The subject has attracted the attention of various scholars and critics, who have analysed why this subject has reached iconic status. Although it may be considered frivolous, cat-related Internet content contributes to how people interact with media and culture.[2] Some argue that there is a depth and complexity to this seemingly simple content, with a suggestion that the positive psychological effects that pets have on their owners also hold true for cat images viewed online.[3]
Research has suggested that viewing online cat media is related to positive emotions, and that it even may work as a form of digital therapy or stress relief for some users. Some elements of research also shows that feelings of guilt when postponing tasks can be reduced by viewing cat content.[4]
Some individual cats, such as Grumpy Cat and Lil Bub, have achieved popularity online because of their unusual appearances and funny cat videos.
Humans have a longstanding relationship with cats, and the animals have often been a subject of short films, including the early silent movies Boxing Cats (1894) and The Sick Kitten (1903).[5] Harry Pointer (1822–1889) has been cited as the “progenitor of the shameless cat picture”.[6] Cats have been shared via email since the Internet’s rise to prominence in the 1990s.[7] The first cat video on YouTube was uploaded in 2005 by YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, who posted a video of his cat called “Pajamas and Nick Drake“.[7] The following year, “Puppy vs Cat” became the first viral cat video; uploaded by a user called Sanchey (a.k.a. Michael Wienzek);[8] as of 2015 it had over 16 million views on YouTube.[7] In a Mashable article that explored the history of cat media on the Internet, the oldest entry was an ASCII art cat that originated on 2channel, and was a pictorial representation of the phrase “Please go away.”[9] The oldest continuously operating cat website is sophie.net, which launched in October 1999 and is still operating.[10]
The New York Times described cat images as “that essential building block of the Internet”.[11] In addition, 2,594,329 cat images had been manually annotated in flickr.com by users.[12] An interesting phenomenon is that many photograph owners tag their house cats as “tiger”.[13]
Eric Nakagawa and Kari Unebasami started the website I Can Haz Cheezburger in 2007, where they shared funny pictures of cats. This site allowed users to create LOLcatmemes by placing writing on top of pictures of their cats. This site now has more than 100 million views per month and has “created a whole new form of internet speak”.[7] In 2009, the humour site Urlesque deemed September 9 “A Day Without Cats Online”, and had over 40 blogs and websites agree to “[ban] cats from their pages for at least 24 hours”.[14] As of 2015, there are over 2 million cat videos on YouTube alone, and cats are one of the most searched keywords on the Internet.[7] CNN estimated that in 2015 there could be around 6.5 billion cat pictures on the Internet.[15] The Internet has been described as a “virtual cat park, a social space for cat lovers in the same way that dog lovers congregate at a dog park”.[16]The Daily Telegraph deemed Nyan Cat the most popular Internet cat,[17] while NPR gave this title to Grumpy Cat.[18]The Daily Telegraph also deemed the best cat video on YouTube as “Surprised Kitty (Original)”, which currently has over 75 million views.[19] Buzzfeed deemed Cattycake the most important cat of 2010.[20]
In 2015, an exhibition called “How Cats Took Over The Internet” opened at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.[21] The exhibition “looks at the history of how they rose to internet fame, and why people like them so much”.[7] There is even a book entitled How to Make Your Cat an Internet Celebrity: A Guide to Financial Freedom.[22] The annual Internet Cat Video Festival celebrated and awards the Golden Kitty to cat videos.[23] According to Star Tribune, the festival’s success is because “people realized that the cat video they’d chuckled over in the privacy of their homes was suddenly a thousand times funnier when there are thousands of other people around”.[24]The Daily Telegraph had an entire article devoted to International Cat Day.[25] EMGN wrote an article entitled “21 Reasons Why Cats And The Internet Are A Match Made in Heaven”.[26]
In 2015, there were more than 2 million cat videos on YouTube, with an average of 12,000 views each – a higher average than any other category of YouTube content.[27] Cats made up 16% of views in YouTube’s “Pets & Animals” category, compared to dogs’ 23%.[28] The YouTube video Cats vs. Zombies merged the two Internet phenomena of cats and zombies.[29] Data from BuzzFeed and Tumblr has shown that dog videos have more views than those of cats, and less than 1% of posts on Reddit mention cats.[30] While dogs are searched for much more than cats, there is less content on the Internet.[31] The Facebook page “Cats” has over 2 million likes while Dogs has over 6.5 million.[32] In an Internet tradition, The New York Times Archives X account posts cat reporting throughout the history of the NYT.[33][34] The Japanese prefecture of Hiroshima launched an online Cat Street View, which showed the region from the perspective of a cat.[35][36]
Abigail Tucker, author of The Lion in the Living Room, a history of domestic cats, has suggested that cats appeal particularly because they “remind us of our own faces, and especially of our babies … [they’re] strikingly human but also perpetually deadpan”.[37][38]
Jason Eppink, curator of the Museum of the Moving Image‘s show How Cats Took Over the Internet, has noted the “outsized role” of cats on the Internet.[39]Wired magazine felt that the cuteness of cats was “too simplistic” an explanation of their popularity online.[30]
A scientific survey found that the participants were happier after watching cat videos.[7][40] The researcher behind the survey explained “If we want to better understand the effects the Internet may have on us as individuals and on society, then researchers can’t ignore Internet cats anymore”[41] and “consumption of online cat-related media deserves empirical attention”.[42] The Huffington Post suggested that the videos were a form of procrastination, with most being watched while at work or ostensibly studying,[43] while IU Bloomington commented “[it] does more than simply entertain; it boosts viewers’ energy and positive emotions and decreases negative feelings”.[44]Business Insider argues “This falls in line with a body of research regarding the effects that animals have on people.”[45] A 2015 study by Jessica Gall Myrick found that people were more than twice as likely to post a picture or video of a cat to the Internet than they were to post a selfie.[27]
Maria Bustillos considers cat videos to be “the crystallisation of all that human beings love about cats”, with their “natural beauty and majesty” being “just one tiny slip away from total humiliation”, which Bustillos sees as a mirror of the human condition.[46] When the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, was asked for an example of a popular use of the Internet that he would never have predicted, he answered, “Kittens”.[47] A 2014 paper argues that cats’ “unselfconsciousness” is rare in an age of hyper-surveillance, and cat photos appeal to people as it lets them imagine “the possibility of freedom from surveillance”, while presenting the power of controlling that surveillance as unproblematic.[48]Time magazine felt that cat images tap into viewers nature as “secret voyeurs”.[28]
The Cheezburger Network considers cats to be the “perfect canvas” for human emotion, as they have expressive facial and body aspects.[49]Mashable offered “cats’ cuteness, non-cuteness, popularity among geeks, blank canvas qualities, personality issues, and the fact that dogs just don’t have ‘it’” as possible explanations to cats’ popularity on the Internet.[50] A paper entitled ““I Can Haz Emoshuns?” – Understanding Anthropomorphosis of Cats among Internet Users” found that Tagpuss, an app that showed users cat images and asked them to choose their emotion “can be used to identify cat behaviours that lay-people find difficult to distinguish”.[relevant?][51]
Jason Eppink, curator of the “How Cats Took Over the Internet” exhibition, explained: “People on the web are more likely to post a cat than another animal, because it sort of perpetuates itself. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. [sic]”[34][52]Jason Kottke considers cats to be “easier to objectify” and therefore “easier to make fun of”.[53] Journalist Jack Shepherd suggested that cats were more popular than dogs because dogs were “trying too hard”, and humorous behavior in a dog would be seen as a bid for validation. Shepherd sees cats’ behavior as being “cool, and effortless, and devoid of any concern about what you might think about it. It is art for art’s sake”.[54]
Cats have historically been associated with magic, and have been revered by various human cultures, the ancient Egyptians worshipping them as gods and the creatures being feared as demons in ancient Japan,[15] such as the bakeneko. Vogue magazine has suggested that the popularity of cats on the Internet is culturally-specific, being popular in North America, Western Europe, and Japan. Other nations favor different animals online, Ugandans sharing images of goats and chickens, Mexicans preferring llamas, and Chinese Internet users sharing images of the river crab and grass-mud horse due to double-meanings of their names allowing them to “subvert government Internet censors”.[55]
Lolcat images are often shared through the same networks used by online activists.
The cute cat theory of digital activism is a theory concerning Internet activism, Internet censorship, and “cute cats” (a term used for any low-value, but popular online activity) developed by Ethan Zuckerman in 2008.[56][57] It posits that most people are not interested in activism; instead, they want to use the web for mundane activities, including surfing for pornography and lolcats (“cute cats”).[58] The tools that they develop for that (such as Facebook, Flickr, Blogger, Twitter, and similar platforms) are very useful to social movement activists, who may lack resources to develop dedicated tools themselves.[58] This, in turn, makes the activists more immune to reprisals by governments than if they were using a dedicated activism platform, because shutting down a popular public platform provokes a larger public outcry than shutting down an obscure one.[58]
Because of the relative newness of this industry, most owners of famous cats found themselves stumbling into Internet stardom without intentionally planning it.[59]
Tardar Sauce (born April 4, 2012 – May 14, 2019),[60][61] better known by her Internet name “Grumpy Cat”, was a cat and Internet celebrity known for her grumpy facial expression.[62][63][64] Her owner, Tabatha Bundesen, says that her permanently grumpy-looking face was due to an underbite and feline dwarfism.[62][65][66] Grumpy Cat’s popularity originated from a picture posted to the social news website Reddit by Bundesen’s brother Bryan on September 22, 2012.[62][67][68] It was made into an image macro with grumpy captions. As of December 10, 2014, “The Official Grumpy Cat” page on Facebook has over 7 million “likes“.[69] Grumpy Cat was featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal on May 30, 2013, and on the cover of New York magazine on October 7, 2013.[64][70][71] In August 2015 it was announced that Grumpy Cat would get her own animatronic waxwork at Madame Tussauds in San Francisco.[72]The Huffington Post wrote an article exploring America’s fascination with cats.[73]
Lil Bub (Lillian Bubbles) (June 21, 2011 – December 1, 2019)[74] was an American celebrity cat known for her unique appearance. She was the runt of her litter. Her owner, Mike Bridavsky, adopted her when his friends called to ask him to give her a home. Her photos were first posted to Tumblr in November 2011 then taken off after being featured on the social news website reddit.[75] “Lil Bub” on Facebook has over two million Likes.[76] Lil Bub stars in Lil Bub & Friendz, a documentary premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 18, 2013, that won the Tribeca Online Festival Best Feature Film.[77][78][79]
Maru (まる, Japanese: circle or round; born May 24, 2007[80]) is a male Scottish Fold (straight variety[81]) cat in Japan who has become popular on YouTube. As of April 2013, videos with Maru have been viewed over 200 million times.[82] Videos featuring Maru have an average of 800,000 views each and he is mentioned often in print and televised media discussing Internet celebrities.[83] Maru is the “most famous cat on the internet.”[84]
Maru’s owner posts videos under the account name ‘mugumogu’. His owner is almost never seen in the videos, although the video titled “Maru’s ear cleaning”. YouTube. December 18, 2008. is an exception. The videos include title cards in English and Japanese setting up and describing the events, and often show Maru playing in cardboard boxes, indicated by “I love a box!” in his first video.
Colonel Meow (adopted October 11, 2011[Note 1] – January 29, 2014)[85] was a male Himalayan–Persiancrossbreed cat, who holds the 2014 Guinness world record for the longest fur on a cat (9 in (230 mm)).[86] He became an Internet celebrity when his owners posted pictures of his scowling face to Facebook and Instagram.[87][88] He was known by his hundreds of thousands of followers as an “adorable fearsome dictator”, a “prodigious Scotch drinker” and “the angriest cat in the world”.[88]
“Oh Long Johnson” redirects here. For the 2019 album by Miss Caffeina, see Oh Long Johnson (album).
This unnamed cat was featured in the first place-winning video “Cat’s Got a Tongue”[89] from Season 10, Episode 20 of America’s Funniest Home Videos. In the video, the cat makes aggressive noises at another.[90] The noises sound like human words and phrases such as “Oh my dog”, “Oh Long John”, “Oh Long Johnson”, “Oh Don piano”, “Why I eyes ya”, “All the live long day”, and “Oh that long long Johnson”. “[91] The video first appeared on the Internet in 2006[90] during a compilation video on YouTube featuring cats producing human-like sounds, and other standalone videos were later uploaded. The full clip shows a second, younger-looking cat in the room.[92]
By 2012, the video of the cat had been viewed 6.5 million times.[93] The clip was included in the 2019 Cat Video Fest which was held at the Vancity Theatre in Vancouver on April 20. There were to be five consecutive screenings of the videos.[94]
The video was referenced in the South Park episode “Faith Hilling“, where Johnson’s speech pattern ended up causing several deaths related to “Oh Long Johnsoning”.[95]
Jorts is an office cat that was the centre of a December 2021 dispute between staff. Self-reporting of the dispute on a subreddit of Reddit attracted significant attention.[96]
Brünnhilde was a female tabby cat known from two 1936 photographs of her wearing a costume of her namesake from Der Ring des Nibelungen, an opera by Richard Wagner. She became notable in the 2022 for her inclusion in Not an Ostrich: & Other Images from America’s Library, an exhibit of historical photographs hosted by the United States Library of Congress.[97]
Brünnhilde was owned by a man named Adolph Edward Weidhaas, who adopted her as a stray. He took two photographs of her in costume, wearing miniature scale armor and a winged helmet. The photographs were put on display at the Snapshot Store, a photography store in New York City, as advertisements.[98] Both photographs are now in the collection of the Library of Congress. Initially, only one of the photographs was available online (showing Brünnhilde from the side), and the Library of Congress described it as “one of [their] most beloved free-to-use photos”. In January 2023, the Library of Congress digitized the second photograph (which shows Brünnhilde from the front) and released it on Twitter, at which point it became viral.[99] The Associated Press noted that the photographs of Brünnhilde were similar to many modern comedic cat photographs, saying that “at least one aspect of photography hasn’t changed much in 150 years”.[100]
A lolcat (pronounced /ˈlɒlkæt/LOL-kat) is an image macro of one or more cats. The image’s text is often idiosyncratic and grammatically incorrect. Its use in this way is known as “lolspeak” or “kitty pidgin”.
Nyan Cat is the name of a YouTube video, uploaded in April 2011, which became an Internet meme. The video merged a Japanese pop song with an animated cartoon cat with the body of a Pop-Tart, flying through space, and leaving a rainbow trail behind it. The video ranked at number 5 on the list of most viewed YouTube videos in 2011.[104]
Keyboard Cat is another Internet phenomenon. It consists of a video from 1984 of Fatso, a cat wearing a blue shirt and appearing to play an upbeat rhythm on an electronic keyboard. The video was posted to YouTube under the title “charlie schmidt’s cool cats” in June 2007. Schmidt later changed the title to “Charlie Schmidt’s Keyboard Cat (The Original)”.[105]
Fatso (who died in 1987)[106] was owned (and manipulated in the video) by Charlie Schmidt of Spokane, Washington, US, and the blue shirt still belonged to Schmidt’s cat Fatso. Later, Brad O’Farrell, who was the syndication manager of the video website My Damn Channel, obtained Schmidt’s permission to reuse the footage, appending it to the end of a blooper video to “play” that person offstage after the mistake or gaffe in a similar manner as getting the hook in the days of vaudeville.[107] The appending of Schmidt’s video to other blooper and other viral videos became popular, with such videos usually accompanied with the title Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat or a variant. “Keyboard Cat” was ranked No. 2 on Current TV‘s list of 50 Greatest Viral Videos.[108]
In 2009 Schmidt became owner of Bento, another cat that resembled Fatso, and which he used to create new Keyboard Cat videos, until Bento’s death in March 2018.[109] Schmidt has adopted a new cat “Skinny” or “Keyboard Cat 3.0”, which has yet to become popular.
Cats That Look Like Hitler is a satirical website featuring photographs of cats that bear an alleged resemblance to Adolf Hitler.[110] Most of the cats have a large black splotch underneath their nose, much like the dictator’s stumpy toothbrush moustache. The site was founded by Koos Plegt and Paul Neve in 2006,[111] and became widely known after being featured on several television programmes across Europe[111][112][113] and Australia.[114] The site is now only run by Neve. As of February 2013, the site contained photographs of over 8,000 cats, submitted by owners with digital cameras and Internet access and then approved by Neve as content.[115]
“Every time you masturbate… God kills a kitten” is the caption of an image created by a member of the website Fark in 2002.[116][117] The image features a kitten (subsequently referred to as “Cliché Kitty”) being chased by two Domos, and has the tagline “Please, think of the kittens”.
It was created in 2007 by Eric Nakagawa (Cheezburger), a blogger from Hawaii, and his friend Kari Unebasami (Tofuburger).[citation needed] The website is one of the most popular Internet sites of its kind. It received as many as 1,500,000 hits per day at its peak in May 2007.[118][119] ICHC was instrumental in bringing animal-based image macros and lolspeak into mainstream usage and making Internet memes profitable.[120]
In 2015, the atmosphere among the community of Brussels, Belgium was tense when the city was put under the highest level state of emergency immediately following the Paris attacks; however, Internet cats were able to cut the tension by taking over the Twitter feed #BrusselsLockdown.[121] The feed was designed to discuss operational details of terrorist raids, but when police asked for a social media blackout the hashtag was overwhelmed by Internet users posting pictures of cats to drown out serious discussion and prevent terrorists from gaining any useful information.[122] The use of cat images is a reference to the Level 4 state of emergency: the French word for the number 4, quatre, is pronounced similarly to the word “cat” in English.[123][124]
Pusheen is another Internet phenomenon about a cartoon cat. Created in 2010 by Claire Belton, the popularity of using emoji and Facebook stickers led to a rise in Pusheen’s popularity. She now has 9 million followers.
Bongo Cat is another Internet meme about a cartoon cat that originated on May 7, 2018, when an animated cat gif made by Twitter user “@StrayRogue“[125] was edited by Twitter user “@DitzyFlama“[126] to include bongos and the music “Athletic” from the Super Mario World soundtrack. This cat has since been edited to many other songs, and many different instruments.
Peepee the cat was the star of a copypasta popularized on Twitter. The post, “i Amn just……….. a litle creacher. Thatse It . I Canot change this” was posted on September 18, 2018, and has garnered over 38,000 likes.[127]
In April 2020, a video of a white cat from Québec, Canada named Minette bobbing her head as if dancing went viral.[128] In addition to its popularity on social media sites like Youtube and TikTok, the cat was widely shared on livestreaming platform Twitch.tv, where it was enabled as a emote through third-party service BetterTTV on over 200,000 channels.[129] In December 2020, the official YouTube Channel of the International Cricket Council posted a video named “Vibing cricketers, vibing cat” showing edited footage of the cat alongside various cricketers dancing to music.[130]
“Zoom Cat Lawyer”, also known as “I’m Not a Cat”, refers to a viral video taken from a livestream of a civil forfeiture hearing being held over the video conferencing application Zoom in Texas‘ 394th Judicial District Court. The video features attorney Rod Ponton, who is struggling to disable a cat filter that shows a white kitten mask over his face, resulting in it appearing as if a cat is speaking.[131]
Big Floppa is a caracal from Russia (real name Gregory or Gosha for short) who gained popularity as an internet meme after being posted by his owner on Instagram.[132] Floppa can also more generally refer to a collection of images either portraying Big Floppa (also referred to as Gosha or Shlepa) or any caracals. The collection of images do not portray to a specific theme per se, but always hold Floppa as a centerpoint or personification of something.[133]
A cat “loafing” with its paws and tail tucked under its body
Catloaf (also spelled as cat loaf/cat-loaf and sometimes known as hovercat,[134] tugboat or loafing[135]) is a term used to describe a cat’s sitting position in which its paws and tail are tucked under the body, forming a loaf-like shape. A speculation for the sitting position indicates that the cat is relaxed and feels unthreatened, and therefore has no need to sit in a position where it would have to attack. Another potential reason for this sitting position is for the cat to maintain a comfortable body temperature without having to move.[136]
American cartoonist B. Kliban had noted the similarity between the shapes of cats and meatloaves as early as 1975.[137] However, widespread popularity of the word had not gained peak popularity until the 2010s on social media sites such as Reddit and Twitter, as well as Facebook, where the sitting position is also known as “tugboat” in the “Tuggin’” group.[138][135]
In South Korea, a 2021 news report’s mention of a cat walking on the frozen Han River in Seoul became a meme in 2022.[139][140] In the video,[141]: 0:48 a reporter says the phrase “꽁꽁 얼어붙은 한강 위로 고양이가 걸어 다닙니다” (lit. ’On top of the completely frozen Han River walks a cat.’). In 2024, the audio of the phrase was remixed into a song that became associated with a dance challenge.[98][140]
Banana Cat, a cat inside a banana skin, has been notably used by the Canadian Ontario New Democratic Party in TikTok campaign ads. A series of videos titled “Banana Cat explains” describe “New Democats’” strategies for addressing issues such as healthcare, education and grocery costs.[142] During a 2024 speech by Ontario New Democratic leader Marit Stiles about the governing Ontario Progressive Conservative Party‘s legacy, Progressive Conservative MPPGoldie Ghamari shouted in response “Your legacy is making cat videos on TikTok”.[143]
Bonsai Kitten was a satirical website launched in 2000 that claims to provide instructions on how to grow a kitten in a jar, so as to mold the bones of the kitten into the shape of the jar as the cat grows, much like how a bonsai plant is shaped. It was made by an MIT university student going by the alias of Dr. Michael Wong Chang.[144] The website generated furor after members of the public complained to animal rights organizations, who stated that “while the site’s content may be faked, the issue it is campaigning for may create violence towards animals“, according to the Michigan Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA). Although the website in its most recent form was shut down, it still generates (primarily spam) petitions to shut the site down or complain to its ISP. The website has been thoroughly debunked by Snopes.com and The Humane Society of the United States, among other prominent organizations.
Founded by Laura Mieli in 2012, it has been running full time since 2017.[145] It now has more than a million followers in over 100 countries.[146][147] It contributes articles to American Kennel Club affiliate, AKC Reunite.[148][149][150]
In July 2018, it sponsored the first ever “Meow Meetup” at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. The event was held July 21–22,[151] was estimated to attract around 3000 people. It was the largest cat conference in the Midwest.[152][153]
Founded by Lithuanian-born Justinas Butkus who lives in Wellington, New Zealand, the site adds a cat element to news stories. Reporting on actual events, it changes the wording to a type of cat talk such as “kidney opurration” instead of “kidney operation” and “prepurr for major eruption” instead of “prepare for major eruption”. There were mixed reactions within the first week of the site’s operation.[154] NewsByCats.com has been defunct since some time after March 9, 2022.[155]
The Purrington Post publishes a newsletter. The first, Volume 1, Issue 1 came out on November 1, 2013.[156] According to Natural Pet Science, The Purrington Post averages half a million page views per trimester.[157] It was referred to in September 2018 as an award-winning cat blog by the Dow Jones & Company owned financial information service MarketWatch.[158] Also that year it was rated No. 3 by KittyCoaching.com in a list of the 12 best cat blogs for that year.[159] It was also highly rated by Cats.com in their Top 35 Cat Blogs You Should Know About list for 2018.[160] The opinion of the Post on cat behavior has been valued enough to be quoted in articles.[161]
London’s diverse cultures encompass over 300 languages.[24] The 2023 population of Greater London of just under 10 million[25] made it Europe’s third-most populous city,[26] accounting for 13.4% of the United Kingdom’s population[27] and over 16% of England’s population. The Greater London Built-up Area is the fourth-most populous in Europe, with about 9.8 million inhabitants as of 2011.[3][28] The London metropolitan area is the third-most populous in Europe, with about 14 million inhabitants as of 2016, making London a megacity.[g][29][30]
London is an ancient name, attested in the first century AD, usually in the Latinised form Londinium.[34] Modern scientific analyses of the name must account for the origins of the different forms found in early sources: Latin (usually Londinium), Old English (usually Lunden), and Welsh (usually Llundein), with reference to the known developments over time of sounds in those different languages. It is agreed that the name came into these languages from Common Brythonic; recent work tends to reconstruct the lost Celtic form of the name as *Londonjon or something similar. This was then adapted into Latin as Londinium and borrowed into Old English.[35]
In 1993, remains of a Bronze Age bridge were found on the south River Thames foreshore, upstream from Vauxhall Bridge.[37] Two of the timbers were radiocarbon dated to 1750–1285 BC.[37] In 2010, foundations of a large timber structure, dated to 4800–4500 BC,[38] were found on the Thames’ south foreshore downstream from Vauxhall Bridge.[39] Both structures are on the south bank of the Thames, where the now-underground River Effra flows into the Thames.[39]
Despite the evidence of scattered Brythonic settlements in the area, the first major settlement was founded by the Romans around 47 AD,[1] about 4 years after their invasion of 43 AD.[40] This only lasted until about 61 AD, when the Iceni tribe led by Queen Boudica stormed it and burnt it to the ground.[41]
The next planned incarnation of Londinium prospered, superseding Colchester as the principal city of the Roman province of Britannia in 100. At its height in the 2nd century, Roman London had a population of about 60,000.[42]
With the early 5th-century collapse of Roman rule, the walled city of Londinium was effectively abandoned, although Roman civilisation continued around St Martin-in-the-Fields until about 450.[43] From about 500, an Anglo-Saxon settlement known as Lundenwic developed slightly west of the old Roman city.[44] By about 680 the city had become a major port again, but there is little evidence of large-scale production. From the 820s repeated Viking assaults brought decline. Three are recorded; those in 851 and 886 succeeded, while the last, in 994, was rebuffed.[45]
The Vikings applied Danelaw over much of eastern and northern England, its boundary running roughly from London to Chester as an area of political and geographical control imposed by the Viking incursions formally agreed by the Danishwarlord, Guthrum and the West Saxon king Alfred the Great in 886. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Alfred “refounded” London in 886. Archaeological research shows this involved abandonment of Lundenwic and a revival of life and trade within the old Roman walls. London then grew slowly until a dramatic increase in about 950.[46]
By the 11th century, London was clearly the largest town in England. Westminster Abbey, rebuilt in Romanesque style by King Edward the Confessor, was one of the grandest churches in Europe. Winchester had been the capital of Anglo-Saxon England, but from this time London became the main forum for foreign traders and the base for defence in time of war. In the view of Frank Stenton: “It had the resources, and it was rapidly developing the dignity and the political self-consciousness appropriate to a national capital.”[47]
In the 12th century, the institutions of central government, which had hitherto followed the royal English court around the country, grew in size and sophistication and became increasingly fixed, for most purposes at Westminster, although the royal treasury came to rest in the Tower. While the City of Westminster developed into a true governmental capital, its distinct neighbour, the City of London, remained England’s largest city and principal commercial centre and flourished under its own unique administration, the Corporation of London. In 1100, its population was some 18,000; by 1300 it had grown to nearly 100,000.[51] With the Black Death in the mid-14th century, London lost nearly a third of its population.[52] London was the focus of the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381.[53]
London was a centre of England’s Jewish population before their expulsion by Edward I in 1290. Violence against Jews occurred in 1190, when it was rumoured that the new king had ordered their massacre after they had presented themselves at his coronation.[54] In 1264 during the Second Barons’ War, Simon de Montfort‘s rebels killed 500 Jews while attempting to seize records of debts.[55]
During the Tudor period, the Reformation produced a gradual shift to Protestantism. Much of London property passed from church to private ownership, which accelerated trade and business in the city.[56] In 1475, the Hanseatic League set up a main trading base (kontor) of England in London, called the Stalhof or Steelyard. It remained until 1853, when the Hanseatic cities of Lübeck, Bremen and Hamburg sold the property to South Eastern Railway.[57]Woollen cloth was shipped undyed and undressed from 14th/15th century London to the nearby shores of the Low Countries.[58]
Yet English maritime enterprise hardly reached beyond the seas of north-west Europe. The commercial route to Italy and the Mediterranean was normally through Antwerp and over the Alps; any ships passing through the Strait of Gibraltar to or from England were likely to be Italian or Ragusan. The reopening of the Netherlands to English shipping in January 1565 spurred a burst of commercial activity.[59] The Royal Exchange was founded.[60]Mercantilism grew and monopoly traders such as the East India Company were founded as trade expanded to the New World. London became the main North Sea port, with migrants arriving from England and abroad. The population rose from about 50,000 in 1530 to about 225,000 in 1605.[56]
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.
By the end of the Tudor period in 1603, London was still compact. There was an assassination attempt on James I in Westminster, in the Gunpowder Plot of 5 November 1605.[63] In 1637, the government of Charles I attempted to reform administration in the London area. This called for the Corporation of the city to extend its jurisdiction and administration over expanding areas around the city. Fearing an attempt by the Crown to diminish the Liberties of London, coupled with a lack of interest in administering these additional areas or concern by city guilds of having to share power, caused the Corporation’s “The Great Refusal”, a decision which largely continues to account for the unique governmental status of the City.[64]
In the English Civil War, the majority of Londoners supported the Parliamentary cause. After an initial advance by the Royalists in 1642, culminating in the battles of Brentford and Turnham Green, London was surrounded by a defensive perimeter wall known as the Lines of Communication. The lines were built by up to 20,000 people, and were completed in under two months.[65] The fortifications failed their only test when the New Model Army entered London in 1647,[66] and they were levelled by Parliament the same year.[65][67] London was plagued by disease in the early 17th century,[68] culminating in the Great Plague of 1665–1666, which killed up to 100,000 people, or a fifth of the population.[68] The Great Fire of London broke out in 1666 in Pudding Lane in the city and quickly swept through the wooden buildings.[69] Rebuilding took over 10 years and was supervised by polymath Robert Hooke.[70]
In 1710, Christopher Wren‘s masterpiece, St Paul’s Cathedral, was completed, replacing its medieval predecessor that burned in the Great Fire of 1666. The dome of St Paul’s dominated the London skyline for centuries, inspiring the artworks and writing of William Blake, with his 1789 poem “Holy Thursday” referring to ‘the high dome of Pauls’.[71] During the Georgian era, new districts such as Mayfair were formed in the west; new bridges over the Thames encouraged development in South London. In the east, the Port of London expanded downstream. London’s development as an international financial centre matured for much of the 18th century.[72]
In 1762, George III acquired Buckingham House, which was enlarged over the next 75 years. During the 18th century, London was said to be dogged by crime,[73] and the Bow Street Runners were established in 1750 as a professional police force.[74] Epidemics during the 1720s and 30s saw most children born in the city die before reaching their fifth birthday.[75]
Coffee-houses became a popular place to debate ideas, as growing literacy and development of the printing press made news widely available, with Fleet Street becoming the centre of the British press. The invasion of Amsterdam by Napoleonic armies led many financiers to relocate to London and the first London international issue was arranged in 1817. Around the same time, the Royal Navy became the world’s leading war fleet, acting as a major deterrent to potential economic adversaries. Following a fire in 1838, the Royal Exchange was redesigned by William Tite and rebuilt in 1844. The repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 was specifically aimed at weakening Dutch economic power. London then overtook Amsterdam as the leading international financial centre.[76]
Late modern and contemporary
The Royal Exchange in 1886. It was founded in 1571 (with the present building rebuilt in 1844) as a centre of commerce for the City of London.
From the early years of the 20th century onwards, teashops were found on High Streets across London and the rest of Britain, with Lyons, who opened the first of their chain of teashops in Piccadilly in 1894, leading the way.[83] The tearooms, such as the Criterion in Piccadilly, became a popular meeting place for women from the suffrage movement.[84] The city was the target of many attacks during the suffragette bombing and arson campaign, between 1912 and 1914, which saw historic landmarks such as Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral bombed.[85]
British volunteer recruits in London, August 1914, during World War I
The 1948 Summer Olympics were held at the original Wembley Stadium, while London was still recovering from the war.[89] From the 1940s, London became home to many immigrants, primarily from Commonwealth countries such as Jamaica, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan,[90] making London one of the most diverse cities in the world. In 1951, the Festival of Britain was held on the South Bank.[91] The Great Smog of 1952 led to the Clean Air Act 1956, which ended the “pea soup fogs” for which London had been notorious, and had earned it the nickname the “Big Smoke”.[92]
Greater London’s population declined in the decades after the Second World War, from an estimated peak of 8.6 million in 1939 to around 6.8 million in the 1980s.[98] The principal ports for London moved downstream to Felixstowe and Tilbury, with the London Docklands area becoming a focus for regeneration, including the Canary Wharf development. This was born out of London’s increasing role as an international financial centre in the 1980s.[99] Located about 2 miles (3 km) east of central London, the Thames Barrier was completed in the 1980s to protect London against tidal surges from the North Sea.[100]
In 2008, Time named London alongside New York City and Hong Kong as Nylonkong, hailing them as the world’s three most influential global cities.[103] In January 2015, Greater London’s population was estimated to be 8.63 million, its highest since 1939.[104] During the Brexit referendum in 2016, the UK as a whole decided to leave the European Union, but most London constituencies voted for remaining.[105] However, Britain’s exit from the EU in early 2020 only marginally weakened London’s position as an international financial centre.[106]
The administration of London is formed of two tiers: a citywide, strategic tier and a local tier. Citywide administration is coordinated by the Greater London Authority (GLA), while local administration is carried out by 33 smaller authorities.[108] The GLA consists of two elected components: the mayor of London, who has executive powers, and the London Assembly, which scrutinises the mayor’s decisions and can accept or reject the mayor’s budget proposals each year. The GLA has responsibility for the majority of London’s transport system through its functional arm Transport for London (TfL), it is responsible for overseeing the city’s police and fire services, and also for setting a strategic vision for London on a range of issues.[109] The headquarters of the GLA is City Hall, Newham. The mayor since 2016 has been Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim mayor of a major Western capital.[110] The mayor’s statutory planning strategy is published as the London Plan, which was most recently revised in 2011.[111]
The local authorities are the councils of the 32 London boroughs and the City of London Corporation.[112] They are responsible for most local services, such as local planning, schools, libraries, leisure and recreation, social services, local roads and refuse collection.[113] Certain functions, such as waste management, are provided through joint arrangements. In 2009–2010 the combined revenue expenditure by London councils and the GLA amounted to just over £22 billion (£14.7 billion for the boroughs and £7.4 billion for the GLA).[114]
Headquarters of MI6, the UK’s foreign intelligence service, at the SIS Building. Scenes featuring James Bond (the fictional MI6 agent) have been filmed here.
Crime rates vary widely across different areas of London. Crime figures are made available nationally at Local Authority and Ward level.[127] In 2015, there were 118 homicides, a 25.5% increase over 2014.[128] Recorded crime has been rising in London, notably violent crime and murder by stabbing and other means have risen. There were 50 murders from the start of 2018 to mid April 2018. Funding cuts to police in London are likely to have contributed to this, though other factors are involved.[129] However, homicide figures fell in 2022 with 109 recorded for the year, and the murder rate in London is much lower than other major cities around the world.[130]
London, also known as Greater London, is one of nine regions of England and the top subdivision covering most of the city’s metropolis. The City of London at its core once comprised the whole settlement, but as its urban area grew, the Corporation of London resisted attempts to amalgamate the city with its suburbs, causing “London” to be defined several ways.[131]
Satellite view of London in June 2018
Forty percent of Greater London is covered by the London post town, in which ‘London’ forms part of postal addresses.[132] The London telephone area code (020) covers a larger area, similar in size to Greater London, although some outer districts are excluded and some just outside included. The Greater London boundary has been aligned to the M25 motorway in places.[133]
It is the capital of the United Kingdom and of England by convention rather than statute. The capital of England was moved to London from Winchester as the Palace of Westminster developed in the 12th and 13th centuries to become the permanent location of the royal court, and thus the political capital of the nation.[140]
Greater London encompasses a total area of 611 square miles (1,583 km2) an area which had a population of 7,172,036 in 2001 and a population density of 11,760 inhabitants per square mile (4,542/km2). The extended area known as the London Metropolitan Region or the London Metropolitan Agglomeration, comprises a total area of 3,236 square miles (8,382 km2) has a population of 13,709,000 and a population density of 3,900 inhabitants per square mile (1,510/km2).[141]
Modern London stands on the Thames, its primary geographical feature, a navigable river which crosses the city from the south-west to the east. The Thames Valley is a flood plain surrounded by gently rolling hills including Parliament Hill, Addington Hills, and Primrose Hill. Historically London grew up at the lowest bridging point on the Thames. The Thames was once a much broader, shallower river with extensive marshlands; at high tide, its shores reached five times their present width.[142]
Since the Victorian era the Thames has been extensively embanked, and many of its London tributaries now flow underground. The Thames is a tidal river, and London is vulnerable to flooding.[143] The threat has increased over time because of a slow but continuous rise in high water level caused by climate change and by the slow ’tilting’ of the British Isles as a result of post-glacial rebound.[144]
London has a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb). Rainfall records have been kept in the city since at least 1697, when records began at Kew. At Kew, the most rainfall in one month is 7.4 inches (189 mm) in November 1755 and the least is 0 inches (0 mm) in both December 1788 and July 1800. Mile End also had 0 inches (0 mm) in April 1893.[145] The wettest year on record is 1903, with a total fall of 38.1 inches (969 mm) and the driest is 1921, with a total fall of 12.1 inches (308 mm).[146] The average annual precipitation amounts to about 600mm, which is half the annual rainfall of New York City.[147] Despite relatively low annual precipitation, London receives 109.6 rainy days on the 1.0mm threshold annually. London is vulnerable to climate change, and there is concern among hydrological experts that households may run out of water before 2050.[148]
Temperature extremes in London range from 40.2 °C (104.4 °F) at Heathrow on 19 July 2022 down to −17.4 °C (0.7 °F) at Northolt on 13 December 1981.[149][150] Records for atmospheric pressure have been kept at London since 1692. The highest pressure ever reported is 1,049.8 millibars (31.00 inHg) on 20 January 2020.[151]
Summers are generally warm, sometimes hot. London’s average July high is 23.5 °C (74.3 °F). On average each year, London experiences 31 days above 25 °C (77.0 °F) and 4.2 days above 30.0 °C (86.0 °F). During the 2003 European heat wave, prolonged heat led to hundreds of heat-related deaths.[152] A previous spell of 15 consecutive days above 32.2 °C (90.0 °F) in England in 1976 also caused many heat related deaths.[153] A previous temperature of 37.8 °C (100.0 °F) in August 1911 at the Greenwich station was later disregarded as non-standard.[154] Droughts can also, occasionally, be a problem, especially in summer, most recently in summer 2018, and with much drier than average conditions prevailing from May to December.[155] However, the most consecutive days without rain was 73 days in the spring of 1893.[156]
Winters are generally cool with little temperature variation. Heavy snow is rare but snow usually falls at least once each winter. Spring and autumn can be pleasant. As a large city, London has a considerable urban heat island effect,[157] making the centre of London at times 5 °C (9 °F) warmer than the suburbs and outskirts.[158]
^ Averages are taken from Heathrow, and extremes are taken from stations across London.
Places within London’s vast urban area are identified using area names, such as Mayfair, Southwark, Wembley, and Whitechapel. These are either informal designations, reflect the names of villages that have been absorbed by sprawl, or are superseded administrative units such as parishes or former boroughs.[168]
Such names have remained in use through tradition, each referring to a local area with its own distinctive character, but without official boundaries. Since 1965, Greater London has been divided into 32 London boroughs in addition to the ancient City of London.[169] The City of London is the main financial district,[170] and Canary Wharf has recently developed into a new financial and commercial hub in the Docklands to the east.
The West End is London’s main entertainment and shopping district, attracting tourists.[171]West London includes expensive residential areas where properties can sell for tens of millions of pounds.[172] The average price for properties in Kensington and Chelsea is over £2 million with a similarly high outlay in most of central London.[173][174]
The Tower of London, a medieval castle, dating in part to 1078
London’s buildings are too diverse to be characterised by any particular architectural style, partly because of their varying ages. Many grand houses and public buildings, such as the National Gallery, are constructed from Portland stone. Some areas of the city, particularly those just west of the centre, are characterised by white stucco or whitewashed buildings. Few structures in central London pre-date the Great Fire of 1666, these being a few trace Roman remains, the Tower of London and a few scattered Tudor survivors in the city. Further out is, for example, the Tudor-period Hampton Court Palace.[176]
The east wing public façade of Buckingham Palace was built between 1847 and 1850; it was remodelled to its present form in 1913.Trafalgar Square and its fountains, with Nelson’s Column on the right
The London Natural History Society suggests that London is “one of the World’s Greenest Cities” with more than 40% green space or open water. They indicate that 2000 species of flowering plant have been found growing there and that the tidal Thames supports 120 species of fish.[183] They state that over 60 species of bird nest in central London and that their members have recorded 47 species of butterfly, 1,173 moths and more than 270 kinds of spider around London. London’s wetland areas support nationally important populations of many water birds. London has 38 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), two national nature reserves and 76 local nature reserves.[184]
Herds of red and fallow deer roam freely within much of Richmond and Bushy Park. A cull takes place each November and February to ensure numbers can be sustained.[189] Epping Forest is also known for its fallow deer, which can frequently be seen in herds to the north of the Forest. A rare population of melanistic, black fallow deer is also maintained at the Deer Sanctuary near Theydon Bois. Muntjac deer are also found in the forest. While Londoners are accustomed to wildlife such as birds and foxes sharing the city, more recently urban deer have started becoming a regular feature, and whole herds of fallow deer come into residential areas at night to take advantage of London’s green spaces.[190]
London’s continuous urban area extends beyond Greater London and numbered 9,787,426 people in 2011,[3] while its wider metropolitan area had a population of 12–14 million, depending on the definition used.[192] According to Eurostat, London is the second most populous metropolitan area in Europe. A net 726,000 immigrants arrived there in the period 1991–2001.[193]
The region covers 610 square miles (1,579 km2), giving a population density of 13,410 inhabitants per square mile (5,177/km2)[141] more than ten times that of any other British region.[194] In population terms, London is the 19th largest city and the 18th largest metropolitan region.[195]
In tenure, 23.1% socially rent within London, 46.8% either own their house outright or with a mortgage or loan and 30% privately rent at the 2021 census.[196] Many Londoner’s work from home, 42.9% did so at the 2021 census while 20.6% drive a car to work. The biggest decrease in method of transportation was seen within those who take the train and underground, declining from 22.6% in 2011 to 9.6% in 2021.[197] In qualifications, 46.7% of London had census classified Level 4 qualifications or higher, which is predominately university degrees. 16.2% had no qualifications at all.[198]
Age structure and median age
London’s median age is one of the youngest regions in the UK. It was recorded in 2018 that London’s residents were 36.5 years old, which was younger than the UK median of 40.3.[199]
Children younger than 14 constituted 20.6% of the population in Outer London in 2018, and 18% in Inner London. The 15–24 age group was 11.1% in Outer and 10.2% in Inner London, those aged 25–44 years 30.6% in Outer London and 39.7% in Inner London, those aged 45–64 years 24% and 20.7% in Outer and Inner London respectively. Those aged 65 and over are 13.6% in Outer London, but only 9.3% in Inner London.[199]
Country of birth
The 2021 census recorded that 3,575,739 people or 40.6% of London’s population were foreign-born,[200] making it among the cities with the largest immigrant population in terms of absolute numbers and a growth of roughly 3 million since 1971 when the foreign born population was 668,373.[201] 13% of the total population were Asian born (32.1% of the total foreign born population), 7.1% are African born (17.5%), 15.5% are Other European born (38.2%), and 4.2% were born in the Americas and Caribbean (10.3%).[202] The 5 largest single countries of origin were respectively India, Romania, Poland, Bangladesh and Pakistan.[202]
About 56.8% of children born in London in 2021 were born to a mother who was born abroad.[203] This trend has been increasing in the past two decades when foreign born mothers made up 43.3% of births in 2001 in London, becoming the majority in the middle of the 2000s by 2006 comprising 52.5%.[203]
A large degree of the foreign born population who were present at the 2021 census had arrived relatively recently. Of the total population, those that arrived between the years of 2011 and 2021 account for 16.6% of London.[204] Those who arrived between 2001 and 2010 are 10.4%, between 1991 and 2001, 5.7%, and prior to 1990, 7.3%.[204]
According to the Office for National Statistics, based on the 2021 census, 53.8% of the 8,173,941 inhabitants of London were White, with 36.8% White British, 1.8% White Irish, 0.1% Gypsy/Irish Traveller, 0.4 Roma and 14.7% classified as Other White.[205] Meanwhile, 22.2% of Londoners were of Asian or mixed-Asian descent, with 20.8% being of full Asian descents and 1.4% being of mixed-Asian heritage. Indians accounted for 7.5% of the population, followed by Bangladeshis and Pakistanis at 3.7% and 3.3% respectively. Chinese people accounted for 1.7%, and Arabs for 1.6%. A further 4.6% were classified as “Other Asian”.[205] 15.9% of London’s population were of Black or mixed-Black descent. 13.5% were of full Black descent, with persons of mixed-Black heritage comprising 2.4%. Black Africans accounted for 7.9% of London’s population; 3.9% identified as Black Caribbean, and 1.7% as “Other Black”. 5.7% were of mixed race.[205] This ethnic structure has changed considerably since the 1960s. Estimates for 1961 put the total non-White ethnic minority population at 179,109 comprising 2.3% of the population at the time,[206][207] having risen since then to 1,346,119 and 20.2% in 1991[208] and 4,068,553 and 46.2% in 2021.[209] Of those of a White British background, estimates for 1971 put the population at 6,500,000 and 87% of the total population,[210] of since fell to 3,239,281 and 36.8% in 2021.[209]
As of 2021, the majority of London’s school pupils come from ethnic minority backgrounds. 23.9% were White British, 14% Other White, 23.2% Asian, 17.9% Black, 11.3% Mixed, 6.3% Other and 2.3% unclassified.[211] Altogether at the 2021 census, of London’s 1,695,741 population aged 0 to 15, 42% were White in total, splitting it down into 30.9% who were White British, 0.5% Irish, 10.6% Other White, 23% Asian, 16.4% Black, 12% Mixed and 6.6% another ethnic group.[212]
Languages
In January 2005, a survey of London’s ethnic and religious diversity claimed that more than 300 languages were spoken in London and more than 50 non-indigenous communities had populations of more than 10,000.[213] At the 2021 census, 78.4% of Londoners spoke English as their first language.[214] The 5 biggest languages outside of English were Romanian, Spanish, Polish, Bengali, and Portuguese.[214]
According to the 2021 Census, the largest religious groupings were Christians (40.66%), followed by those of no religion (20.7%), Muslims (15%), no response (8.5%), Hindus (5.15%), Jews (1.65%), Sikhs (1.64%), Buddhists (1.0%) and other (0.8%).[215][216]
Important national and royal ceremonies are shared between St Paul’s and Westminster Abbey.[219] The Abbey is not to be confused with nearby Westminster Cathedral, the largest Roman Catholic cathedral in England and Wales.[220] Despite the prevalence of Anglican churches, observance is low within the denomination. Anglican Church attendance continues a long, steady decline, according to Church of England statistics.[221]
Large Hindu communities are found in the north-western boroughs of Harrow and Brent, the latter hosting what was until 2006[227] Europe’s largest Hindu temple, Neasden Temple.[228] London is home to 44 Hindu temples, including the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir London. There are Sikh communities in East and West London, particularly in Southall, home to one of the largest Sikh populations and the largest Sikh temple outside India.[229]
Traditionally, anyone born within earshot of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow church was considered to be a true Cockney.[232]
Cockney is an accent heard across London, mainly spoken by working-class and lower-middle-class Londoners. It is mainly attributed to the East End and wider East London, having originated there in the 18th century, although it has been suggested that the Cockney style of speech is much older.[233] Some features of Cockney include Th-fronting (pronouncing “th” as “f”), “th” inside a word is pronounced with a “v”, H-dropping, and, like most English accents, a Cockney accent drops the “r” after a vowel.[234] John Camden Hotten, in his Slang Dictionary of 1859, makes reference to Cockney “use of a peculiar slang language” (Cockney rhyming slang) when describing the costermongers of the East End. Since the start of the 21st century the extreme form of the Cockney dialect is less common in parts of the East End itself, with modern strongholds including other parts of London and suburbs in the home counties.[235] This is particularly pronounced in areas like Romford (in the London Borough of Havering) and Southend (in Essex), which have received significant inflows of older East End residents in recent decades.[236]
Multicultural London English (MLE) is a multiethnolect becoming increasingly common in multicultural areas amongst young, working-class people from diverse backgrounds. It is a fusion of an array of ethnic accents, in particular Afro-Caribbean and South Asian, with a significant Cockney influence.[239]
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard for British English.[240] It has no specific geographical correlate,[241] although it is also traditionally defined as the standard speech used in London and south-eastern England.[242] It is mainly spoken by upper-class and upper-middle class Londoners.[243] Standard Southern British English (SSBE) has been considered as an evolution of RP that is now common and widely spoken in London and the south-east of England by a wide variety of people, but is distinct from Estuary English and MLE.[244]
London’s gross regional product in 2019 was £503 billion, around a quarter of UK GDP.[245] London has five major business districts: the city, Westminster, Canary Wharf, Camden & Islington, and Lambeth & Southwark. One way to get an idea of their relative importance is to look at relative amounts of office space: Greater London had 27 million m2 of office space in 2001, and the City contains the most space, with 8 million m2 of office space. London has some of the highest real estate prices in the world.[246]
City of London
London’s finance industry is based in the City of London and Canary Wharf, the two major business districts. London took over as a major financial centre shortly after 1795 when the Dutch Republic collapsed before the Napoleonic armies. This caused many bankers established in Amsterdam (e.g. Hope, Baring I’m), to move to London. Also, London’s market-centred system (as opposed to the bank-centred one in Amsterdam) grew more dominant in the 18th century.[72] The London financial elite was strengthened by a strong Jewish community from all over Europe capable of mastering the most sophisticated financial tools of the time.[76] This economic strength of the city was attributed to its diversity.[247][248]
By the mid-19th century, London was the leading financial centre, and at the end of the century over half the world’s trade was financed in British currency.[250] As of 2023, London ranks second in the world rankings on the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI),[251] and it ranked second in A.T. Kearney’s 2018 Global Cities Index.[252]
London’s largest industry is finance, and its financial exports make it a large contributor to the UK’s balance of payments. Notwithstanding a post-Brexit exodus of stock listings from the London Stock Exchange,[253][254] London is still one of Europe’s most economically powerful cities,[18] and it remains one of the major financial centres of the world. It is the world’s biggest currency trading centre, accounting for some 37% of the $5.1 trillion average daily volume, according to the BIS.[255] Over 85% (3.2 million) of the employed population of greater London works in the services industries. Because of its prominent global role, London’s economy had been affected by the financial crisis of 2007–2008. However, by 2010 the city had recovered, put in place new regulatory powers, proceeded to regain lost ground and re-established London’s economic dominance.[256] Along with professional services headquarters, the City of London is home to the Bank of England, London Stock Exchange, and Lloyd’s of London insurance market.[257] Founded in 1690, Barclays, whose branch in Enfield, north London installed the first cash machine (ATM) in 1967, is one of the oldest banks in continuous operation.[258]
Over half the UK’s top 100 listed companies (the FTSE 100) and over 100 of Europe’s 500 largest companies have their headquarters in central London. Over 70% of the FTSE 100 are within London’s metropolitan area, and 75% of Fortune 500 companies have offices in London.[259] In a 1992 report commissioned by the London Stock Exchange, Sir Adrian Cadbury, chairman of his family’s confectionery company Cadbury, produced the Cadbury Report, a code of best practice which served as a basis for reform of corporate governance around the world.[260]
Media companies are concentrated in London, and the media distribution industry is London’s second most competitive sector.[261] The BBC, the world’s oldest national broadcaster, is a significant employer, while other broadcasters, including ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, and Sky, also have headquarters around the city. Many national newspapers, including The Times, founded in 1785, are edited in London; the term Fleet Street (where most national newspapers operated) remains a metonym for the British national press.[262] The communications company WPP is the world’s largest advertising agency.[263]
The gas and electricity distribution networks that manage and operate the towers, cables and pressure systems that deliver energy to consumers across the city are managed by National Grid plc, SGN[267] and UK Power Networks.[268]
London is one of the leading tourist destinations in the world. It is also the top city in the world by visitor cross-border spending, estimated at US$20.23 billion in 2015.[269] Tourism is one of London’s prime industries, employing 700,000 full-time workers in 2016, and contributes £36 billion a year to the economy.[270] The city accounts for 54% of all inbound visitor spending in the UK.[271]
In 2015, the top ten most-visited attractions in the UK were all in London (shown with visits per venue):[272]
The number of hotel rooms in London in 2023 stood at 155,700 and is expected to grow to 183,600 rooms, the most of any city outside China.[273] Luxury hotels in London include the Savoy (opened in 1889), Claridge’s (opened in 1812 and rebuilt in 1898), the Ritz (opened in 1906) and the Dorchester (opened in 1931), while budget hotel chains include Premier Inn and Travelodge.[274]
Transport is one of the four main areas of policy administered by the Mayor of London,[275] but the mayor’s financial control does not extend to the longer-distance rail network that enters London. In 2007, the Mayor of London assumed responsibility for some local lines, which now form the London Overground network, adding to the existing responsibility for the London Underground, trams and buses. The public transport network is administered by Transport for London (TfL).[109]
The lines that formed the London Underground, as well as trams and buses, became part of an integrated transport system in 1933 when the London Passenger Transport Board or London Transport was created. Transport for London is now the statutory corporation responsible for most aspects of the transport system in Greater London, and is run by a board and a commissioner appointed by the Mayor of London.[276]
Heathrow Airport is the busiest airport in Europe as well as the second busiest in the world for international passenger traffic (Terminal 5C is pictured).
London is a major international air transport hub with the busiest city airspace in the world.[22] Eight airports use the word London in their name, but most traffic passes through six of these. Additionally, various other airports also serve London, catering primarily to general aviation flights.
Gatwick Airport, south of London in West Sussex, handles flights to more destinations than any other UK airport and is the main base of easyJet, the UK’s largest airline by number of passengers.[279]
London Stansted Airport, north-east of London in Essex, has flights that serve the greatest number of European destinations of any UK airport and is the main base of Ryanair, the world’s largest international airline by number of international passengers.[280]
Luton Airport, to the north of London in Bedfordshire, is used by several budget airlines (especially easyJet and Wizz Air) for short-haul flights.[281]
London City Airport, the most central airport and the one with the shortest runway, in Newham, East London, is focused on business travellers, with a mixture of full-service short-haul scheduled flights and considerable business jet traffic.[282]
London Southend Airport, east of London in Essex, is a smaller, regional airport that caters for short-haul flights on a limited, though growing, number of airlines.[283] In 2017, international passengers made up over 95% of the total at Southend, the highest proportion of any London airport.[284]
Opened in 1863, the London Underground, commonly referred to as the Tube or just the Underground, is the oldest and third longest metro system in the world.[285][286] The system serves 272 stations, and was formed from several private companies, including the world’s first underground electric line, the City and South London Railway, which opened in 1890.[287]
Over 4 million journeys are made every day on the Underground network, over 1 billion each year.[288] An investment programme is attempting to reduce congestion and improve reliability, including £6.5 billion (€7.7 billion) spent before the 2012 Summer Olympics.[289] The Docklands Light Railway (DLR), which opened in 1987, is a second, more local metro system using smaller and lighter tram-type vehicles that serve the Docklands, Greenwich and Lewisham.[290]
Suburban
There are 368 railway stations in the London Travelcard Zones on an extensive above-ground suburban railway network. South London, particularly, has a high concentration of railways as it has fewer Underground lines. Most rail lines terminate around the centre of London, running into eighteen terminal stations, with the exception of the Thameslink trains connecting Bedford in the north and Brighton in the south via Luton and Gatwick airports.[291] London has Britain’s busiest station by number of passengers—Waterloo, with over 184 million people using the interchange station complex (which includes Waterloo East station) each year.[292]Clapham Junction is one of Europe’s busiest rail interchanges.[293]
With the need for more rail capacity, the Elizabeth Line (also known as Crossrail) opened in May 2022.[294] It is a new railway line running east to west through London and into the Home Counties with a branch to Heathrow Airport.[295] It was Europe’s biggest construction project, with a £15 billion projected cost.[296]
London is the centre of the National Rail network, with 70% of rail journeys starting or ending in London.[297]King’s Cross station and Euston station, both in London, are the starting points of the East Coast Main Line and the West Coast Main Line – the two main railway lines in Britain. Like suburban rail services, regional and inter-city trains depart from several termini around the city centre, directly linking London with most of Great Britain’s major cities and towns.[298]The Flying Scotsman is an express passenger train service that has operated between London and Edinburgh since 1862; the world famous steam locomotive named after this service, Flying Scotsman, was the first locomotive to reach the officially authenticated speed of 100 miles per hour (161 km/h) in 1934.[299]
The New Routemaster (left) is the spiritual successor to the AEC Routemaster (right). First appearing in 1947, the red double-decker bus is an emblematic symbol of London.
London’s bus network runs 24 hours a day with about 9,300 vehicles, over 675 bus routes and about 19,000 bus stops.[303] In 2019 the network had over 2 billion commuter trips per year.[304] Since 2010 an average of £1.2 billion is taken in revenue each year.[305] London has one of the largest wheelchair-accessible networks in the world[306] and from the third quarter of 2007, became more accessible to hearing and visually impaired passengers as audio-visual announcements were introduced.[307]
An emblem of London, the red double-decker bus first appeared in the city in 1947 with the AEC Regent III RT (predecessor to the AEC Routemaster).[308] London’s coach hub is Victoria Coach Station, opened in 1932. Nationalised in 1970 and then purchased by London Transport (now Transport for London), Victoria Coach Station has over 14 million passengers a year and provides services across the UK and continental Europe.[309]
There is a modern tram network serving South London, known as Tramlink. It has 39 stops and four routes, and carried over 29 million people in 2017.[310] Since June 2008, Transport for London has completely owned and operated Tramlink.[311]
Cable car
London’s first and to date only cable car is the London Cable Car, which opened in June 2012. The cable car crosses the Thames and links Greenwich Peninsula with the Royal Docks in the east of the city. It is able to carry up to 2,500 passengers per hour in each direction at peak times.[312]
Santander Cycle Hire, near Victoria in Central London
In the Greater London Area, around 670,000 people use a bike every day,[313] meaning around 7% of the total population of around 8.8 million use a bike on an average day.[314] Cycling has become an increasingly popular way to get around London. The launch of a bicycle hire scheme in July 2010 was successful and generally well received.[315]
Port and river boats
The Port of London, once the largest in the world, is now only the second-largest in the United Kingdom, handling 45 million tonnes of cargo each year as of 2009.[316] Most of this cargo passes through the Port of Tilbury, outside the boundary of Greater London.[316]
Although the majority of journeys in central London are made by public transport, car travel is common in the suburbs. The inner ring road (around the city centre), the North and South Circular roads (just within the suburbs), and the outer orbital motorway (the M25, just outside the built-up area in most places) encircle the city and are intersected by a number of busy radial routes—but very few motorways penetrate into inner London. The M25 is the second-longest ring-road motorway in Europe at 117 miles (188 km) long.[320] The A1 and M1 connect London to Leeds, and Newcastle and Edinburgh.[321]
The hackney carriage (black cab) is a common sight on London streets. Black has been its standard colour since the Austin FX3 model in 1948.
The Austin Motor Company began making hackney carriages (London taxis) in 1929, and models include Austin FX3 from 1948, Austin FX4 from 1958, with more recent models TXII and TX4 manufactured by London Taxis International. The BBC states, “ubiquitous black cabs and red double-decker buses all have long and tangled stories that are deeply embedded in London’s traditions”.[322] Although traditionally black, some are painted in other colours or bear advertising.[323]
London is notorious for its traffic congestion; in 2009, the average speed of a car in the rush hour was recorded at 10.6 mph (17.1 km/h).[324] In 2003, a congestion charge was introduced to reduce traffic volumes in the city centre. With a few exceptions, motorists are required to pay to drive within a defined zone encompassing much of central London.[325] Motorists who are residents of the defined zone can buy a greatly reduced season pass.[326] Over the course of several years, the average number of cars entering the centre of London on a weekday was reduced from 195,000 to 125,000.[327]
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN) were widely introduced in London, but in 2023 the Department for Transport stopped funding them, even though the benefits outweighed the costs by approximately 100 times in the first 20 years and the difference is growing over time.[328]
London is a major global centre of higher education teaching and research and has the largest concentration of higher education institutes in Europe.[19] According to the QS World University Rankings 2015/16, London has the greatest concentration of top class universities in the world[329] and its international student population of around 110,000 is larger than any other city in the world.[330] A 2014 PricewaterhouseCoopers report termed London the global capital of higher education.[331] A number of world-leading education institutions are based in London. In the 2022 QS World University Rankings, Imperial College London is ranked No. 6 in the world, University College London (UCL) is ranked 8th, and King’s College London (KCL) is ranked 37th.[332] All are regularly ranked highly, with Imperial College being the UK’s leading university in the Research Excellence Framework ranking 2021.[333] The London School of Economics (LSE) has been described as the world’s leading social science institution for both teaching and research.[334] The London Business School is considered one of the world’s leading business schools and in 2015 its MBA programme was ranked second-best in the world by the Financial Times.[335] The city is also home to three of the world’s top ten performing arts schools (as ranked by the 2020 QS World University Rankings[336]): the Royal College of Music (ranking 2nd in the world), the Royal Academy of Music (ranking 4th) and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (ranking 6th).[337]
Founded in 1675, the Royal Observatory in Greenwich was established to address the problem of calculating longitude for navigational purposes. This pioneering work in solving longitude featured in astronomer royal Nevil Maskelyne‘s Nautical Almanac which made the Greenwich meridian the universal reference point, and helped lead to the international adoption of Greenwich as the prime meridian (0° longitude) in 1884.[347]
Leisure is a major part of the London economy. A 2003 report attributed a quarter of the entire UK leisure economy to London[350] at 25.6 events per 1000 people.[351] The city is one of the four fashion capitals of the world, and, according to official statistics, is the world’s third-busiest film production centre, presents more live comedy than any other city,[352] and has the biggest theatre audience of any city in the world.[353]
Islington‘s 1 mile (1.6 km) long Upper Street, extending northwards from Angel, has more bars and restaurants than any other street in the UK.[360] Europe’s busiest shopping area is Oxford Street, a shopping street nearly 1 mile (1.6 km) long, making it the longest shopping street in the UK. It is home to vast numbers of retailers and department stores, including Selfridgesflagship store.[361]Knightsbridge, home to the equally renowned Harrods department store, lies to the south-west. One of the world’s largest retail destinations, London frequently ranks at or near the top of retail sales of any city.[362][363] Opened in 1760 with its flagship store on Regent Street since 1881, Hamleys is the oldest toy store in the world.[364] The Camden Town shoe retailer of Dr. Martens footwear was a favourite haunt of punk musicians.[365]Madame Tussauds wax museum opened in Baker Street in 1835, an era viewed as being when London’s tourism industry began.[366]
The first gay bar in London in the modern sense was The Cave of the Golden Calf, established as a night club in an underground location at 9 Heddon Street, just off Regent Street, in 1912 and “which developed a reputation for sexual freedom and tolerance of same-sex relations”.[381]
Wider British cultural movements have influenced LGBT culture: for example, the emergence of glam rock in the UK in the early 1970s, via Marc Bolan and David Bowie, saw a generation of teenagers begin playing with the idea of androgyny, and the West End musical The Rocky Horror Show, which debuted in London in 1973, is also widely said to have been an influence on countercultural and sexual liberation movements.[384] The Blitz Kids (which included Boy George) frequented the Tuesday club-night at Blitz in Covent Garden, helping launch the New Romantic subcultural movement in the late 1970s.[385] Today, the annual London Pride Parade and the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival are held in the city.[382]
London is home to many museums, galleries, and other institutions, many of which are free of admission charges and are major tourist attractions as well as playing a research role. The first of these to be established was the British Museum in Bloomsbury, in 1753.[405] Originally containing antiquities, natural history specimens, and the national library, the museum now has 7 million artefacts from around the globe. In 1824, the National Gallery was founded to house the British national collection of Western paintings; this now occupies a prominent position in Trafalgar Square.[406]
In the latter half of the 19th century the locale of South Kensington was developed as “Albertopolis“, a cultural and scientific quarter. Three major national museums are there: the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Natural History Museum, and the Science Museum. The National Portrait Gallery was founded in 1856 to house depictions of figures from British history; its holdings now comprise the world’s most extensive collection of portraits.[409] The national gallery of British art is at Tate Britain, originally established as an annexe of the National Gallery in 1897. The Tate Gallery, as it was formerly known, also became a major centre for modern art. In 2000, this collection moved to Tate Modern, a new gallery housed in the former Bankside Power Station which is accessed by pedestrians north of the Thames via the Millennium Bridge.[410]
Music
The Royal Albert Hall hosts concerts and musical events, including the classical music festival The Proms which are held every summer, as well as cinema screenings of films accompanied with live orchestral music.
Close to Richmond Park is Kew Gardens, which has the world’s largest collection of living plants. In 2003, the gardens were put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.[430] There are also parks administered by London’s borough Councils, including Victoria Park in the East End and Battersea Park in the centre. Some more informal, semi-natural open spaces also exist, including Hampstead Heath and Epping Forest,[431] both controlled by the City of London Corporation.[432] Hampstead Heath incorporates Kenwood House, a former stately home and a popular location in the summer months when classical musical concerts are held by the lake.[433] Epping Forest is a popular venue for various outdoor activities, including mountain biking, walking, horse riding, golf, angling, and orienteering.[431] Three of the UK’s most-visited theme parks, Thorpe Park near Staines-upon-Thames, Chessington World of Adventures in Chessington and Legoland Windsor, are located within 20 miles (32 km) of London.[434]
One of London’s best-known annual sports competitions is the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, held at the All England Club in the south-western suburb of Wimbledon since 1877.[444] Played in late June to early July, it is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and widely considered the most prestigious.[445][446] Founded in London in 1881, Slazenger has provided tennis balls for Wimbledon since 1902, the oldest sponsorship in sport.[447]
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