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If anywhere can be described as the first purely industrial conurbation, it is BIRMINGHAM . Unlike the more specialist industrial towns that grew up across the north and Midlands, "Brum" - and its "Brummies" - turned its hand to every kind of manufacturing, gaining the epithet "the city of 1001 trades". It was here that the pioneers of the Industrial Revolution - James Watt, Matthew Boulton, William Murdock, Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley and Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) - formed the Lunar Society , a melting-pot of scientific and industrial ideas that spawned the world's first purpose-built factory, the distillation of oxygen, the invention of gas lighting and the mass production of the steam engine. A Midlands market town swiftly mushroomed into the nation's economic dynamo - in the fifty years up to 1830 the population more than trebled to 130,000.

Now the second largest city in Britain, with a population of over one million, Birmingham has long outgrown the squalor and misery of its boom years and today its industrial supremacy is recalled in a crop of excellent heritage museums and an extensive network of canals. It also boasts a thoroughly multiracial population that makes this one of Britain's most cosmopolitan cities. The shift to a post-manufacturing economy is symbolized by the new Convention Centre and by the enormous National Exhibition Centre (NEC) on the outskirts, while Birmingham's cultural initiatives - enticing a division of the Royal Ballet to take up residence here, and building a fabulous new concert hall for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra - are first rate. Nonetheless, there's no pretending that Birmingham is packed with interesting sights - it isn't, though - along with its first-rate restaurant scene and nightlife - it's well worth a day or two - at least

Many visitors get their first taste of central Birmingham at New Street station , whose unreconstructed ugliness - piles of modern concrete - makes a dispiriting start. Fortunately, things soon get better if you stroll west along pedestrianized New Street , one of the city's principal shopping streets, to the elegantly revamped Victoria Square , with its tumbling water fountain. The adjacent Chamberlain Square has been refurbished too, but here pride of place goes to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery , the city's finest museum, complete with a fabulous collection of Pre-Raphaelite art. Beyond, further west still, is the glossy International Convention Centre , from where it's another short hop to the Gas Street Basin , the prettiest part of the city's serpentine canal system. Close by is canalside Brindley Place , a smart, brick and glass complex with smart cafés and bars and the enterprising Ikon Gallery of contemporary art.

From Brindley Place, follow the old tow path along the Birmingham and Fazeley canal as far as Newhall Street, which is within easy walking distance of both St Philip's Cathedral , back in the centre on Colmore Row, and - in the opposite direction- the Jewellery Quarter , which holds an excellent museum and hundreds of workshops and retail outlets.

Nightlife in Birmingham is thriving, and the club scene is recognized as one of Britain's best, spanning everything from word-of-mouth underground parties to meat-market mainstream clubs. There's a particular emphasis on special/specialist nights with leading DJs turning up at different venues on different nights. Live music is strong in the city, too, with big-name concerts at several major venues and other, often local bands appearing at some clubs and pubs. Birmingham's showpiece Symphony Orchestra and Royal Ballet are the spearheads of the city's resurgent high-cultural scene. The social calendar also gets an added boost from a wide range of up-market festivals , including the Jazz Festival in the first two weeks in July, and the Film and TV Festival in November.

For current information on all events, performances and exhibitions, pick up a free copy of the excellent, fortnightly What's On , Birmingham's definitive listings guide. It's available at all of the tourist offices and many public venues.

Birmingham's central restaurants long had a reputation as soulless places which emptied quickly, but this state of affairs has changed dramatically, with smart, new venues sprouting up in the slipstream of the growth in the conference- and trade-fair business, particularly along Broad Street, near the ICC. There's also a concentration of decent, reasonably priced restaurants in the Chinese Quarter, just south of New Street station, on and around Hurst Street. Birmingham's gastronomic speciality is the balti , a delicious and astoundingly cheap Kashmiri stew cooked and served in a small wok-like dish called a karahi , with nan bread instead of cutlery. Although balti houses have opened up within the city centre, the original and arguably the best balti houses are in the gritty suburbs of Balsall Heath , a couple of miles to the south of the centre, and Sparkhill , about three miles to the southeast. Some of these are listed here - all are unlicensed, so take your own booze.

City centre pubs vary as much as you'd expect. The liveliest, catering for a mixed bag of conference delegates and Brummies-out-on-the-ale, are liberally sprinkled along Broad Street, in the immediate vicinity of the Convention Centre, and in Brindley Place. Most of them are decorated in sharp, modern style, but there are one or two more traditional places here as well - as there are in other parts of the city centre.

Birmingham's international airport is eight miles east of the city centre off the A45 and near the M42 (Junction 6); the main terminal is beside Birmingham International train station, from where there are regular services into the centre. New Street train station , to which all InterCity and the vast majority of local services go, is right in the heart of the city. However, trains on the Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick, Worcester and Malvern lines usually use Snow Hill and Moor Street stations , both about ten minutes' signposted walk from New Street. National Express coach travellers are dumped in the grim surroundings of Digbeth coach station , from where it is a ten-minute uphill walk to the centre.

Maps, loads of local leaflets and transport information are provided by all the city's tourist offices . The main office is located bang in the centre of town on Victoria Square at 130 Colmore Row (Mon-Sat 9.30am-6pm, Sun 10am-4pm; tel 0121/693 6300, ). Also in the centre is a smaller tourist office - and useful ticket shop - at 2 City Arcade, off New Street (Mon-Sat 9.30am-5.30pm; tel 0121/643 2514). In addition, there are offices at the International Convention Centre (ICC; tel 0121/665 6116), Centenary Square, and in the National Exhibition Centre (NEC; tel 0121/780 4321), next to the airport. The city council runs its own tourist office and ticket booking office in the Central Library, right in the centre on Chamberlain Square (Mon-Fri 10am-5.30pm, Sat 10am-4.30pm; tel 0121/236 5622). All of the tourist offices operate a same-day hotel bed booking service for free, but advance bookings have to be made at either the NEC or ICC branches.

To see Birmingham at its best, you really need to stay in the centre, but most of the less expensive accommodation is scattered around the suburbs. This may well mean that you'll be dealing with Birmingham's excellent local transport system, whose trains, metro and buses delve into almost every corner of the city. Various companies provide these services, but they are co-ordinated by Centro , who operate both a city-wide public transport information line, Centro Hotline (tel 0121/200 2700) and a regional equivalent, covering the West Midlands conurbation (tel 0247/655 9559). A one-day Centrocard , valid on all services, can be purchased from bus drivers and at train and metro stations; it costs £5 (£4 after 9.30am and at the weekend).

One thing that may confuse is the name of the inner ring road: it's called the Queensway, but individual stretches keep their other names too, for example: Great Charles Street, Queensway