Portal:London

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The London Portal

Panorama of modern London, taken from the Golden Gallery of St Paul's Cathedral. See Panorama of London for more panoramic images.

Big Ben

London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a 50-mile (80 km) estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as Londinium and retains boundaries close to its medieval ones. Since the 19th century, "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely makes up Greater London, the region governed by the Greater London Authority. The City of Westminster, to the west of the City, has for centuries held the national government and parliament.

London, as one of the world's global cities, exerts strong influence on its arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, health care, media, tourism and communications. Its GDP (€801.66 billion in 2017) makes it the biggest urban economy in Europe and one of the major financial centres in the world. In 2019 it had the second highest number of ultra high-net-worth individuals in Europe after Paris and the second-highest number of billionaires of any city in Europe after Moscow. With Europe's largest concentration of higher education institutions, it includes Imperial College London in natural and applied sciences, the London School of Economics in social sciences, and the comprehensive University College London. The city is home to the most 5-star hotels of any city in the world. In 2012, London became the first city to host three Summer Olympic Games.

London's diverse cultures mean over 300 languages are spoken. The mid-2018 population of Greater London of about 9 million, made it Europe's third-most populous city. It accounts for 13.4 per cent of the UK population. Greater London Built-up Area is the fourth most populous in Europe, after Istanbul, Moscow and Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The London metropolitan area is the third-most populous in Europe after Istanbul's and Moscow's, with 14,040,163 inhabitants in 2016. (Full article...)

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Horse Shoe Brewery, London, c. 1800

The London Beer Flood was an accident at Meux & Co's Horse Shoe Brewery, London, on 17 October 1814. It took place when one of the 22-foot-tall (6.7 m) wooden vats of fermenting porter burst. The pressure of the escaping liquid dislodged the valve of another vessel and destroyed several large barrels: between 128,000 and 323,000 imperial gallons (580,000–1,470,000 L; 154,000–388,000 US gal) of beer were released in total.

The resulting wave of porter destroyed the back wall of the brewery and swept into an area of slum dwellings known as the St Giles rookery. Eight people were killed, five of them mourners at the wake being held by an Irish family for a two-year-old boy. The coroner's inquest returned a verdict that the eight had lost their lives "casually, accidentally and by misfortune". The brewery was nearly bankrupted by the event; it avoided collapse after a rebate from HM Excise on the lost beer. The brewing industry gradually stopped using large wooden vats after the accident. The brewery moved in 1921, and the Dominion Theatre is now where the brewery used to stand. Meux & Co went into liquidation in 1961. (Full article...)

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Photo credit: David Iliff

The Albert Memorial is situated in Kensington Gardens, directly to the north of the Royal Albert Hall. It was commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her beloved husband, Prince Albert, who died of typhoid in 1861. The memorial was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the Gothic Revival style; the form is intended to evoke an ornate medieval ciborium over the high altar of a church.

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William Sterndale Bennett – engraving after a portrait by John Everett Millais, 1873

Sir William Sterndale Bennett (13 April 1816 – 1 February 1875) was an English composer, pianist, conductor and music educator. At the age of ten Bennett was admitted to the London Royal Academy of Music (RAM), where he remained for ten years. By the age of twenty, he had begun to make a reputation as a concert pianist, and his compositions received high praise. Among those impressed by Bennett was the German composer Felix Mendelssohn, who invited him to Leipzig. There Bennett became friendly with Robert Schumann, who shared Mendelssohn's admiration for his compositions. Bennett spent three winters composing and performing in Leipzig.

In 1837 Bennett began to teach at the RAM, with which he was associated for most of the rest of his life. For twenty years he taught there, later also teaching at Queen's College, London. Amongst his pupils during this period were Arthur Sullivan, Hubert Parry, and Tobias Matthay. Throughout the 1840s and 1850s he composed little, although he performed as a pianist and directed the Philharmonic Society for ten years. He also actively promoted concerts of chamber music. From 1848 onwards his career was punctuated by antagonism between himself and the conductor Michael Costa. (Full article...)

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William Shakespeare Henry Wood Jack the Ripper Samuel Johnson Jack Sheppard Mary Wollstonecraft Noël Coward Mellitus David Bowie Alice Ayres Edgar Speyer Harold Pinter Edmund Evans Elizabeth Canning Henry Moore Gilbert Foliot Lilias Armstrong Laurence Olivier George Lansbury Marie Lloyd Stanley Holloway Robert of Jumièges

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Selected quotation

“

London is a bad habit one hates to lose.

”

Anonymous popular saying, as quoted by William Sansom in Blue Skies, Brown Studies (1961)

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Did you know...

...that the Dulwich Picture Gallery opened in 1817 with a collection assembled for a never-realised Polish national gallery, and that it was first purpose-built public art gallery in England?

...that the Petrie Museum ranks behind only the collections of the Cairo Museum, the British Museum and the Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin, by quantity of ancient Egyptian artefacts?

...that the remains of London's Roman amphitheatre can be found in the basement of the Guildhall Art Gallery?

...that the Bethnal Green Museum, now the V&A Museum of Childhood (pictured), is housed in a pre-fabricated building moved from South Kensington in 1872?

...that the Secretum was the name given to a cupboard in the British Museum containing a collection of supposed ancient erotica, which in fact largely consisted of Victorian fakes?

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General images

The following are images from various London-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A depiction of the imprisonment of Charles, Duke of Orléans, in the Tower of London from a 15th-century manuscript. (from History of London)
Image 2Section 2 (from History of London)
Image 3Silver coin of Alfred, with the legend ÆLFRED REX (from History of London)
Image 4The Clock Tower of Wren's St Paul's Cathedral (from History of London)
Image 5A view of London from the east in 1751 (from History of London)
Image 6Buckingham Palace in 1837, enlarged by John Nash (from History of London)
Image 7Ogilby & Morgan's map of the City of London (1673). "A Large and Accurate Map of the City of London. Ichnographically describing all the Streets, Lanes, Alleys, Courts, Yards, Churches, Halls, & Houses &c. Actually Surveyed and Delineated by John Ogilby, His Majesties Cosmographer.". (from History of London)
Image 8London as engraved by J. & C. Walker in 1845 from a map by R Creighton. Many districts in the West End were fully developed, and the East End also extended well beyond the eastern fringe of the City of London. There were now several bridges over the Thames, allowing the rapid development of South London. (from History of London)
Image 9Section 1 (from History of London)
Image 10Amy Winehouse was a singer-songwriter from Southgate, north London. (from Culture of London)
Image 11Tourists at Buckingham Palace. (from Tourism in London)
Image 12Medal of Constantius I capturing London (inscribed as lon) in 296 after defeating Allectus. Beaurains hoard. (from History of London)
Image 13Satellite image by Sentinel-2 satellite (from Geography of London)
Image 14A detailed copy of John Rocque's Map of London, 1741–5. (from History of London)
Image 15The Shard, an icon of 21st century London (from History of London)
Image 16Richard Blome's map of London (1673). The development of the West End had recently begun to accelerate. (from History of London)
Image 17Three cultural icons of London: a K2 red telephone box, Big Ben and a red double-decker bus (from Culture of London)
Image 18Statue of Alfred the Great at Winchester, erected 1899 (from History of London)
Image 19Maughan Library, King's College London (from Culture of London)
Image 20Buckingham Palace as it appeared in the 17th century (from History of London)
Image 21Section 3 (from History of London)
Image 22John Norden's map of London in 1593. There is only one bridge across the Thames, but parts of Southwark on the south bank of the river have been developed. (from History of London)
Image 23Les Misérables at the Palace Theatre (from Culture of London)
Image 24Tourists consulting a map near St Paul's Cathedral. (from Tourism in London)
Image 25Young people in Carnaby Street in the 1960s (from History of London)
Image 26Carausius coin from Londinium mint. (from History of London)
Image 27A tourist stall selling various London and United Kingdom related souvenirs on the edge of Trafalgar Square on the Strand. (from Tourism in London)
Image 28Cheapside pictured in 1909, with the church of St Mary-le-Bow in the background. (from History of London)
Image 29London c. 1300 (from History of London)
Image 30A signpost on Parliament Square with directions for nearby attractions (from Tourism in London)
Image 31Outline of the London region (from Geography of London)
Image 32Plaque in the City of London noting the re-establishment of the Roman walled city (from History of London)
Image 33Samuel Pepys, chronicler of Stuart London (from History of London)
Image 34Tourism in London 2013 (from Tourism in London)
Image 35John Evelyn's plan for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire (from History of London)
Image 36Firefighters putting out flames after an air raid during The Blitz, 1941. (from History of London)
Image 37Shaftesbury Avenue, c. 1949 (from History of London)
Image 38In spite of heavy traffic, several companies operate tour buses in London. (from Tourism in London)
Image 39The Houses of Parliament from Westminster Bridge in the early 1890s (from History of London)
Image 40The "Woodcut" map of London, formally titled Civitas Londinum (c. 1561) (from History of London)

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London Boroughs

City of London † City of Westminster Kensington and Chelsea Hammersmith and Fulham Wandsworth Lambeth Southwark Tower Hamlets Hackney Islington Camden Brent Ealing Hounslow Richmond Kingston upon Thames		Merton Sutton Croydon Bromley Lewisham Greenwich Bexley Havering Barking and Dagenham Redbridge Newham Waltham Forest Haringey Enfield Barnet Harrow Hillingdon
† sui generis – not a London borough

More about London Boroughs
Category: London boroughs

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London Topics

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Transport

London has one of the oldest and largest public transport systems in the world. Many components of its transport system, such as the double-decker bus, the Hackney Carriage black taxi and the Tube, are internationally recognised symbols of London. London has a comprehensive rail network with several major railway stations, including two international train stations at St. Pancras railway station and Stratford International, which connect London to mainland Europe through the Eurostar service. London also has six international airports. In addition to public transport, London is the start point for a number of motorway routes. The M25 is an orbital motorway which enables vehicles to avoid travelling through central London and is one of the busiest motorways in Europe.