Wigan

The Metropolitan Borough of Wigan is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, in North West England. It is named after its largest component town and former county borough, Wigan and includes the towns and villages of Leigh, part of Ashton-in-Makerfield, Ince-in-Makerfield, Hindley, Orrell, Standish, Atherton, Tyldesley, Golborne, Lowton, Billinge, Astley, Haigh and Aspull. The borough was formed in 1974 and is an amalgamation of several former local government districts and parishes. The borough has three civil parishes and lies directly to the west of the City of Salford and southwest of the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton. The local authority is Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council.

Wigan metropolitan borough was created on 1 April 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972. It was formed from the former county borough of Wigan along with other local government units from the administrative county of Lancashire.

These were the Municipal Borough of Leigh, the urban districts of Abram, Aspull, Atherton, Hindley, Ince-in-Makerfield, Orrell, Standish and Tyldesley. Ashton-in-Makerfield, the Golborne Urban District except for the parish of Culcheth and Glazebury in Warrington, the Higher End part of Billinge and Winstanley Urban District and the civil parishes of Haigh, Shevington and Worthington from the Wigan Rural District were included.

Before its creation, the name Wigan-Leigh was used in the Redcliffe-Maud Report. It was suggested that the new metropolitan borough be named Makerfield. However both names were rejected by a vote of 12 to 2. According to an opinion poll in 2003, 26% of 299 residents surveyed felt they belonged "very strongly" or "fairly strongly" (4% very strongly) to Greater Manchester, 64% (28% very strongly) to the borough of Wigan, and 63% (31% very strongly) to Lancashire.

The metropolitan borough was created from a highly industrialised area of Lancashire that was part of the Lancashire Coalfield and had an important textile industry.