The city 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 ...

has long been a subject for

panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...

s by artists, mapmakers, and topographers. Many of their works have this as their title.

History

The earliest topographical drawings preceded maps according to modern definition, although they were mainly based on surveys or multiple drawings reduced to a (fairly) consistent perspective, as it is clearly impossible for them to have been produced from any single real viewpoint, unlike modern photographic panoramas. Wenceslaus Hollar's 1647 ''

Long View of London from Bankside ''Long View of London from Bankside'' is a panoramic etching made by Wenceslas Hollar in Antwerp in 1647. It depicts a panorama of London, based on drawings done while Hollar was in London in the early 1640s. Unlike earlier panoramas of London, ...

'' is an exception. Projected from a single viewpoint it resembles the perspective of a modern panoramic photograph.

Panoramas

Amongst the earliest known is that by Flemish

topographer Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary scie ...

Anton van den Wyngaerde Anton van den Wyngaerde ( Span.: ''Antonio de las Viñas''; 1525 – 7 May 1571) was a prolific Flemish topographical artist who made panoramic sketches and paintings of towns in the southern Netherlands, northern France, England, Italy, and Spa ...

, produced in 1543 and published by

London Topographical Society The London Topographical Society was founded as the Topographical Society of London in 1880 to publish "material illustrating the history and topography of the City and County of London from the earliest times to the present day".Long View of London from Bankside ''Long View of London from Bankside'' is a panoramic etching made by Wenceslas Hollar in Antwerp in 1647. It depicts a panorama of London, based on drawings done while Hollar was in London in the early 1640s. Unlike earlier panoramas of London, ...

'' of 1647: Another by Hollar, 1666 Many modern panoramic photographs of London exist, from many different viewpoints:

Interactive panoramas

Google Street View Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides interactive panoramas from positions along many streets in the world. It was launched in 2007 in several cities in the United States, and has since expa ...

, a technology featured in

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...

and

Google Earth Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...

, provides connected and

interactive panorama VR photography (after virtual-reality photography) is the interactive viewing of panoramic photographs, generally encompassing a 360-degree circle or a spherical view. The results is known as VR photograph (or VR photo), 360-degree photo, photo ...

s from locations around the world, including throughout all of London, with views outdoors and indoors. In Google Maps, when a user clicks on the yellow figure (named "Pegma

, that activates the street view map layer, which shows blue lines and blue circles superimposed upon the map, which represent what Street View panoramas are available. In order to see panoramas of those locations, the user either clicks on, or drags and drops Pegman onto, a blue line or blue circle on the map. Street panoramas are all connected along solid blue lines, so that the user may virtually "drive" around on London streets from one panorama to the next (by clicking with the mouse pointer in the view), and look around in all directions from any point along the journey (by Pointing device gesture, swiping the picture in the desired direction, or clicking on the compass-like rotation icon). Some off-street panoramas are connected with (typically dotted) blue lines to each other, while the blue circles on the map are standalone panoramas (called "image spheres"), which provide a single 360-degree view (usually with no connectivity to other views). Some example Street Views from London's street system:
Driving across the Tower Bridge

Driving through Piccadilly Circus

Driving past the giant lions at the base of Nelson's Column (look up), at Trafalgar Square
Some example Street View off-street panoramas in London:
Watching the Royal Guard outside Buckingham Palace

Inside the Natural History Museum

Inside St. Paul's Cathedral

View from a boat on the Thames, after going under the Westminster Bridge, passing the Palace of Westminster (the home of Parliament) and Big Ben

A virtual tour through the art collections at the National Gallery

Starting a virtual tour in the British Museum, at the Bust of Ramses

References

External links

{{commons category-inline, Panoramics of London, Panoramics of London

Panorama photography London in popular culture History of the built environment of London