List of cities in England

This is a list of cities in England that are designated such . It lists those places that have been granted city status by letters patent or royal charter.

There are currently a total of 55 in England, 24 of these have Lord Mayors. In some cases, the area holding city status does not coincide with the built up area or conurbation of which it forms part. In Greater London, for example, the City of London and that of Westminster each hold city status separately, but no other local authority in the London Region has been granted city status, nor has the Greater London Authority.

In other cases, such as the cities of Canterbury and Lancaster, the status applies to a local government district which extends over a number of towns and rural areas outside the main settlement proper. In England, the status sometimes applies to civil parishes, such as the city of Ripon; though the status may not apply to the local government district which share their name.

The list does not include places like Luton or Northampton which, despite having populations of over 200,000, have not been awarded city status and thus formally remain as towns. As of 2022, there are currently 5 ceremonial counties which contain 3 cities - Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hampshire, West Midlands and West Yorkshire.

History

The initial cities ( la, civitas) of Britain were the fortified settlements organised by the Romans as the capitals of the Celtic tribes under Roman rule. The British clerics of the early Middle Ages later preserved a traditional list of the " 28 Cities" which was mentioned by Gildas and listed by Nennius.Nennius (). Theodor Mommsen (). ''Historia Brittonum'', VI. Composed after AD 830. Hosted at Latin Wikisource.In the 16th century, a town was recognised as a city by the English Crown if it had a diocesan cathedral within its limits, for which 22 dioceses existed in England. This association between having a cathedral and being called a city was established when Henry VIII founded new dioceses (each having a cathedral in the see city) in six English towns and also granted them city status by issuing letters patent, demonstrating these were discrete procedures. Some cities today are very small because they were granted city status in or before the 16th century, then were unaffected by population growth during the Industrial Revolution, such as Wells and Truro.

The title of city was initially informal and, into the 20th century, royal charters were considered to ''recognise'' city status rather than to grant it. The usual criterion in early modern England was the presence of a cathedral, particularly after King Henry VIII granted letters patent establishing six new cities when he established a series of new dioceses in the 1540s as part of the English Reformation. No new cities were created between the 16th and 19th centuries, but following the Industrial Revolution and the accompanying population boom and growth in urbanisation, new sees were established at Ripon (1836) and Manchester (1847); their councils began to style them cities immediately.

In mid-19th century, the process became more formal. A visit by Queen Victoria in 1851 prompted Manchester to petition Parliament for recognition of its status. Ripon followed in the 1860s, and a series of hitherto informal "cities" were formally recognised in the 1880s and 1890s. King Edward VII and the Home Office established three criteria for future applicants in 1907—a minimum population of 300,000, a good record of local government, and a "local metropolitan character"but these criteria were not made public, and following Leicester's successful elevation in 1919 a series of exceptions were made. The 1972 Local Government Act effectively eliminated all authorities holding city status outside Greater London on 1 April 1974; most of their replacements were confirmed in their predecessor's status—even in cases such as the 1974–2023 City of Carlisle district, where much of the local authority area was undeveloped countryside—but the Borough of Medway was not permitted to continue Rochester's title. In recent times there have been competitions for new grants of city status. Towns or councils that claim city status or add "city" to their name have been known to be rebuked by the Advertising Standards Authority.

List of cities

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, South West, England
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, Yorkshire and the Humber, England
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, Wells
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Conurbations

The term "city" is sometimes loosely applied to conurbations in England. The government tends to recognise these as primary urban areas for statistical and economic purposes, though greater urban areas are what most determine to be a city region. Large cities outside of London such as Manchester or Birmingham are often confused with these greater conurbations. According to the 2011 census, Manchester was significantly less populous than Birmingham, despite Greater Manchester having a larger urban population than the West Midlands conurbation.

Conversely, many official cities in England contain a substantial rural area encompassing settlements which are physically separated from the core urban area. This applies to settlements such as Milton Keynes and Colchester, whose local authorities received Letters Patent, despite the City of Milton Keynes and City of Colchester administrative units covering an area substantially larger than that of their respective core urban areas, meaning that extra-urban settlements such as Olney and West Mersea fall within ''de jure'' cities.

See also

* City status in the United Kingdom
* Centre for Cities
* List of towns in England
* List of urban areas in the United Kingdom

Reference

{{List of Settlements in the UK
Cities in England
Cities in the United Kingdom
Lists of cities in the United Kingdom
Lists of cities in Europe
United Kingdom geography-related lists
Lists of cities by population