Talk:London

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[edit] What county is it in?

I was looking around this encyclopedia at other english cities and was easily able to find what counties they were in. With London it is not so clear. If it is, or if it is not, in a county can we clearly say so? I'm sure there are many people who have looked up to see what county London is in. With reference to here, would this be correct:

London, also commonly known as the Greater London area, is one of the regions of England (and therefore is not located in a county); its local government is the Greater London Authority.

There may be someone who could articulate this better but if there is no response I will change it in March. Ctbolt 04:59, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

It depends what you mean by London. In common usage London and Greater London are generally considered to be one and the same. If you mean the City of London then it's more difficult, because although it's part of Greater London for some purposes it is a ceremonial county in its own right. G-Man * 16:31, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks G-Man, I read through all the talk pages and saw all the permutations. Consider I'm a student looking for the county. I'd put London in the search box, which comes up with London and then I'd expect to see 'London, in the county of xxxx' as Manchester does. However, I currently have to start clicking all these links working out what a region is, whether counties make up a region (they do?), whether a region can be a county (?), work out where the counties that make up the London region are (none? or is the City of London the only one?), and then decide there isn't a county at all and that it's a region (Greater London) with one county (City of London or is this just ceremonial) contained in it. It seems to me that this is way too confusing and can be made a lot clearer - to solve the 'City of London' issue how about-
London, also commonly known as the Greater London area, is one of the regions of England (and therefore is not located in a county, excepting the City of London); its local government is the Greater London Authority.
Like I said first up, there must be an easy and clear way to put this because at the moment it confuses people who aren't as familiar with London as most of the editors contributing to this page are. - Ctbolt 03:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately it's not very easy. I've tried to explain it simply below:
  • The area now defined as Greater London has been formed in stages from parts of the traditional counties of Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, Essex and Hertfordshire. In 1889, the parts of Kent, Surrey and Middlesex which had been managed by the Metropolitan Board of Works were amalgamated to form the County of London (map). At that time, the City of London was a County corporate (a local government district which was a county in its own right) although it was within the boundary of Middlesex and was also within the boundary of the new County of London.
  • In 1900, the County of London (excluding the City of London) was subdivided into 28 Metropolitan boroughs which acted as a second tier of government below the county council. The City of London remained a County Corporate.
  • In 1965, the County of London and the county of Middlesex were abolished to create the Greater London Council. The 28 County of London Metropolitan boroughs were merged to make 12 London boroughs. Also included in the GLC area were a number of metropolitan boroughs, county boroughs and urban districts from Kent, Surrey, Hertfordshire and Essex which were combined to form another 20 London Boroughs (two areas originally in Middlesex did not become part of Greater London - Potters Bar was transferred to Hertfordshire and Staines/Sunbury-on-Thames became part of Surrey). The City of London remained a County Corporate within the GLC area and is not formally a London Borough.
  • The GLC was abolished in 1986 but the London Boroughs remainded unaltered, taking over some of the responsibilities of the GLC.
  • The Greater London Authority was created in 2000 to effectively replace the GLC as a regional administration for Greater London although the GLA has fewer elected members than the GLC did and has different powers.
  • The County Corporate status of the City of London was abolished in 1974. It is now a Unitary authority Metropolitan District (like the London boroughs) although it is not a borough in practice.--DavidCane 05:04, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Ah, so the City of London is no longer a county but a Unitary authority and London is no longer in a county. Therefore, "London, also commonly known as the Greater London area, is one of the regions of England (and therefore is not located in a county); its local government is the Greater London Authority.
I realise that this can be complex, but I get back to the person looking up this encyclopedia for the county that London is in (where most people would assume that all English cities were in a county). So can we say it is not in a county and place it in the article so people don't have to wade through the talk pages to work it out? - Ctbolt 07:43, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
First a correction - I accidentally promoted the City of London and the London Boroughs to Unitary Authority status. Although they have some of the powers of a UA they are actually third tier adminstrative divisions on a level with a metropolitan or non-metropolitan district elsewhere. London; however, does not have the fourth tier of adminstration (civil parishes) which other parts of the country has. See Administrative divisions of England for an explanation and a useful diagram of the hierarchy.
The problem is partially due to the difficulty of defining what is a county. Due to the various local government reforms of the 1880s, 1960s, 1970s and 1990s the country is covered by a mosaic of differing types of authorities created at different times. Most people tend to think in terms of the traditional counties (Yorkshire, Somerset, Lancashire, Suffolk, etc.) but in most cases these traditional areas are no longer administered as a single authority but are divided into a number of metropolitan and non-metropolitan districts.
Traditionally, all English counties had a Lord Lieutenant who was the representative of the monarch in that county but by the 1990s the adminstrative structure had been changed so many times that the areas covered by the Lords Lieutenant no longer matched the administrative divisions. The boundaries of the Lietenancies were revised to match the actual adminstrative boundaries and a new definition of cermonial counties. Both Greater London and the City of London are defined as cermonial counties.
It would probably be better to describe Greater London as "an English region composed of parts of the traditional counties of Kent, Middlesex, Surrey, Essex and Hertfordshire which covers the same area as the ceremonial counties of Greater London and City of London." --DavidCane 16:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your time and help David and G-Man. The previous reply solves my request in that 'county' is mentioned with respect to London. I'll change it to the statement below. Anybody who disagrees can start a new thread.
To:
  • London forms the English region called Greater London which is composed of parts of the traditional counties of Kent, Middlesex, Surrey, Essex and Hertfordshire. The region covers the same area as the ceremonial counties of Greater London and the City of London. Its local government is the Greater London Authority.
From:
It would be good to have a section in Greater London on 'ceremonial county of Greater London' describing when it was made ceremonial so we can link there. - Ctbolt 01:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The region is not called Greater London, it is called London. MRSC • Talk 17:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah exactly. The region is called London, but the administrative entity is called "Greater London". It would be more correct to say:
    • "London is the title given to region of England that is defined by the administrative area of Greater London. Greater London is composed of parts of the traditional counties of Kent, Middlesex, Surrey, Essex and Hertfordshire, and covers the same area as the ceremonial counties of Greater London and the City of London. It is administered by the Greater London Authority.
It should also be borne in mind that London is primarily a city, and should be labelled as such on top of all the administrative mumbo-jumbo. DJR (T) 17:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes thats right. The Greater London article should probably be explaining the status issues. The text seems ok now? MRSC • Talk 18:27, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] page locked

why is this article locked? At least remove the protected sign, makes wiki look like a prison. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.129.56.25 (talk • contribs) 23:35, 16 February 2007.

[edit] Corrections

I changed the reference about Wembly Stadium being the largest in the world. Kardous 12:17, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't "broking" be "brokering" or "brokerage" as in the trading of securities. This is listed under "Economy".—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.143.22.168 (talk • contribs).

Done.--A bit iffy 08:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


I noticed this page is locked, however in the section Transport - Rail the follwing spelling mistake needs to be corrected:

Over three million journeys a day are made on the Underground network, around early 1 billion journeys are made each year.

That should be Bold textnBold textearly 1 billion... Thanks --Eric.hobbs 12:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Fixed - thanks for that, Eric. --A bit iffy 12:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Photo of Angel station

There's a photo of the very large platform at Angel station with the caption "A typical London Underground platform.". I find this rather amusing when you consider that because of the unusually large size of that platform it would actually be more accurately described as an atypical London Underground platform. 83.216.157.38 03:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I see your point, so I've removed "typical". To me, it is a great photo though: it beatifully illustrates the tubular nature of, er, the Tube. --A bit iffy 21:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ken Livingstone picture

The image of Ken Livingstone was removed by User:WikiWitch on 10 February with no comment - I am restoring it because Livingstone is (a) the very notable Mayor of London and (b) I don't like sneaky POV changes with no appropriate comment. I would ask other editors to be vigilant on this. We should have the Mayor's photo in the page. Thanks. MarkThomas 22:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

It is obviously good to comment and discuss, but it's a bit rich to assume that it's a POV change. There have been quite a few disagreements over whether articles on a geographical entity should have pictures of political leaders, and it's usually nothing more than a matter of style. As it is, there are arguably too many pictures in that section of this article, and not many geographical articles do have pictures of political leaders. JPD (talk) 12:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair comment. I guess I would advocate that we do have the photo, partly because he is the first office holder of that role, partly through national and international notability. I don't disagree we may have too many pictures, but the picture of KL wouldn't be the one I would trim first. MarkThomas 16:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History of London

Hello. I was wondering if anyone could help splitting the very long History of London page into sub-pages. A start has been made on this with Londinium and Saxon London. But there's still masses to go.

Incidentally I have been debating at Talk: Londinium whether Londinium should be moved to Roman London. I think it should, in order to be consistent with other periodised sub articles, but someone else disagrees with me. G-Man * 21:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Most populated city within city limits?

If that's so then what's this article about - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_london. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.137.123.101 (talk • contribs).

??? Tarquin Binary 00:53, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
The anon raises the relatively good point that "within city limits" brings the City of London to mind before Greater London. Of course, from the context it must be talking about the larger area, but the sentence isn't particularly easy to read and understand. JPD (talk) 15:15, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
If you remove "within city limits", then you also have to remove "most populated city". If you leave "most populated city", then you also have to leave "within city limits", otherwise the statement is both unclear and misleading (London is not the most populated urban area in the European Union for example). In general I am in favor of removing all these population comparisons and rankings which are always prone to controversies. Too bad some people always want to "compare sizes" in the introduction. Keizuko 17:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'm not convinced it needs to be mentioned at all, but I definitely wasn't suggesting the removal of "within city limits", just the addition of something to make it clear which limits are being talked about, or a compelte rewrite of the sentence. JPD (talk) 17:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
A rewriting of the sentence would have to be something like "Greater London, if considered as a municipality, is the most populated city within city limits in the European Union.", but it's a bit heavy, and I doubt it would pass the test of time in this highly vandalised and cross-edited article. Keizuko 02:06, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

I did some rejigging of the infobox as the population/area figures were not aligned to the correct entities. I can't immediately see a way of entering both the City of London and Greater London areas without falsely calling the total area of London to be 1 sq mile and claiming that Greater London is the same as the urban area, but with some more fiddling it must be possible. MRSC • Talk 20:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I will see about adding some "blank fields" in over at infobox City and this should help. In the mean time I'll install the other infobox. —MJCdetroit 01:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I made the changes to the standard infobox. They should be correct now. Here's an example of what it will look like here. —MJCdetroit 17:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is it really a neutral article?

I've read it a couple of times, and I've got a slight impression that it's not a very objective article.

There are some portions, especially of the 'Economy' section, that seem to, or incite the reader to compare the city and its importance to that of New York City.

I've also read the NYC's article, and I found that it's been edited, and almost every statement that emphasized its importance as a global city, was deleted. However, London's article has A LOT of those.

For instance, this passage from the London article is a good example of what it should not have: "New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the US Senate published a report in January 2007 calling on his City and the US to retain its leadership in global financial services to ensure that this trend is reversed and does not 'cast a chill over New York'.[28][29]".

You should revise this article, and its neutrality. It's an extremely complete text, but there are things that should be considered opinions (The city [...]has recently begun to reovertake New York City), which is not expected from such a good encyclopedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Andres07 (talk • contribs) 23:29, 7 March 2007 (UTC).

While I agree the wording might need some tuning, the fact that there are two reliable sources corroborating the statement that London is overtaking NYC as a financial centre is pretty much indisputable. As such, it should be included in the article. DJR (T) 03:39, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Flag of London

Shouldn't this article use the Flag of the City of London as its flag? All other major wold cities now have their flags included into their articles so shouldn't London too? It seems strange that London is pretty much the only city without its flag being displayed.

The problem is that London as a whole - Greater London, or the London region - doesn't actually have a flag. As you rightly say, the City of London does, but that only really applies to the square mile. It is a shame, in my opinion, that the GLA did not revive the GLC crest, which was in turn was derived from the LCC's, then that could be used. But they didn't - all the GLA has is a logo... Tarquin Binary 01:22, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. Not every article on a city has a flag in the infobox - only those that actually have flags. We shouldn't give in to the people who demand that there be a flag in every infobox, but only show flags when there are appropriate flags. JPD (talk) 10:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

I noticed that the number of categories is a little 'rich'. Since categories inherit, why not make Port Cities in British Isles itself a sub-cat of Port Cities in Europe? Similarly for capital cities. Kbthompson 10:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Foreign born Londoners

What's about the Poles? see Polish minority in Great Britain. 83.8.79.81 17:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Foreign born Londoners

What's about the Poles? see Polish minority in United Kingdom. Kowalmistrz 17:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The last census in the United Kingdom took place in 2001. This is before the large influx of Polish immigrants to the capital.

I found the information for the table 'Country of Birth' on an official government website, which extracted data from the 2001 census (there is a reference to it in the article). The figures are now out-of-date, but they are the most accurate figures we will have until the next census in 2011.

(Figures for 'Country of Birth' extracted from here: http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/publications/factsandfigures/dmag-update-2006-09.pdf)

Mkimemia 11:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Duplicate pictures

Why, at this time, is it necessary to have two images of the Houses of Parliament and two of the Millenium Wheel? One image of each of these structures is more than enough surely! --Rodge500 15:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Education

After reading about London (being a Londoner myself), I'm somehat bemused to see a photo of Royal Holloway University representing all universities of London when it's not even in London! Yes, it's part of UoL, and so is the Paris institute, so why not have a photo of that - because it's in Paris perhaps? Also, we are missing QMUL and Goldsmiths from the list who are both as large, if not bigger than some universities mentioned in the UoL statement. User: Anon 02 April 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.178.116.130 (talk) 12:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Defining London

That section does everything except what it says on the tin: defining "London". Can London be defined unequivocally and using verifiable sources? If so, we should give the reader a way to determine what "London" includes and what it doesn't include. If not, we should make it clear: London officially does not exist. What is London? Is it the same as "Greater London"? If not, why do we use the same map?

Also, I find it contradictory to state in the introduction that London is the capital of the UK when the first section makes it clear that officially that is not true. 83.67.217.254 15:43, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

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