In the UK, there is a bit of a rivalry between Birmingham and Manchester for an accolade that doesn’t officially exist: which is England’s Second City.For most of the 20th century, Birmingham was indisputably the holder of the title, by almost every metric (and in a statistical sense is still the second biggest), but this century it is Manchester that is more widely regarded as the de facto Second City of England.But I now live in Kraków, which is Poland’s equivalent, yet I hardly ever hear such terminology, in either English or Polish. Is it because it’s so self-evidently obvious that Kraków is the Second City, with no competitor (although until recently it was actually Łódź that had the second largest population)? Or maybe Kraków thinks of itself as ‘first’ in some respects?What about in other countries? Do people think about and use the term ‘Second City’, or is this just some trivial Anglo nonsense?
England is my city
>>216574966>Second cityYes, it's Saint-Petersburg obviously. Since it was the capital for almost 300 years and the most populous after Moscow.
>>216575086We also have the term third city, that's what people fight for. 1st and 2nd places are settled, but 3rd cannot be decided. People place Kazan or Yekaterinburg or Nizhniy Novogorod or Novosibirsk there.
Yea, it's Tampere
>>216574966No but the race for second city was between Monterrey and Guadalajara until Monterrey buried Guadalajara into the ground in the last decade
>>216574966I was completely unaware of this Second City thing, thanks for sharing. To answer your question I don't know of a similar situation here but I might just be ill-informed
