A strategic authority, with responsibilities for roads, public transport, planning, emergency services and waste disposal, it was composed of 106 directly elected members drawn from the ten metropolitan boroughs of Greater Manchester.

[2] Established with reference to the Local Government Act 1972, elections in 1973 brought about the county council's launch as a shadow authority, several months before Greater Manchester (its zone of influence) was officially created on 1 April 1974.

[7] The highest priority was to increase the quality of life for its inhabitants by way of improving the county's physical environment and cultural facilities which had suffered following deindustrialisation—much of Greater Manchester's basic infrastructure dated from its 19th-century industrial growth, and was unsuited to modern communication systems and life-styles.

[9] The council built County Hall on Portland Street in Manchester city centre at the cost of £4.5 million (£47,680,000 as of 2025),[10] which served as its headquarters.

[12] Because of political objection, particularly from Cheshire, Greater Manchester covered only the inner, urban 62 of the 90 former districts that the Royal Commission had outlined as an effective administrative metropolitan area.

[13] In this capacity, GMCC found itself "planning for an arbitrary metropolitan area ... abruptly truncated to the south", and so had to negotiate several land-use, transport and housing projects with its neighbouring county councils.

Government policy on the issue was considered throughout 1982, and the Conservative Party put a "promise to scrap the metropolitan county councils" and the GLC, in their manifesto for the 1983 general election.

[22] The metropolitan county continued to exist in law, and as a geographic frame of reference,[23] for example as a NUTS 2 administrative division for statistical purposes within the European Union.

[25] The county council's last Chief executive, Tony Harrison, a solicitor, remained Clerk to the Lord Lieutenant of Greater Manchester after abolition and became a director of various companies.

[25] After the council's abolition, County Hall was sold to Parc Securities in 1988 for an undisclosed sum, believed to be between £5 and £6 million, and refurbished for offices.

Crest: The helm is surmounted by a demi-lion carrying a banner bearing ten small turrets in gold on a red ground.