Chinatown, Manchester

Manchester Chinatown is an ethnic enclave in the city centre, and is the second largest Chinatown in the United Kingdom and the third largest in Europe. Apart from Chinese, it contains a multitude of Thai, Japanese, Nepali, Vietnamese, Singaporean and Malaysian restaurants, shops, bakeries and supermarkets.

One of the Chinatown's most noticeable landmarks is the archway adorned with dragons and phoenixes, aka “paifang”, on Faulkner Street, a gift from Manchester City Council to the Chinese community. It was custom-built in China and shipped over to Manchester in three containers. The construction commenced during Christmas 1986 and was completed by Easter 1987.

Another Chinatown landmark is the Guardian telephone exchange. The building is now owned by BT and used for communications work, though it was constructed for an entirely different purpose. It sits atop an underground bunker, constructed between 1949 and 1954, and was paid for by the NATO. The bunker was a fallout shelter designed to protect officials in the event of an atomic attack, and features over four miles of tunnels. The media were banned from revealing the bunker's existence until 1967.