Bolton is situated on the edge of the West Pennine countryside in the heart of the North West, in the administrative county of Greater Manchester and the historic county of Lancashire. Bolton is still considered to be a truly Lancashire town by residents and visitors to the Borough.

Bolton Metropolitan Borough covers an area of over 140 square kilometres (54 square miles) and is one of the largest Boroughs in England. It comprises eight free standing townships:

• Blackrod
• Bolton
• Farnworth
• Horwich
• Kearsley
• Little Lever
• South Turton
• Westhoughton

It has a population of 267,600 and lies in a densely populated area with 750,000 people within a 20 minute drive time, 5 million people in the 30 minute drive time and 16 million (over a quarter of the U.K. population) within 2 hours drive time.

The Borough is bounded by Salford, Wigan, Chorley, Blackburn and Bury and is on the northern side of Greater Manchester conurbation. It has direct access to the M61 and M60, with a direct rail link to Preston, Lancaster, Carlisle, Manchester, Buxton, Southport and Manchester Airport, which is only 22 miles away.