Talk:London

This article uses British English dialect and spelling. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Status section

At the end of the status section that says "...'the most important town...' and many other authorities..." there are three references the first two both say "HC 501 0304.PDF (PDF). Parliament Publications." However, they link to different sites. Does anyone know if they are the same publication which can be seen in the first of the two, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmpubacc/501/501.pdf ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by CambridgeBayWeather (talk • contribs) 21:59, 5 June 2008

Capital of the World?

Sure, haha. A London based newspaper calls London "Capital of the World". Every son in the world calls his mother the most beautifulest. But that doesnt make here Miss World. I removed the claim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.52.97.3 (talk) 12:28, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

The claim of London being the World's capital has got a reliable source. Fact is fact, you can't remove it just because you don't agree with it. Signsolid (talk) 15:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Get real. Nobody in the world would claim London to be a "Capital of the world" except Londoners of course. It is not even "The capital of Europe". The same mentality can be found when England is perpetually claimed to be a favourite in World cup tournaments (among British press). But everybody seeing them loosing in the quarterfinals. AGAIN : There should be widely accepted sources other than London based newspapers to verify this claim. Rembember? This is meant to be an encyclopedia and not kindergarden advertisement. all the best Lear 21 (talk) 17:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Capital of the World, if there was another source that published this sort of information and London wasn't at the top then fair enough, but we shouldn't remove it just because the Independant is based in London. I'm sure that they don't use biasm. bsrboy (talk) 17:43, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Lear21 your reasons for removing the well sourced and reliable claim made by The Independent, a major British newspaper, seems to be full of distane for London and especially England, if going by your comments made earlier. As I stated earlier one cannot remove well sourced and reliably sourced factual information from Wikipedia simply because it conflicts with your own political opinions. I noticed you are a major contributor to the Berlin article and I hope your edits are not based a preference for Berlin either because your are from Berlin or German. I have never made any negative edits to any German or Berlin related articles. Signsolid (talk) 01:01, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The Term "Capital of the world" is a claim or sentence which is used internationally in several thousands publications in a wide variety of fields. The claim/sentence cannot be reduced to ONE study because of it´s overarching usage. It would be therefore misleading. Here are the Google Results for the combination : "Capital of the world" AND a city: New York, 1.430.000 ; London, 657.000 ; Paris, 465.000 ; Los Angeles, 404.000 I think this makes the argument even clearer. all the best Lear 21 (talk) 08:56, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Google search results is definately no way of measuring it. The only way I could see it getting removed was if there was a reliable recently published source stating a city other than London. As of yet no one has provided such a report. Maybe if we cannot reach an agreement here, which I doubt we will, we could try RFC. bsrboy (talk) 15:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The google hits are not very helpful - all these cities are on the Independent list, and the first page for New York reveals several occurences with modifiers such as "economic", "cultural", "murder", "cocaine" ....." Johnbod (talk) 16:56, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I think we all know how an RFC would go! A single local (ie UK) newspaper survey should not be used to ref what is anyway a pretty silly claim in the lead of such an important article. This article recently failed at FAC - stuff like this puts that goal further away. "Financial capital" of the world is a totally different matter. Johnbod (talk) 16:52, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Article entitled "London is the world capital of the 21st century... says New York". bsrboy (talk) 17:04, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I bring can bring references for 10 different major cities including the mentioned term. Sorry, but this is an encyclopedia and not a weekly mag from NYC nor a London based promotion brochure. Lear 21 (talk) 12:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

If you are able to do so, then please copy and paste the URL here. bsrboy (talk) 15:17, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I correct myself, there are probably Hundred "Captitals of the world": Google list for the term "capital of the world". all the best Lear 21 (talk) 21:48, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I correct myself too, can you produce any reliable references in English? bsrboy (talk) 21:54, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

The Google list proofed pretty well, that the name is by no means exclusive. I removed the claim and will do so in the future. If anybody is interested in a decent article he/she has to do this as well. I´m wondering about myself that I still argue seriously after reading this ridiculous claim. Nobody in the world nicknames London the "Capital of the world" not even Europe. Don´t be surprised if my next comments are more straightforward. Lear 21 (talk) 14:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

If there's consensus to have it in the aritlce, would you still remove it? bsrboy (talk) 15:22, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I count user Lear 21 & Johnbod as two editors arguing against (including more than thousand references). And I count user Bsrboy and Signsolid arguing to keep a claim about London refernced by a London source. Note that Wikipedia is based on arguments and proof and not on wishful dreams. If there are not at least Hundred different internationally gathered sources supporting the claim, the claim will be removed tomorrow. Lear 21 (talk) 17:21, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

But there isn't more than a thousand references. Wikipedia is based on WP:consensus, which means, we, and other editors discuss the pros and cons of the sentence and come to a conclusion on whether it should be included or not. At the moment there isn't consensus, so it should stay as before. bsrboy (talk) 17:55, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

This should not be included on this way. At most it should be phrased as "A british newspaper has called the british capital the Capital of the World", which is, well, quite lame. The fact that local newspapers tend to oversell their own city does not make for very encyclopedic content, and most certainly not for unbiased neutral independient reliable content. It would be different if there were sources from other countries saying that this newspaper's assesment is correct and that London is really the Capital of the World, or if they were sources about how London is famous for overselling itself as Capital of the World, but that's not the case here. (new york is the one famous for overselling itself, I think)

It would also be different if it was a more concrete claim based on measurable evidence like "Bangalore the software outsourcing capital of the world" from Wired News, or "Jamaica has now been classed the murder capital of the world" from BBC, or simply world-wide agreement on its capitality for a certain characteristic, like "Hollywood - Movie Capital of the World" or "Las Vegas - Entertainment Capital of the World".

Also, there is a lot of possibility of confusion with nicknames, like this list of 100 different nicknames for New York, where one of them is "Capital of the World" and the list includes nicknames like "The Center of the World" or "The First City of the World". --Enric Naval (talk) 16:51, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention that the article on New York City lists "Capital of the World" as one of the nicknames. But seriously, the number of refs is pointless... If someone can find an international opinion poll done by some reputable source then it might warrant some mention; but a newspaper with a circulation of 200,000! Please. The National Enquirer has circulation over 1 million and I would hope we don't use it as a single source for any controversial claims! -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 02:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I was born in London and have lived in and around it all my life and I am always pleased to see London promoted in a positive way but to call London or, indeed any city, 'The Capital of th World' is ludicrous. It only serves to devalue the authority of the article and promote a partisan approach to Wikipedia.Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:21, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Martin above, using names of that kind for any city is inherently POV. I've seen some study that named London the "ugliest city in the world" and I've seen at least two or three studies calling the English the most unpleasant people in Europe. I hope we all can agree that neither of those "titles" should be added to Wikipedia. There are always all kinds of surveys on more or less everything (Icelanders are the sexiest in Europe, I just read) and just because we can "source" it to various newspaper I see no reason to fill Wikipedia with that kind of nonsense.JdeJ (talk) 18:12, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Just encase some of you are not fully aware, this dicsussion is about whether we should mention in the article that a recent study by The Independent showed London as the capital of the world, not just saying "London is the capital of the world". bsrboy (talk) 18:18, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm fully aware of that and my answer would be no. And two small corrections, the study was made by the Indenpendent and it did not show London to be the Capital of the World, it claimed London to be the Capital of the World. I don't see any need for us to inlude anywhere that newspapers have claimed the English to be the most unpleasant either, I simply see no point in including more or less biased and non-verifiable titles invented by various newspapers with a rather limited circulation. JdeJ (talk) 18:29, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I would like to add that it was user:JdeJ who was the one who edited the United Kingdom article using a source from the Financial Times claiming the United Kingdom's GDP had fallen behind France's GDP. If this user is stating that newspaper articles aren't reliable enough sources then they are a hypocrite. Also from this user's contributions list it's not hard to see they are anti-British and pro-French. Signsolid (talk) 21:35, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Or the user has changed their mind. JdeJ, do you think newspapers, like The Times and the Independent, who claim ecomoical facts can be used as references in articles under any situation? Please explain what you think. bsrboy (talk) 21:42, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

No offense intended, but I find it almost absurd that some users fail to see the difference between these two cases. The size of an economy is a measurable fact and can thus be verified. The title "capital of the world" is not measurable, it is just an empty claim that cannot be verifiable. This should not be too hard to grasp. As for mw being "anti-British" or "pro-French", everybody is free to check my contributions (around 3000-4000) very few of which deal with either the UK or France and almost none of which are positive or negative towards either country. The user Signsolid, however, has a long history of lying about any user opposing him. As he is almost never able to debate using facts and verifiable arguments, he usually resorts to personal insults and vandalism. I've seen it far too many times to be surprised by it anymore. JdeJ (talk) 11:31, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't care about anybody's opinions. Let's keep to the subject matter in hand here, not bitching about other users please. bsrboy (talk) 11:44, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Gladly, that's the way I usually interact with other users on Wikipedia. In that matter, I repeat what has been said by many users already. That a newspaper in London decides to call London the Capital of the World is hardly notable in any way, nor is it encyclopedic. There are many countries in the world where it is commonplace for newspapers to make up all sorts of claims about how their own country/city is the best in the world, and we usually don't include such non-verifiable and subjective claims.JdeJ (talk) 15:28, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I've found another source [1], but although lear inparticular has said that there are plenty of references for New York being the capital of the world, he hasn't produced any. I found that reference there by typing "London capital of the world" into google, but I couldn't find any references for New York. bsrboy (talk) 15:33, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Of course you won't find any scholarly reference of any city being the "Capital of the World". Not London, not New York, not Tokyo. There is no capital of the world and the title itself is meaningless, the fact that a London-based newspaper decides to claim so or that a London-based columnist decides to write it doesn't alter the fact one bit. A quick search on Google returned "references" of the same quality for "capital or the world" for cities such as Rome, Paris, Belgrade, New York, Lyon, Helsinki and Athens. Needless to say, I don't suggest calling either of those cities capital of the world either, but it would be just as (un)justified. I'd like to remind all users that Wikipedia is about verifiable facts and not personal opinions. JdeJ (talk) 16:24, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone actually read The Independent article? It cites a New York magazine as the source of the article, meaning any reference above to the idea of a London newspaper promoting London from its own information is a bit ludicrous. Darkieboy236 (talk) 16:15, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I beg your pardon, but have you read the article? It states quite clearly that "The survey was carried out by The Independent", and does not cite any New York magazine as the source of the claim. JdeJ (talk) 16:30, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes I have....meant Evening Standard, not Independent: "An influential American magazine has named London the global capital of the 21st century" from . Darkieboy236 (talk) 16:36, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, we were discussing the article in the Independent all, for all its errors, I give them credit for clearly stating that they made the survey themselves. "An influential American magazine" sounds very vague. May I once again remind users about what Wikipedia is and what it is not? WP:WIN and WP:NOT#OR. JdeJ (talk) 16:54, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Capital of England

London is not capital of England as suggested in the opening paragraph - it is capital of the UK only. England is not a sovereign state. The same applies to Wales, Scotland etc - they are not sovereign states and should not be referred to as countries ([User:ucallmemadam], 1 Aug 08 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ucallmemadam (talk • contribs) 13:44, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own governments: the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly. England, however, does not, so London isn't the capital of England. There was a massive discussion about this. I don't know what the end result was and I don't know where to find it either. 86.29.130.14 (talk) 13:54, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at the Status section in the article, where this issue is considered. There is no definitive answer to the question as to whether London is the capital of England and both views are supported by authoritative sources.Martin Hogbin (talk) 14:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Climate Chart

Hi, I think some of the values in the climate chart are incorrect, particluarly the summer average max values. 28 in August!! The previous style of graph (grid like - see Paris page for exmaple) was clearer and had the correct data in it.

The rainfall in the chart is completely unclear as well. 81.157.198.134 (talk) 07:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for picking this up. I've tried to reolve some of these problems: I have rounded the precipitation data up to the nearest whole number, so it should be easy to read now; I have linked the reference to the correct URL (before it was to an article about August 2003); and I have corrected the values for the max temperatures in summer (you were quite right, 28 is ridiculous!). You can see the source for yourself here. Thanks, bsrboy (talk) 15:28, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Infobox Image

No other city article has so many images

I dont think having all these images is encyclopedic. Other cities like New York, Paris, Shanghai all have ONE image in the infobox. Having 10 images is unnecessary Nikkul (talk) 12:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

New York is well known for its sky line and Paris is well known for the Eifel Tower, but with London it's difficult to have one picture to sum it up. Also the picture for Paris is actually bigger than the one for London. bsrboy (talk) 15:15, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

think the pictures are pretty damn good, as it is --Rockybiggs (talk) 19:10, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

OMG - waaay too huge

I'll have to remember to not even go to look at this article as it has nearly crashed my computer each time. Hate to think what it does to those with even less speedy systems or who have to pay for downloading time from their own pockets. Article presently is at 134k with a recommended 30-50k for main article text. Please see Wikipedia:Article size for ideas about dealing with article size issues and suggestions. Banjeboi 10:53, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the (text only) prose length is only 53K, which is within the limits under Wikipedia:Article Size. Between the many pictures and some of the charts, there is over 80K of extras, but I don't see that hacking them down would improve the article much. It does take a while to load, but it's policy-compliant as it now stands. Horologium (talk) 02:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mean to suggest "hacking" anything but perhaps some form of splitting the article would benefit all concerned. Banjeboi 03:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

The article has many spilts already suchs as History of London, Etymology of London, Geography of London, Sport in London, football in London,Economy of London etc etc etc. Plus there was a recent cull, please see page history--Rockybiggs (talk) 10:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

With respect, that "recent cull" took the size from about 142k down to 137k when i tagged it with {{very long}}. Personally I'm not able to load the article so I can't really help here anymore. If anyone is interested see WP:Split for some assistance. Banjeboi 18:13, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

The wait makes it all the more enjoyable when you read it... unless it crashes your computer, which is like 1% of people.

Amazing photographs

I must say I'm impressed. The photographs on this page are amazing!!! Nfitz (talk) 03:51, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Picture

Seen this picture floating on the Canary Wharf page, is there space for this too, or one too many. Either way amazing.

The three tallest skyscrapers in Canary Wharf as viewed from Cabot Square: 8 Canada Square (centre-left), One Canada Square (centre), Citigroup Centre (centre-right)

--Rockybiggs (talk) 21:31, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure! Replace it with the third image in the economy section: Image:Canary Wharf at night, from Shadwell.jpg. bsrboy (talk) 21:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Location of London in England

I am missing in this article a map that shows where in England (or where in the British Isles) this city is located. Maybe something like the map shown in Greater London. What good is an article on a city, if it doesn't tell you where to find that city? Johan Lont (talk) 12:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Health Section

Should this article have a health section included? Signsolid (talk) 17:28, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

It should have a section on Public services, which covers health. bsrboy (talk) 18:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Lead quote?

Just revisiting this page this morning and noticed a Samuel Johnson quote had been added at the head of the article. What do you guys think of this? I admit it adds something, but opening with a quote seems like something more suited for a novel than for an encyclopedia article. Might it also be an NPOV problem, kind of like the "capital of the world" debate? Perhaps it belongs in another section of the article... Lone Skeptic (talk) 13:59, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

• I agree. I'm not sure if it's there for good faith or to perpetuate a biased POV about London. I'm not necessarily saying it should be deleted from the article, but I don't believe that it should be right at the top. I've also not seen any other city articles that open with a quote. TheSuave 19:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
• I agree also, it should remain in the article but be moved.Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:45, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I see the quote has been deleted. I think we should find a home for it somewhere in the article.Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:54, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

It should be quite obvious that such a quote by definition is POV and unsuitable. A quote is always the opinion of a single person and often contains a POV, and who should decide which quote to use. Why not start the article with a quote by Jane Austen instead, ""Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be.". Obviously I'm not suggesting such a thing, but it would be no less appropriate than the Johnston quote. If we want to have a section called quotes about London, then that's the place to put such quotes. Personally I think it would be a bad idea, but it would at least be a lesser evil than starting with any quote. JdeJ (talk) 08:13, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• I see what you mean. It's obviously a biased quote. Samuel Johnson lived in London so the quote is obviously his own view of London. Using the Jane Austen quote you mentioned would also be justified. I do think the quote violates WP:NPOV, so I'm going to remove it. TheSuave 12:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course a quote is POV! That is why it is stated as a quote. It would be quite wrong to state, 'If you are tired of London ...' as fact but WP policy on NPOV cannot possible be held to apply to quotes just as it does not apply to pictures, any of which is, quite literally, a point of view. On that basis no pictures should be allowed.Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced Claim - Economy section

Hi. I was recently working on the Paris article, and there noticed an un-sourced and rather pompous claim that The Paris urban area is Europe's biggest city economy, and is fifth in the world's list of cities by GDP. The author of this statement insists that we leave the phrase as it is, and provided a "source" that is a study - based on estimates - undertaken by a single organisation that is not at all the source of France's demo-economical data; there is only one, the INSEE. I do not at all condone this practice of trumpeting selective studies as "facts" that are nothing of the same.

Then I come here to the Economy section and find an un-sourced London has the 4th largest city economy in the world after Tokyo, New York City and Los Angeles. Where do you get these numbers? Is your source the same? I hope not.

If your source - if it exists - is as selective as that used for the Paris article, I suggest either finding a world-wide-accepted (and here we're talking government level) comparison between the world's city spreads/GDP's, otherwise we should (humbly) modify both articles (not to mention others) to use more generalist terms to describe a city's rank in the 'world of riches'.

The above sort of selective "greater than thou" game has resulted in years of edit and revert wars between the above two articles - namely the Economy of Paris article - and I would like to put an end to it.

Generalist terms are perfectly acceptable: for the Paris article, based on all the studies I've seen, I think a "estimated to be among the top ten" language would be appropriate, if it was needed at all. What do you think? Cheers. THEPROMENADER 18:44, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• Well, this BBC News article uses information from PricewaterhouseCoopers - [2], although it uses predictions for 2020, so I'm not sure if the London has the 4th largest city economy statement is accurate, as it may not be 4th yet. Tokyo and New York City have the largest city economies, respectively. I'll try and find more information. TheSuave 19:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
• I've found some more sources. This source ranks London as the world's sixth largest city economy. The ranking seems to be:
• 1) Tokyo
• 2) New York City
• 3) Los Angeles
• 4) Chicago
• 5) Paris
• 6) London

Further verified by this source which is based on figures from The Economist. Hope that helps. TheSuave 20:02, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest. I'd just like to add that my whole point about the PwC report is that it is based on estimates and predictions - not solid fact by any official entity - , the mechanics of which are not disclosed. I don't know about London, but French economical data is taken in communes, départements and régions, and not at all in urban areas - so these economist organisations can only make estimates concocted from pure, official and quite citeable data (see the INSEE) - I think the fact that these reports (article claims) are concocted estimations/speculations by private businesses/organisations should be noted for the better information of the reader, instead of being presented as pure and unaltered official fact, which is not at all the case. See my point? THEPROMENADER 22:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• I see what you mean. I'll try and see if the City of London has published any official reports on the Greater London economy, but it seems unlikely. The PwC statistics seem to be the only ones I can find on the rankings of city economies. However, I believe the current ranking is more or less correct, regardless of whether or not they are official statistics. TheSuave 12:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I think you should note though that the cited report itself mentions other reports that differ greatly with its own. Are we the ones to judge which report is "the best" and promote it as unchallengeable fact? I think not. At the least we should mention that the report comes from a private source, and is based on estimates. Cheers. THEPROMENADER 15:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems that the Economist also used the same PwC report [3]. The author of this report and estimates be mentioned in both articles - as now the reader is persuaded that this 'ranking' conclusion is based on official data and statistics, where it is not. Cheers. THEPROMENADER 08:18, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• No, I don't think that's true. Nowhere on the article does it say that the reports are official. if the reader wants to check if the claim is official or not, they'll click on the reference to find out. PwC is pretty trustworthy when it comes to economic reports. It's not as if they have some agenda to play around with rankings. At least we have statements with citations to add verification. Not crazy bias like before. Isn't that enough? TheSuave 12:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

But that's the whole point - estimates by a single organisation are not undisputable fact - as are official census and economic records. If the rankings indicated are estimated (by a single organisation), they should be indicated as such, with mention of the organisation name. Here I seek clarity and NPOV that will cover all possible 'positions' in the matter. I really could care less if London or Paris comes 'first' in any study; rather, it bothers me that an estimation or prediction is presented as undisputable fact. Is there anything wrong with putting "PwC estimates that X comes X in their listing of the world's richest city GDP's" ? THEPROMENADER 14:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• Right now, maybe it's all we have to go on. Not every city has an organisation like INSEE to publish official data on the economy of metropolitan areas. If you want to add the bit about PwC using estimates, then do it if it makes you happy. Seriously though, do you think every statement concerning data about the city in this article is verified by an official source? I think not. TheSuave 15:10, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

But again, that's the whole point. Until there is a unanimously-internationally-accepted method of calculating density/wealth, everyone can promote their own method as being the best - and many do, as shown even in the aforementioned report. Until that time, such statistics should be related where they are solidly sourced - that is to say, from the government agency that gathered them. Even PwC pulls the base of its 'calculations' from the INSEE and Greater London institutions - why must we published the juggled numbers of one private institution over official others? To better play the 'greater than thou' game? No matter my misgivings with the immaturity of such an endavour, mention the organisation juggling the numbers in the article, that's all I ask. THEPROMENADER 19:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Without further ado, the best way to clarify this tidbit for both articles is to indicate the source of the estimate, in both articles, to the reader. This way we can leave the 'ranking' as it is in the most clear and NPOV manner possible. Cheers. THEPROMENADER 18:43, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

coat of arms?

What happened to the London coat of arms that used to be here some time ago?... Also I wonder if London has a flag, and if someone could put them in the article. Energyfreezer (talk) 01:22, 14 August 2008 (UTC)