Trindle Juniors and played for the Royal Artillery during the First World War, he joined Northern League club Bishop Auckland in 1919 and won the FA Amateur Cup in 1920–21 and 1921–22. A move to Second Division club Rotherham County followed in 1922. Cook joined First Division club Huddersfield Town in 1923, he was a part of the most successful period in the club's history, winning the league in the 1923–24, 1924–25 and 1925–26 seasons. He scored 35 goals in 87 league appearances before departing the Terriers in February 1927. Cook signed for First Division club Aston Villa in February 1927. While he failed to win any silverware, Cook was in prolific goalscoring form, netting 40 goals in 61 matches before departing at the end of the 1928–29 season.

Cook dropped down to join Second Division Two club Tottenham Hotspur during the 1929 off-season. Now aged 34, he scored 30 goals in 73 appearances before his release in April 1931. Cook moved across London to sign for Third Division South club Brentford during the 1931 off-season, he began his time at scoring on his second appearance in a 1 -- 1 draw with Thames. In a mediocre season for the club, he failed to find the net again until 30 April 1932, when he scored two goals in a 4–2 win over Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic. With the arrival of forwards Jack Holliday and Billy Scott, Cook departed Brentford at the end of the 1931–32 season. Cook ended his career in non-league football with spells at Birmingham & District League clubs Colwyn Bay United and Rhyl. Bishop Auckland FA Amateur Cup: 1920–21, 1921–22Huddersfield Town Football League First Division: 1923–24, 1924–25, 1925–26

Puszcza Piska Forest or the Pisz Forest is the largest forest complex of the Masuria region in northern Poland, adjacent to the Masurian Landscape Park, the Masurian Lowlands. Known as the Jańsborska wilderness, Puszcza Piska bears the name of the Pisa river bordering the Forest along its west bank; the Pisz Forest consists of a unique combination of coniferous trees and rivers. Its total area is c.100,000 ha. It covers the counties of Mikołajki, Mrągowo, Sorkwity, Biała Piska, Pisz, Ruciane-Nida, Dźwierzuty, Szczytno, Świętajno, Turośl and Łyse. Within its borders are a number of lakes, designated as nature reserves. Among them: Bełdany, Jegocin, Warnołty nature reserve and the largest lake in Poland called Śniardwy. Two principal rivers flow through the area – Krutynia and Pisa, as well as many smaller tributaries and streams; the southern part of the forest grows on lowland bogs. The soil is being drained including Pisa and Szkwa, as well as many lakes; the northern part of the complex borders on Masurian Lake District known in Polish as Kraina Wielkich Jezior.

The Piska Forest consists of pine and spruce groves with the mixture of birch, maple and oak growing on sandy soil at the southern end of the forest. The best known among the local trees is the "Masurian pine" covering eastern edges of the Mokre lake, it reaches the age of 200 years. Puszcza Piska is a bird sanctuary on a European scale, featuring eleven nature reserves within its own Masurian Landscape Park established in 1977 with the total area of 53,600 ha; the most valuable reserve is located at the Łuknajno Lake near the town of Mikołajki – a Ramsar site designated by UNESCO as a biosphere reserve. It is the home of the mute swan, native to temperate regions of Europe and western Asia, in time of moult arriving in numbers reaching up to 2,000 birds. Many species of wild animals live in the forest, among them: deer, moose, wild boar, hare and reintroduced lynx. On wetlands, most saturated with water, beaver lodges can be found; the symbol of the park is a white stork with nests scattered over many local villages.

Forests of Poland Special Protection Areas in Poland Natura 2000 in Poland Paulina Garbalińska, Jarosław Skłodowski, "Body size differentiation in selected carabid species inhabiting Puszcza Piska forest stands disturbed by the hurricane." Department of Forest Protection and Ecology, Warsaw University of Life Sciences "Kraina Mazursko – Podlaska Charakterystyka przyrodniczo-leśna," Regionalna Dyrekcja Lasów Państwowych, Białystok