Cottonopolis was a 19th-century nickname for Manchester, as it was a metropolis and the centre of the cotton industry.[1][2]
The Manchester warehouse which we lately visited, was a building fit for the Town Hall of any respectable municipality; a stately, spacious, and tasteful edifice; rich and substantial as its respectable proprietors, the well-known firm of Banneret and Co. There are nearly a hundred such buildings in Manchester; –not so large, perhaps, for this is the largest; but all in their degree worthy of Cottonopolis.
— Lowe J, A Manchester warehouse, Household Words 9 269 (1854)