Bradford, United Kingdom

Multi-cultural BRADFORD has always been a working town, booming in tandem with the Industrial Revolution. In its Victorian heyday it was the world's biggest producer of worsted cloth, its skyline etched black with mill chimneys, and its hills clogged with some of the foulest back-to-back houses of any northern city. Since the 1950s, the population has been swollen by thousands of immigrants and these days people of South Asian origin account for around 20 percent of the conurbation's total. As well as famously good curries, contemporary Bradford is also known for its outstanding National Museum of Photography, Film and Television.