 London
Following London's growth in the 18th century, it became the world's largest city from about 1831 to 1925.This growth was aided from 1836 by London's first railways, which put countryside towns within easy reach of the city. The rail network expanded very rapidly, and caused these places to grow while London itself expanded into surrounding fields, merging with neighbouring settlements such as Kensington. Rising traffic congestion on city centre roads led to the creation of the world's first metro system—the London Underground—in 1863, driving further expansion and urbanisation.
London's local government system struggled to cope with the rapid growth, especially in providing the city with adequate infrastructure.
In the decades following World War II, large-scale immigration from Commonwealth countries and beyond transformed London into one of the most racially and culturally diverse cities in Europe. Integration of the new immigrants was not always smooth, with major race riots in Notting Hill and Brixton.
An eco revival from the 1980s onwards re-established London's position as a pre-eminent international centre. However, as the seat of government and the most important city in the UK, it has been subjected to bouts of terrorism. Provisional Irish Republican Army bombers sought to pressure the government into negotiations over Northern Ireland, frequently disrupting city activities with bomb threats—some of which were carried out—until their 1997 cease-fire. More recently, a series of coordinated bomb attacks were carried out by Islamicextremistsuicide bombers on the public transport network on 7 July 2005—just 24 hours after London was awarded the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Governance
The administration of London is formed of two tiers — a city-wide, strategic tier and a local tier. City-wide administration is coordinated by the Greater London Authority (GLA), while local administration is carried out by 33 smaller authorities. The GLA consists of two elected parts; the Mayor of London, who has executive powers, and the London Assembly, who scrutinise the Mayor's decisions and can accept or reject his budget proposals each year. The GLA was set up in 2000 to replace the similar Greater London Council (GLC) which had been abolished in 1986. The headquarters of the GLA and the Mayor of London is at City Hall; the Mayor is now Boris Johnson. The 33 local authorities are the councils of the 32 London boroughs and the City of London Corporation. They are responsible for local services not overseen by the GLA, such as local planning, schools, social services, local roads and refuse collection.
National government
London is the home of the Government of the United Kingdom which is located around the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. Many government departments are located close to Parliament, particularly along Whitehall, including the Prime Minister's residence at 10 Downing Street. The British Parliament is often referred to as the "Mother of Parliaments" (although this sobriquet was first applied to England itself by John Bright) because it has been the model for most other parliamentary systems, and its Acts have created many other parliaments. London is represented in the national Parliament by 74 Members of Parliament (MPs) who correspond to local parliamentary constituencies
Geography
London can be geographically defined in a number of ways, although the situation was once even more ambiguous than it is now and open to periodic legal debate. At London's core is the small, ancient City of London which is commonly known as 'the City' or 'the Square Mile'. London's metropolitan area grew considerably during the Victorian era and again during the Interwar period, but expansion halted in the 1940s because of World War II and Green Belt legislation, and the area has been largely static since. The Londonregion of England, also commonly known as Greater London, is the area administered by the Greater London Authority. The urban sprawl of the conurbation—or Greater London Urban Area—covers a roughly similar area, with a slightly larger population. Beyond this is the vast London commuter belt.
Forty percent of Greater London is covered by the London postal district, within which 'LONDON' forms part of the postal address. The London telephone area code covers a larger area, similar in size to Greater London, although some outer districts are omitted and some places just outside are included. The area within the orbital M25 motorway is sometimes used to define the "London area" and the Greater London boundary has been aligned to it in places. Greater London is split for some purposes into Inner London and Outer London. Informally, the city is split into North, South, East, West and often also Central London.
Within London, both the City of London and the City of Westminster have City status and both the City of London and the remainder of Greater London are the ceremonial counties. The current area of Greater London was historically part of the counties of Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, Essex and Hertfordshire. Unlike most capital cities, London's status as the capital of the UK has never been granted or confirmed officially—by statute or in written form. Its position as the capital has formed through constitutional convention, making its position as de facto capital a part of the UK's unwritten constitution. The capital of England was moved to London from Winchester as the Palace of Westminster developed in the 12th and 13th centuries to become the permanent location of the royal court, and thus the political capital of the nation.
Topography
Greater London covers an area of 609 square miles (1,579 km²), making it the 37th largest urban area in the world. Its primary geographical feature is the Thames, a navigable river which crosses the city from the south-west to the east. The Thames Valley is a floodplain surrounded by gently rolling hills such as Parliament Hill, Addington Hills, and Primrose Hill. These hills presented no significant obstacle to the growth of London from its origins as a port on the north side of the river, and therefore London is roughly circular. Many of the highest points in London are located in the suburbs or on the boundaries with adjacent counties.
The Thames was once a much broader, shallower river with extensive marshlands; at high tide, its shores reached five times their present width. Since the Victorian era it has been extensively embanked, and many of its Londontributaries now flow underground. The Thames is a tidal river, and London is vulnerable to flooding. The threat has increased over time due to a slow but continuous rise in high water level by the slow 'tilting' of Britain (up in the north and down in the south) caused by post-glacialrebound. In 1974, a decade of work began on the construction of the Thames Barrier across the Thames at Woolwich to deal with this threat. While the barrier is expected to function as designed until roughly 2030, concepts for its future enlargement or redesign are already being discussed.
Climate
London has a temperatemarine climate, like much of the British Isles, so the city rarely sees extremely high or low temperatures.
Summers are warm with average high temperatures of 23 °C (73 °F) and lows of 14 °C (57 °F), however, temperatures could exceed 25 °C (77 °F) on many days. Winters in London are chilly, but rarely below freezing with temperatures around 2 - 8 °C (36 - 46 °F), while spring has mild days and cool evenings.
Districts
London's vast urban area is often described using a set of district names (e.g. Bloomsbury, Knightsbridge, Mayfair, Whitechapel, Fitzrovia).These are either informal designations, or reflect the names of superseded villages, parishes and city wards. Such names have remained in use through tradition, each referring to a neighbourhood with its own distinctive character, but often with no modern official boundaries. Since 1965 Greater London has been divided into 32 London boroughs in addition to the ancient City of London.
The City of London is one of the world's three largest financial centres (alongside New York and Tokyo) with a dominant role in several international financial markets, including cross-border bank lending, international bond issuance and trading, foreign-exchange trading, over-the-counter derivatives, fund management and foreign equities trading. It also has the world's largest insurance market, the leading exchange for dealing in non-precious metals, the largest spot gold and gold lending markets, the largest ship broking market, and more foreign banks and investment houses than any other centre. The City has its own governance and boundaries, giving it a status as the only completely autonomous local authority in London. London's new financial and commercial hub is the Docklands area to the east of the City, dominated by the Canary Wharf complex. Other businesses locate in the City of Westminster, the home of the UK's national government and the well-known Westminster Abbey.
London Boroughs are listed below-
Demography
With increasing industrialisation, London's population grew rapidly throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, and it was the most populated city in the world until overtaken by New York in 1925. Its population peaked at 8,615,245 in 1939. There were an estimated 7,512,400 official residents in Greater London as of mid-2006. However, London's continuous urban area extends beyond the borders of Greater London and was home to 8,278,251 people in 2001, while its wider metropolitan area has a population of between 12 and 14 million depending on the definition used. According to Eurostat, London is the most populous city and metropolitan area of the European Union and the second most populous in Europe (or third if Istanbul is included).
In January 2005, a survey of London's ethnic and religious diversity claimed that there were more than 300 languages spoken and more than 50 non-indigenous communities which have a population of more than 10,000 in London. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that, as of 2006, London's foreign-born population is 2,288,000 (31%), up from 1,630,000 in 1997.
Religion
Christianity is the most practiced religion in London with 58.2% of all residents currently adhering themselves to it. This is followed by those of no religion (15.8%), Muslims (8.5%), Hindus (4.1%), Jews (2.1%), Sikhs (1.5%), Buddhists (0.8%) and other (0.5%), though 8.7% of people did not answer this question in the Census. London has traditionally been dominated by Christianity, and has a large number of churches, particularly in the City. The well-known St Paul's Cathedral in the City and Southwark Cathedral south of the river are Anglican administrative centres, while the principle bishop of the Church of England and worldwide Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury has his main residence at Lambeth Palace in the London Borough of Lambeth. Important national and royal ceremonies are shared between St Paul's and Westminster Abbey. The Abbey is not to be confused with nearby Westminster Cathedral, which is the largest Roman Catholic cathedral in England and Wales
London is also home to sizeable Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Jewish communities. Many Muslims live in Tower Hamlets and Newham; the most important Muslim edifice is London Central Mosque on the edge of Regent's Park. London's large Hindu community is found in the north-western boroughs of Harrow and Brent, the latter of which is home to one of Europe's largest Hindu temples, Neasden Temple. Sikh communities are located in East and West London, which is also home to the largest Sikh temple in the world, outside India. The majority of British Jews live in London, with significant Jewish communities in Stamford Hill, Stanmore, Golders Green, Hendon, and Edgware in North London. Stanmore and Canons Park Synagogue has the largest membership of any single synagogue in the whole of Europe, overtaking Ilford synagogue (also in London) in 1998
Economy
The three tallest skyscrapers in Canary Wharf as viewed from Cabot Square. It is home to such companies as the HSBC and Clifford Chance.
London shifted to a mostly service-based economy earlier than other European cities, particularly following World War II. London's success is as a service industry and business centre can be attributed to factors such as English being the native and dominant language of business, its former position as the capital of the British Empire, close relationship with the U.S. and various countries in Asia. Other factors include English law being the most important and most used contract law in international business and the multi-cultural infrastructure. Government policies such as low taxes, particularly for foreigners (non-UK domiciled residents do not get taxed on their foreign earnings), a business friendly environment, good transport infrastructure, particularly its aviation industry; and a deregulated economy with little intervention by the government have all contributed to London's economy becoming more service based. Over 85% (3.2 million) of the employed population of greater London works in service industries. Another half a million employees resident in Greater London work in manufacturing and construction, almost equally divided between both.There has been a significant fall in the number of people working in manufacturing industries in London over the last three decades, largely as a result of competition from lower cost regions but also as a consequence of technology and process improvements. Even so, there are still more than 15,000 manufacturing businesses in London such as clothing, printing, fabricated metal, furniture and wood/products and food and drink. There is also strong growth in the recycling/environmental sector. A strong manufacturing base still thrives in London because of its geographic location and access to huge markets, its large science and knowledge base, its physical assets, its diversity and its role as a centre of design and creative industries.
London's largest industry remains finance, and its financial exports make it a large contributor to the UK's balance of payments. The City is the largest financial and business centre in the world as it has recently overtaken New York City, partly due to strict accounting following the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and a tightening of market regulations in the United States. Due to New York's tightening of market regulations, London stock exchanges had approximately 20% more initial public offerings in 2006.
London is home to banks, brokers, insurers and legal and accounting firms. A second, smaller financial district is developing at Canary Wharf to the east of the City which includes the global headquarters of HSBC, Reuters, Barclays and the Magic Circle, which includes Clifford Chance, the largest law firm in the world. London handled 31% of global currency transactions in 2005—an average daily turnover of US$753 billion—with more US dollars traded in London than New York, and more euros traded than in every other city in Europe combined.
More than half of the UK's top 100 listed companies (the FTSE 100) and over 100 of Europe's 500 largest companies are headquartered in central London. Over 70% of the FTSE 100 are located within London's metropolitan area, and 75% of Fortune 500 companies have offices in London.
Leisure and entertainment
Within the City of Westminster, the entertainment district of the West End has its focus around Leicester Square, where London and world film premieres are held, and Piccadilly Circus, with its giant electronic advertisements. London's theatre district is here, as are many cinemas, bars, clubs and restaurants, including the city's Chinatown district, and just to the east is Covent Garden, an area housing speciality shops.The United Kingdom's Royal Ballet and the English National Ballet are based in London and perform at the Royal Opera House, the Coliseum, Sadler's Wells Theatre and the Royal Albert Hall. Shoreditch and Hoxton in the East End contain a plethora of bars, nightclubs, restaurants and galleries. Islington's one mile (2 km) long Upper Street, extending northwards from The Angel, has more bars and restaurants than any other street in the UK.
Europe's busiest shopping area is Oxford Street, a shopping street nearly one mile (2 km) long—which makes it the longest shopping street in the world—and home to many shops and department stores including Selfridges. The adjoining Bond Street in Mayfair is an extremely upmarket location, home to fashion, jewellery, and accessories design houses. Knightsbridge—home to the Harrodsdepartment store—lies just to the southwest. Together with these, the fashionable shopping areas of Sloane Street, and Kings Road represent London's prestigious role in the world of fashion. London is home to designers Vivienne Westwood, Galliano, Stella McCartney, Manolo Blahnik, and Jimmy Choo among others; its renowned art and fashion schools make it an international centre of fashion alongside Paris, Milan and New York. London also has a high number of street markets, including Camden Market for fashions and alternative products, Portobello Road for antiques, and vintage and one-off clothes, and Borough Market for organic and specialist foods.
London offers a great variety of cuisine as a result of its ethnically diverse population. Gastronomic centres include the Bangladeshi restaurants of Brick Lane and the Chinese food restaurants of Chinatown. Soho's variety of restaurants includes Italian- and Greek-influenced establishments among others, as well as all manner of novelties and oddities. More upmarket restaurants are scattered around central London, with concentrations in Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Notting Hill.
There are a variety of regular annual events. The Caribbean-descended community in Notting Hill in West London organises the colourful Notting Hill Carnival, Europe's biggest street carnival, every summer. The beginning of the year is celebrated with the relatively new New Year's Day Parade, while traditional parades include November's Lord Mayor's Show, a centuries-old event celebrating the annual appointment of a new Lord Mayor of the City of London with a procession along the streets of the City, and June's Trooping the Colour, a very formal military pageant to celebrate the Queen's Official Birthday.
Literature and film
London has been the setting for many works of literature. Two writers closely associated with the city are the diarist Samuel Pepys, noted for his eyewitness account of the Great Fire, and Charles Dickens, whose representation of a foggy, snowy, grimy London of street sweepers and pickpockets has been a major influence on people's vision of early Victorian London. James Boswell's biographical Life of Johnson mostly takes place in London, and is the source of Johnson's well-known aphorism: "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." The earlier (1722) A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe is a fictionalisation of the events of the 1665 Great Plague. William Shakespeare spent a large part of his life living and working in London; his contemporary Ben Jonson was also based in London, and some of his work — most notably his play The Alchemist - was set in the city. Later important depictions of London from the 19th and early 20th centuries are the afore-mentioned Dickens novels, and Arthur Conan Doyle's illustrious Sherlock Holmes stories. Trollope's Palliser novels are largely set in London, vividly depicting Westminster and its surrounds. The 1933 novel Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell describes life in poverty in both cities. A modern writer pervasively influenced by the city is Peter Ackroyd, in works such as London: The Biography, The Lambs of London and Hawksmoor. Academic Bloomsbury and hilly Hampstead have traditionally been the liberal, literary heartlands of the city.
The Royal Albert Hall hosts a wide range of concerts and musical events
London is one of the major classical and popular music capitals of the world and is home to major music corporations, such as EMI and Decca Records, as well as countless bands, musicians and industry professionals.
As a cultural centre for the United Kingdom, London has had a major role in many popular music movements. It has numerous renowned venues for rock and pop concerts, including large arenas such as Earls Court, Wembley Arena and the O2 Arena, as well as numerous mid-size venues, such as Brixton Academy, Hammersmith Apollo and The London Astoria. The area around the northern end of Charing Cross Road in Westminster is well-known for its shops that sell musical instruments and audio equipment. London was home of one of the legs for both the Live Aid and Live 8 concerts.
London has hosted the Summer Olympics twice, in 1908 and 1948. In July 2005 London was chosen to host the Games in 2012, which will make it the first city in the world to host the Summer Olympics three times. London was also the host of the British Empire Games in 1934.
Railways
The London Underground is the oldest, longest, and most expansive metro system in the world, dating from 1863.
The centrepiece of the public transport network is the London Underground—commonly referred to as The Tube—which has eleven interconnecting lines. It is the oldest, longest, and most expansive metro system in the world, dating from 1863. The system was home to the world's first underground electric line, the City & South London Railway, which began service in 1890. Over three million journeys a day are made on the Underground network, nearly 1 billion journeys each year. The Underground serves the central area and most suburbs to the north of the Thames, while those to the south are served by an extensive suburban rail surface network.
The Docklands Light Railway is a second metro system using smaller and lighter trains, which opened in 1987, serving East London and Greenwich on both sides of the Thames. Commuter and intercity railways generally do not cross the city, instead running into fourteen terminal stations scattered around its historic centre; the exception is the Thameslink route operated by First Capital Connect, with terminus stations at Bedford, Brighton and Moorgate. High-speed Eurostar trains link St Pancras International with Lille and Paris in France, and Brussels in Belgium. Journey times to Paris and Brussels of 2h 15 and 1h 51 respectively make London closer to continental Europe than the rest of Britain by virtue of the newly completed High Speed 1 rail link to the Channel Tunnel. From 2009 this line will also allow for high speed domestic travel from Kent into London. The redevelopment of St. Pancras was key to London's Olympic bid, as the station also serves two international airports through Thameslink, and will also provide direct rail links to the Olympic site at Stratford using British Rail Class 395 trains running under the Olympic Javelin name; these will be based on Japanese Shinkansen high-speed trains.
Bus
The modern Enviro400double-decker bus operating services on route 24
London's bus network is one of the biggest in the world, running 24 hours, with 8,000 buses, 700 bus routes, and over 6 million passenger journeys made every weekday.The buses are internationally recognised, and are a trademark of London transport along with black cabs and the Tube.
Air
London is a major international air transport hub. No fewer than eight airports use the words LondonAirport in their name, but most traffic passes through one of five major airports. London Heathrow Airport is the busiest airport in the world for international traffic, and is the major hub of the nation's flag carrier, British Airways. In March 2008 its fifth terminal was opened and plans are already being considered for a sixth terminal. Similar traffic, with the addition of some low-costshort-haul flights, is also handled at London Gatwick Airport. London Stansted Airport and London Luton Airport cater mostly for low-cost short-haul flights. London City Airport, the smallest and most central airport, is focused on business travellers, with a mixture of full service short-haul scheduled flights and considerable business jet traffic.
Royal Holloway, as a part of the University of London, a federation of London higher education institutions.
Home to a range of universities, colleges and schools, London has a student population of about 378,000 and is a centre of research and development. Most primary and secondary schools in London follow the same system as the rest of England.
With 125,000 students, the University of London is the largest contact teaching university in the United Kingdom and in Europe. It comprises 20 colleges as well as several smaller institutes, each with a high degree of autonomy. Constituent colleges have their own admissions procedures, and are effectively universities in their own right, although most degrees are awarded by the University of London rather than the individual colleges. Its constituents include multi-disciplinary colleges such as UCL,King's, Royal Holloway and more specialised institutions such as the London School of Economics, SOAS, the Royal Academy of Music, the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Institute of Education.
In addition, the LSE is the world‘s leading social science institution for teaching and research, plus has the most international student body of any university in the world today.
London is home to many museums, galleries, and other institutions which are major tourist attractions as well as playing a research role. The Natural History Museum (biology and geology), Science Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum (fashion and design) are clustered in South Kensington's "museum quarter", while the British Museum houses historic artefacts from around the world.[citation needed] The British Library at St Pancras is the UK's national library, housing 150 million items. The city also houses extensive art collections, primarily in the National Gallery, Tate Britain and Tate Modern |
Don't forget to visit-
Fully A/C Restaurant & Commnunity Centre
Nice & Spice
Karimganj, Assam
India
London Eye
UK Parliament
Canary Wharf, London
Tube Station
London Eye
Albert Memorial
Tower Bridge
London
Westminster Tube Station
London Jubilee Line (Tube) |
