This Manchester tourist map marks 11 top sights, 10 hidden gems and a 4.5 km walking route from Manchester Cathedral to Castlefield, through the Northern Quarter and down Deansgate. It is free to view, print and download.
Download the printable PDF (1.6 MB) >
Each sight is described at length on the page about the tourist attractions in Manchester.
The numbers below match the pins on the map, the PDF and the video. The first 8 sights are stops on the walking route, from the cathedral quarter through the Northern Quarter and the shopping streets to Deansgate and Castlefield. The other 3 lie outside the centre and are reached by Metrolink tram: Old Trafford to the south-west, the Etihad Stadium to the east and Imperial War Museum North to the west.
Marked in orange: 10 smaller sights worth a detour. The first 6 below are on the map of the centre and the last 4 lie outside its frame; the PDF lists all 10 with their addresses.
The PDF has four A4 pages. Page 1 holds the map with the numbered legend, how to get around and the licence. Pages 2 and 3 describe the 11 sights with a photo, the full address and access, and pages 3 and 4 list the 10 hidden gems with their addresses and seven neighbourhoods of the city. In English, 1.6 MB. Edition: October 2026.
Start of a 4.5 km (2.8 miles) route, about 55 min on foot without the visits. The cathedral has stood beside the River Irwell since the fifteenth century, and general admission is free every day. Chetham's Library next door shows its reading rooms only on pre-booked tours. Walk 0.4 km to Cathedral Gardens.
The museum fills the glass wedge of the Urbis building and moved to Manchester in 2012. Shirts, trophies, historic footage and interactive galleries trace the game's roots in England. Entry is ticketed, and free for City of Manchester residents. The longest leg, 0.9 km, heads south-east into the Northern Quarter.
Former Victorian warehouses hold independent shops, record stores, cafes and street art. Afflecks, an indoor market in an old department store, has filled Church Street since 1982, and murals cover the walls around Stevenson Square. The streets are free to explore at any time. Walk 0.8 km south-west to Mosley Street.
Three centuries of paintings, sculpture and design in Charles Barry's neoclassical rooms, strongest in Pre-Raphaelite art. The gallery grew from the Royal Manchester Institution, founded in 1823, and general admission is free. Head north, 0.7 km, to St Ann's Square.
A pedestrianised Georgian square around the early eighteenth-century St Ann's Church. The Royal Exchange, the former Cotton Exchange, lines the east side of its northern end, and its Great Hall now wraps a theatre in the round. The square is free to wander; performances are ticketed. Walk 0.5 km south-west to Deansgate.
Enriqueta Rylands built this neo-Gothic library in memory of her husband, and it opened in 1900 halfway along Deansgate, beside Spinningfields. Admission is free with no booking, and visitors can step into the vaulted Historic Reading Room. Continue south-west, 0.8 km, to Liverpool Road.
The museum fills Liverpool Road station, opened in 1830 as the Manchester end of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the oldest surviving passenger railway station in the world. Steam engines run in the restored Power Hall. General admission is free, with a free timed ticket recommended. Castlefield is 0.4 km away.
The route ends where Manchester began: Roman soldiers built the fort of Mamucium here around AD 79, and a reconstructed gatehouse stands near the canal basins. The Bridgewater Canal, often called the first major canal of the Industrial Revolution, reached the basin a few years after 1761. Towpaths and iron bridges are free to wander at any hour.
The centre is compact: the 8 stops on the route cover 4.5 km, about 55 min on foot without the visits. The longest leg is the 0.9 km from the National Football Museum to the Northern Quarter.
Metrolink trams cross the centre. Exchange Square and Victoria serve the cathedral and the National Football Museum, Shudehill and Market Street the Northern Quarter, St Peter's Square the Art Gallery, and Deansgate-Castlefield the Science and Industry Museum and Castlefield.
Sights outside the walking route:
Metrolink network map of Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) >
The map, the PDF, the walking route and the texts are © 2026 World Tourist Office and free to copy, share, print and adapt, also commercially, under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. The only condition is a credit to World Tourist Office with a link to this page.
The photos are not covered by this licence: they are © their respective owners, used here under their own licences, and may not be extracted or reused separately. Where a photo carries its own credit line, that credit and its licence apply. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), tiles © OpenFreeMap: keep that credit too. The World Tourist Office name and logo are trademarks and are not licensed.
One photo in the PDF and the video carries its own credit: St Ann's Square and the Royal Exchange, "Royal Exchange Manchester central hall" by University of Salford Press Office, licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Credit to copy: Manchester Tourist Map by World Tourist Office, touristoffice.org/manchester-tourist-map/, CC BY 4.0. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
