Areas Of London
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London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
is the capital of and largest city in
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
. It is administered by the
Greater London Authority The Greater London Authority (GLA), colloquially known by the metonym "City Hall", is the devolved regional governance body of Greater London. It consists of two political branches: the executive Mayoralty (currently led by Sadiq Khan) and the ...
,
City of London Corporation The City of London Corporation, officially and legally the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, is the municipal governing body of the City of London, the historic centre of London and the location of much of the United King ...
and 32
London boroughs The London boroughs are the 32 local authority districts that together with the City of London make up the administrative area of Greater London; each is governed by a London borough council. The present London boroughs were all created at t ...
. These boroughs are modern, having been created in 1965 and have a weaker sense of identity than their constituent "districts" (considered in speech, "parts of London" or more formally, "areas"). Two major factors have shaped the development of London district and sub-district identities; the ancient parish – which was used for both civil and ecclesiastical functions – and the pre-urban settlement pattern.


Ancient parishes and their successors

The modern London boroughs were primarily formed from amalgamations of Metropolitan,
County A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
and
Municipal Borough Municipal boroughs were a type of local government district which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002. Broadly similar structures existed in S ...
s. These were formed from ancient parishes (or groupings of them), with ancient parishes in turn generally based on a single manor, though many were based on more than one and a few manors were so large that they were divided into multiple parishes. An early form of the Parish system was, in England, long established by the time of the
Conquest Conquest is the act of military subjugation of an enemy by force of arms. Military history provides many examples of conquest: the Roman conquest of Britain, the Mauryan conquest of Afghanistan and of vast areas of the Indian subcontinent, t ...
, and had fully matured by the 12th century. By this time, changes in
Canon Law Canon law (from grc, κανών, , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members. It is th ...
made boundary changes and sub-divisions very difficult. There were occasional sub-divisions, but boundary changes were extremely unusual. From the time of Henry VIII, parishes took on the civil role previously held by manors, thus these areas fulfilled both civil and ecclesiastical roles. From the nineteenth century, there was a divergence between civil and ecclesiastic functions, and the ancient parishes gained a Civil Parish counterpart in almost all instances. Ecclesiastic parishes sub-divided to a great extent, to better serve the needs of a growing population, while civil parishes persisted on the same basis until 1900. Thus the parish system was the smallest unit of English administration that had any kind of defined boundary, it also provided great continuity as the basis of local identities. The capital had three
ancient borough The ancient boroughs were a historic unit of lower-tier local government in England and Wales. The ancient boroughs covered only important towns and were established by charters granted at different times by the monarchy. Their history is large ...
s of
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...
and
Kingston upon Thames Kingston upon Thames (hyphenated until 1965, colloquially known as Kingston) is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, England. It is situated on the River Thames and southwest of Charing Cross. It is notable as ...
.


Pre-urban settlement pattern

Apart from the ancient parishes, the second major influence on the districts of London are the pre-urban settlement patterns. The lowlands of England are made up of two very distinct landscape types, this is comparable to the division of lowland France into bocage and champagne types. The landscape of the countryside around London – in
Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...
,
Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
,
Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
and
Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
was characterised by a sometimes dense, but highly dispersed population, in scattered farmsteads and tiny hamlets. This pattern contrasts in this way, and a number of others, to the large 'village' (larger nucleated agricultural settlements) based communities associated with the former open-field landscapes of the midlands and elsewhere. The landscape historian Oliver Rackham called the type around London, the ''Ancient Landscape'' and the midland type the ''Planned Landscape''. Other writers use different terms for the same pattern.Roberts and Wrathmell, 2000, an Atlas of rural settlement in England, call the London area the ‘south-east province’, in contrast to the central province Apart from a large number of very small settlements, another major feature of the ''Ancient Landscape'' around London, when compared to the Midlands, is the relatively large number of woods and commons, with many of the latter being preserved as parks, some of which give their name to sub-districts (e.g.
Finsbury Park Finsbury Park is a public park in the London neighbourhood of Harringay. It is in the area formerly covered by the historic parish of Hornsey, succeeded by the Municipal Borough of Hornsey. It was one of the first of the great London parks ...
in Islington).
Towns A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...
(settlements like
Uxbridge Uxbridge () is a suburban town in west London and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Hillingdon. Situated west-northwest of Charing Cross, it is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Uxb ...
and
Romford Romford is a large town in east London and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Havering. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Historically, Romford ...
) with chartered markets and the trades attracted by this privilege, were infrequent. The rural settlement pattern provided much of the initial framework on which the subsequent urbanisation was based. A significant result of the dispersed settlement pattern was to reinforce the ancient parish unit in shaping local identity.


Sub-districts

Sub-districts of the districts rooted in parishes are of five types. The development of these has been heavily influenced by the historic landscape characteristics of the London area: *former hamlets, in all but the greenest fringes of London these grew and merged into neighbouring settlements, have rarely been assigned formal or customary boundaries. Therefore, perceptions of their extent are informal. *former manors, where the last extent of these has been carved up into consistent zones, "schemes" of one or more housing, or another type of development. In various parts of the city, their identities may be: forgotten, fading, partly reviving, or well-preserved such as in business/green/retail parks or conservation areas. In most cases, the central
manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...
area, the demesne of the manor has kept a named identity or replaced by an eponymous street name. *estates more recently in single ownership or set out as a large planned area, later than manors, in many cases such as Belgravia, Fitzrovia, Canning Town, Nine Elms, these have a strong, coherent, identity and are usually internally homogenous or similar in architectural style. *feature-named districts based on the name of a local station (rail, tram or tube) or other features such as a monument or notable coaching inn name, such as Nags Head, Holloway, a double instance of this *geographic suffixes and prefixes (such as South Croydon, East Finchley and Woodford Green).


Other use of place names

For electoral purposes, all boroughs are divided into wards which may share the names of London districts, drawn to have equal head of voting population (electorate) they depart from true historic and building scheme boundaries and are redrawn every 8–12 years. London postcode districts often have an influence over residents' and businesses' self-identity. They were not designed for this purpose. Some areas are now interchangeable (e.g. Brondesbury and Kilburn, which share a grid reference in the table), with the greatest overlap such as this in areas where differently named stations in the public transit system almost overlap. The northernmost settlement is
Crews Hill Crews Hill is an elevated and green-buffered former hamlet grown into a small village-size community on the northern outskirts of London centred north of Charing Cross. It forms part of the London Borough of Enfield and economically has many g ...
, Enfield – westernmost is
Harefield Harefield is a village in the London Borough of Hillingdon, England, northwest of Charing Cross near Greater London's boundary with Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the north. The population at the 2011 Census was 7,399. Haref ...
, Hillingdon – southernmost is
Old Coulsdon Old or OLD may refer to: Places * Old, Baranya, Hungary * Old, Northamptonshire, England *Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, M ...
, Croydon – easternmost as well as most outlying overall is
North Ockendon North Ockendon is the easternmost and most outlying settlement of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Havering. It is east-northeast of Central London and consists of a dispersed settlement within the Metropolitan Green B ...
, Havering.


List of districts and neighbourhoods of London


See also

*
List of highest places in Greater London This is a list of the highest natural points within the area of Greater London, England. The list includes all 21 peaks at least 100 metres high. One is an isolated hill, at Harrow on the Hill – the other 20 summits are clustered on six r ...
*
London Plan The London Plan is the statutory spatial development strategy for the Greater London area in the United Kingdom that is written by the Mayor of London and published by the Greater London Authority. The regional planning document was first pu ...
, as drawn and redrawn regularly, particularly as to Major Hubs. *
List of wards in Greater London This is a list of Wards and electoral divisions of the United Kingdom, electoral areas and wards in the ceremonial county and Regions of England, English region of Greater London. All changes since the re-organisation of local government following ...
* Museum Mile, London


References

;Footnotes ;Bibliography * * * {{Areas of London Districts London (Districts)