Oldham is a town in Greater Manchester, England, amid the Pennines between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale and northeast of Manchester. Together with several smaller surrounding towns, it is part of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, of which it is the administrative centre.Historically in Lancashire, and with little early history to speak of, Oldham rose to prominence in the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and among the first ever industrialised towns, rapidly becoming "one of the most important centres of cotton and textile industries in England". At its zenith, it was the most productive cotton spinning mill town in the world, producing more cotton than France and Germany combined. Oldham's textile industry fell into decline in the mid-20th century; the town's last mill closed in 1998.

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