 |
| Newsletter |
|
| To receive great offers and information directly to your mailbox please sign up for our language newsletter.
|
|
|
| Exciting Destinations |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| Engish in London |
|
London is the capital and largest urban area of England and the United Kingdom. At its core, the ancient City of London, to which the name historically belongs, still retains its limited mediaeval boundaries; but since at least the 19th century the name "London" has also referred to the whole metropolis which has developed around it. Today the bulk of this conurbation forms the London region of England and the Greater London administrative area, with its own elected mayor and assembly.
An important settlement for two millennia, London's history goes back to its founding by the Romans. Since its settlement, London has been the centre of many important movements and phenomena throughout history such as the English Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the Gothic Revival. In light of this, the city has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world which has increased over the years due to the city's economic growth. London boasts three World Heritage Sites; these are Palace of Westminster, the Tower of London, and the historic settlement of Greenwich. It is one of the world's leading business, financial, and cultural centres, and its influence in politics, education, entertainment, media, fashion and the arts all contribute to its status as a major global city.
London has an official population of 7,512,400 (as of mid-2006) within the boundaries of Greater London and is the most populous municipality in the European Union. The urban area of London extends beyond the limits of Greater London and has a population of 8,278,251 (as of 2001). The metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of between 12 and 14 million. London's diverse population draws from a wide range of peoples, cultures, and religions, and over 300 different languages are spoken within the city. It is an international transport hub, with five major international airports serving the area and a large port. It serves as the largest aviation hub in the world, and the multi-terminal Heathrow Airport carries more international passengers than any other airport in the world.
Climate
London has a temperate marine climate, like much of the British Isles, with regular but generally light precipitation throughout the year—unlike the rest of the UK and even the nearby coast. The warmest month is July, with an average temperature range at Greenwich of 13.6 °C to 22.8 °C (56.5 to 73.0 °F). Record high temperatures of up to 38.1 °C (101 °F) were recorded in different parts of London on 10 August 2003.[36] The coolest month is January, averaging 2.4 °C to 7.9 °C (35.6 to 46.2 °F). Average annual precipitation is 583.6 mm (22.98 in), with February on average the driest month.[37] Snow is relatively uncommon, particularly because heat from the urban area can make London up to 5 °C (9 °F) hotter than the surrounding areas in winter. Light snowfall, however, is generally seen a few times every year. London is in USDA Hardiness zone 9, and AHS Heat Zone 2.
Environment
Main articles: Parks and open spaces in London and Royal Parks of London
Often called "The Green City," London has a number of open spaces. The largest of these in the central area are the Royal Parks of Hyde Park and its neighbour Kensington Gardens at the western edge of central London and Regent's Park on the northern edge. This park is located near the tourist attractions of Baker Street, where the fictional Sherlock Holmes lived, and Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Closer to central London are the smaller Royal Parks of Green Park and St. James's Park. Hyde Park in particular is popular for sports and sometimes hosts open-air concerts.
A number of large parks lie outside the city centre, including the remaining Royal Parks of Greenwich Park to the south-east, Bushy Park and Richmond Park to the south-west and Victoria Park, East London to the east. Primrose Hill to the north of Regent's Park is a popular spot to view the city skyline. Some more informal, semi-natural open spaces also exist, including the 791-acre (3.2 km²) Hampstead Heath of North London. This incorporates Kenwood House, the former stately home and a popular location in the summer months where classical music concerts are held by the lake, attracting thousands of people every weekend to enjoy the music, scenery and fireworks. In the extreme South East of Greater London, the London Boroughs of Bexley and Bromley are noted for their open spaces and extensive wooded areas.
History
The etymology of London remains unclear. The earliest mention of the city's toponym can be attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae. The name is described as originating from King Lud in which he had allegedly taken over the city and named it after himself to Kaerlud. This was then eventually slurred into Kaerludein and finally London. Few modern sources support this theory.[49] Many other theories have been advanced over the centuries, mostly deriving it from Welsh or British, but occasionally from Anglo-Saxon or even Hebrew.
In 1998 Richard Coates, a linguistics professor now at the University of the West of England criticised both these suggestions on linguistic grounds, and proposed his own argument that the name derives from the pre-Celtic *plowonida, which roughly means "a river too wide to ford". He suggested that the part of Thames at London was given this name, and then when a settlement was established, the inhabitants added the suffix -on or -onjon to the name for the settlement. Proto-Indo-European *p was regularly lost in proto-Celtic, and through linguistic change, the name developed from Plowonidonjon to Lundonjon, then contracted to Lundein or Lundyn, Latinised to Londinium, and finally borrowed by the Anglo-Saxons as Lundene.
Westminster Abbey is one of London's oldest and most important buildings
Although there is some evidence of scattered Brython settlement in the area, the first major settlement was founded by the Romans in AD 43 as Londinium, following the Roman conquest of Britain. The first London lasted for just seventeen years. Around AD 61, the Iceni tribe of Celts led by Queen Boudica stormed London, burning it to the ground. The next, heavily-planned incarnation of the city prospered and superseded Colchester as the capital of the Roman province of Britannia in AD 100. At its height in the 2nd century AD, Roman London had a population of around 60,000. However, by the 3rd century AD, the city started a slow decline due to trouble in the Roman Empire, and by the 5th century AD, it was largely abandoned.
By 600 AD, the Anglo-Saxons had created a new settlement called Lundenwic about 1 km upstream from the old Roman city, around what is now Covent Garden. There was probably a harbour at the mouth of the River Fleet for fishing and trading, and this trading grew until disaster struck in 851 AD, when the city's defences were overcome by a massive Viking raid and it was razed to the ground. A Viking occupation twenty years later was short-lived, and Alfred the Great, the new King of England, established peace and moved the settlement within the defensive walls of the old Roman city (then called Lundenburgh). The original city became Ealdwic ("old city"), a name surviving to the present day as Aldwych.
Subsequently, under the control of various English kings, London once again prospered as an international trading centre and political arena. However, Viking raids began again in the late 10th century, and reached a head in 1013 when they besieged the city under Danish King Canute and forced English King Ethelred the Unready to flee.[52] In a retaliatory attack, Ethelred's army achieved victory by pulling down London Bridge with the Danish garrison on top, and English control was re-established.
Canute took control of the English throne in 1017, controlling the city and country until 1042, when his death resulted in a reversion to Anglo-Saxon control under his pious stepson Edward the Confessor, who re-founded Westminster Abbey and the adjacent Palace of Westminster. By this time, London had become the largest and most prosperous city in England, although the official seat of government was still at Winchester.
The Great Fire of London destroyed many parts of the city in 1666. Following a victory at the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror, the then Duke of Normandy, was crowned King of England in the newly-finished Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. William granted the citizens of London special privileges, while building a castle in the south-east corner of the city to keep them under control. This castle was expanded by later kings and is now known as the Tower of London, serving first as a royal residence and later as a prison.
In 1097, William II began the building of Westminster Hall, close by the abbey of the same name. The hall proved the basis of a new Palace of Westminster, the prime royal residence throughout the Middle Ages. Westminster became the seat of the royal court and government (persisting until the present day), while its distinct neighbour, the City of London, was a centre of trade and commerce and flourished under its own unique administration, the Corporation of London. Eventually, the adjacent cities grew together and formed the basis of modern central London, superseding Winchester as capital of England in the 12th century.
London grew in wealth and population during the Middle Ages. In 1100 its population was around 18,000, by 1300 it had grown to nearly 100,000.[51] However disaster struck during the Black Death in the mid-14th century, when London lost nearly a third of its population. Apart from the invasion of London during the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, London remained relatively untouched by the various civil wars during the Middle Ages, such as the first and second Barons' Wars and the Wars of the Roses.
After the successful defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, political stability in England allowed London to grow further. In 1603, James VI of Scotland came to the throne of England, essentially uniting the two countries. His enactment of harsh anti-Catholic laws made him unpopular, and an assassination attempt was made on 5 November 1605—the famous Gunpowder Plot.
Plague caused extensive problems for London in the early 17th century, culminating in the Great Plague in 1665–1666. This was the last major outbreak in Europe, possibly thanks to the disastrous fire of 1666. The Great Fire of London broke out in the original City and quickly swept through London's wooden buildings, destroying large swathes of the city. Rebuilding took over ten years.
Following London's growth in the 18th century, it became the world's largest city from about 1831 to 1925. This growth was aided from 1836 by London's first railways, which put countryside towns within easy reach of the city. The rail network expanded very rapidly, and caused these places to grow while London itself expanded into surrounding fields, merging with neighbouring settlements such as Kensington. Rising traffic congestion on city centre roads led to the creation of the world's first metro system—the London Underground—in 1863, driving further expansion and urbanisation. Because of this rapid growth, London became one of the first cities in human history to reach a population of one million, and was the first ever to surpass five million.
London's local government system struggled to cope with the rapid growth, especially in providing the city with adequate infrastructure. Between 1855 and 1889, the Metropolitan Board of Works oversaw infrastructure expansion. It was then replaced by the County of London, overseen by the London County Council, London's first elected city-wide administration.
The Blitz and other bombing by the German Luftwaffe during World War II killed over 30,000 Londoners[55] and flattened large tracts of housing and other buildings across London. The rebuilding during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s was characterised by a wide range of architectural styles and has resulted in a lack of architectural unity that has become part of London's character. In 1965 London's political boundaries were expanded to take into account the growth of the urban area outside the County of London's borders. The expanded area was called Greater London and was administered by the Greater London Council.
In the decades following World War II, large-scale immigration from Commonwealth countries and beyond transformed London into one of the most racially and culturally diverse cities in Europe. Integration of the new immigrants was not always smooth, with major race riots in Notting Hill and Brixton, but was certainly smoother than in other English regions and largely lacking in widespread support for far right organisations, unlike its European or American contemporaries.
An economic revival from the 1980s onwards re-established London's position as a pre-eminent international centre. However, as the seat of government and the most important city in the UK, it has been subjected to bouts of terrorism. Provisional Irish Republican Army bombers sought to pressure the government into negotiations over Northern Ireland, frequently disrupting city activities with bomb threats—some of which were carried out—until their 1997 cease-fire. More recently, a series of coordinated bomb attacks were carried out by Islamic extremist suicide bombers on the public transport network on 7 July 2005—just 24 hours after London was awarded the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Economy
London is a major centre for international business and commerce and is one of three "command centres" for the world economy (along with New York City and Tokyo). London is the world's second largest financial centre after New York and has the 6th largest city economy in the world after Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Paris. As the world's largest international banking centre with a 50% share of all European activity and Europe's second largest city economy, year-by-year London generates approximately 20% of the UK's GDP (or $446 billion in 2005); while the economy of the London metropolitan area (the largest in Europe) generates approximately 30% of UK's GDP (or an estimated $669 billion in 2005.)
London shifted to a mostly service-based economy earlier than other European cities, particularly following World War II. London's success is as a service industry and business centre.
This can be attributed to factors such as English being the lingua franca, its former position as the capital of the British Empire, close relationship with the U.S. and various countries in Asia. Other factors include English law being the most important and most used contract law in international business and the multi-cultural infrastructure. Government policies such as low taxes, particularly for foreigners (non-UK domiciled residents do not get taxed on their foreign earnings), a business friendly environment, good transport infrastructure, particularly its aviation industry; and a deregulated economy with little intervention by the government have all contributed to London's economy becoming more service based. Over 85 percent (3.2 million) of the employed population of greater London works in service industries. Another half a million employees resident in Greater London work in manufacturing and construction, almost equally divided between both. There has been a significant fall in the number of people working in manufacturing industries in London over the last three decades, largely as a result of competition from lower cost regions but also as a consequence of technology and process improvements. Even still, there are more than 15,000 manufacturing businesses in London such as clothing, printing, fabricated metal, furniture and wood/products and food and drink. There is also strong growth in the recycling/environmental sector. A strong manufacturing base still thrives in London because of its geographic location and access to huge markets, its large science and knowledge base, its physical assets, its diversity and its role as a centre of design and creative industries.
London's largest industry remains finance, and its financial exports make it a large contributor to the UK's balance of payments. Over 300,000 people are employed in financial services in London. London has over 480 overseas banks, more than any other city in the world. More funds are invested in the City of London than in the next top ten European cities combined, and more international telephone calls are made to and from London than any other point on the planet. The City is the largest financial and business centre in Europe and, has recently begun to once more overtake New York City, partly due to strict accounting following the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and a tightening of market regulations in the United States. Due to New York's tightening of market regulations, London stock exchanges have had approximately 20% more initial public offerings in 2006.
London is home to banks, brokers, insurers and legal and accounting firms. A second, smaller financial district is developing at Canary Wharf to the east of the City which includes the global headquarters of HSBC, Reuters, Barclays and the Magic Circle, which includes Clifford Chance, the largest law firm in the world. London handled 31% of global currency transactions in 2005—an average daily turnover of US$753 billion—with more US dollars traded in London than New York, and more euros traded than in every other city in Europe combined.
More than half of the UK's top 100 listed companies (the FTSE 100) and over 100 of Europe's 500 largest companies are headquartered in central London. Over 70% of the FTSE 100 are located within London's metropolitan area, and 75% of Fortune 500 companies have offices in London.
Along with professional services, media companies are concentrated in London (see Media in London) and the media distribution industry is London's second most competitive sector. The BBC is a key employer, while other broadcasters also have headquarters around the city. Many national newspapers are edited in London, having traditionally been associated with Fleet Street in the City, they are now primarily based around Canary Wharf. Soho is the centre of London's post-production industry.
Tourism is one of London's prime industries and employed the equivalent of 350,000 full-time workers in London in 2003, while annual expenditure by tourists is around £15 billion. London is a popular destination for tourists, attracting 27 million overnight-stay visitors every year, second only to Paris.
From being the largest port in the world, the Port of London is now only the third-largest in the United Kingdom, handling 50 million tonnes of cargo each year. Most of this actually passes through Tilbury, outside the boundary of Greater London.
Public Transport
The Tower Bridge is one of the most recognised bridges in the world.Transport is one of the four areas of policy administered by the Mayor of London. However the mayor's financial control is limited and he does not control the heavy rail network (although in November 2007 he will assume responsibility for the North London Railway as well as several other lines, to form London Overground). The public transport network, administered by Transport for London (TfL), is the most extensive in the world, but faces congestion and reliability issues, which a large investment programme is attempting to address, including £7 billion (€10 billion) of improvements planned for the Olympics. London was recently commended as the city with the best public transport. Cycling is an increasingly popular way to get around London. The London Cycling Campaign lobbies for better provision.
The London Underground is the oldest, longest, and most expensive metro system in the world, dating from 1863. The centrepiece of the public transport network is the London Underground — commonly referred to as The Tube — which has twelve interconnecting lines. It is the oldest, longest, and most expensive metro system in the world, dating from 1863. The system was home to the world's first underground electric line, the City & South London Railway, which began service in 1890. Over three million journeys a day are made on the Underground network, around nearly 1 billion journeys are made each year. The Underground serves the central area and most suburbs to the north of the Thames, while those to the south are served by an extensive suburban rail surface network.
The Docklands Light Railway is a second metro system using smaller and lighter trains, which opened in 1987, serving East London and Greenwich on both sides of the Thames. Commuter and intercity railways generally do not cross the city, instead running into fourteen terminal stations scattered around its historic centre; the exception is the Thameslink route operated by First Capital Connect, with terminus stations at Bedford, Brighton and Moorgate. Since the early 1990s, increasing pressures on the commuter rail and Underground networks have led to increasing demands — particularly from businesses and the City of London Corporation — for Crossrail: a £10 billion east-west heavy rail connection under central London, which was given the green light in early October 2007.
High-speed Eurostar trains link St Pancras International with Lille and Paris in France, and Brussels in Belgium. Journey times to Paris and Brussels of 2h 15 and 1h 51 respectively make London closer to continental Europe than the rest of Britain by virtue of the newly-completed High Speed 1 rail link to the Channel Tunnel. From 2009 this line will also allow for high speed domestic travel from Kent into London. The redevelopment of St. Pancras was key to London's Olympic bid, as the station also serves two international airports through Thameslink, and will also provide direct rail links to the Olympic site at Stratford using British Rail Class 395 trains, based on Japanese Shinkansen high-speed trains.
London's bus network is one of the biggest in the world, running 24 hours, with 8,000 buses, 700 bus routes, and over 6 million passenger journeys made every weekday. In 2003, the network's ridership was estimated at over 1.5 billion passenger trips per annum which is more than the Underground. Around £850m is taken in revenue each year and London has the largest wheelchair accessible network in the world and, from the 3rd quarter of 2007, became more accessible to hearing and visually impaired passengers as audio-visual announcements were introduced. The buses are internationally recognised, and are a trademark of London transport along with black cabs and the Tube.
Heathrow Airport is the world's busiest airport in terms of numbers of international passengersLondon is a major international air transport hub. No fewer than eight airports use the words London Airport in their name, but most traffic passes through one of five major airports. London Heathrow Airport is the busiest airport in the world for international traffic. On completion of the fifth terminal, due for 2008, Heathrow will once again be the world's busiest airport, and will handle a mixture of full-service domestic, European and inter-continental scheduled passenger flights. Plans are alreay being considered for a sixth terminal, to the disapproval of residents near to the airport and to its take-off and landing corridors Similar traffic, with the addition of some low-cost short-haul flights, is also handled at London Gatwick Airport. London Stansted Airport and London Luton Airport cater mostly for low-cost short-haul flights. London City Airport, the smallest and most central airport, is focused on business travellers, with a mixture of full service short-haul scheduled flights and considerable business jet traffic.
Leisure and entertainment
Within the City of Westminster, the entertainment district of the West End has its focus around Leicester Square, where London and world film premieres are held, and Piccadilly Circus, with its giant electronic advertisements. London's theatre district is here, as are many cinemas, bars, clubs and restaurants, including the city's Chinatown district, and just to the east is Covent Garden, an area housing speciality shops. Shoreditch and Hoxton in the East End contain a plethora of bars, nightclubs, restaurants and galleries. Islington's one mile (2 km) long Upper Street, extending northwards from The Angel, has more bars and restaurants than any other street in the UK.
Europe's busiest shopping area is Oxford Street, a shopping street nearly one mile (2 km) long—which makes it the longest shopping street in the world—and home to many shops and department stores including Selfridges. The adjoining Bond Street in Mayfair is an extremely upmarket location, home to fashion, jewelery, and accessories design houses. Knightsbridge — home to the Harrods department store— lies just to the southwest. Together with these, the fashionable shopping areas of Sloane Street, and Kings Road represent London's prestigious role in the world of fashion. London is home to Vivienne Westwood, Galliano, Stella McCartney, Manolo Blahnik, and Jimmy Choo among others; its renowned art and fashion schools make it an international centre of fashion alongside Paris, Milan and New York. London also has a high number of street markets, including Camden Market for fashions and alternative products, Portobello Road for antiques, and vintage and one-off clothes, and Borough Market for organic and specialist foods.
Sport
The new Wembley Stadium is the most expensive stadium ever built costing £793 million. London has hosted the Summer Olympics twice, in 1908 and 1948. In July 2005 London was chosen to host the Games in 2012, which will make it the first city in the world to host the Summer Olympics three times. London was also the host of the British Empire Games in 1934.
London's most popular sport (for both participants and spectators) is football. London has thirteen League football clubs, including five in the Premier League (Arsenal, Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and Chelsea), plus a further eight in the remaining three divisions (Barnet, Brentford, Charlton Athletic, Crystal Palace, Dagenham & Redbridge, Leyton Orient, Millwall and Queens Park Rangers), plus countless non-league and amateur football teams.
The 2012 Summer Olympics Olympic Stadium in Stratford, East LondonLondon has a special place in the history of Association Football. The playing of football in London has been well documented since it was first outlawed in 1314. In the sixteenth century the headmaster of St Paul's School Richard Mulcaster is credited with taking mob football and transforming it into organised and refereed team football. The modern game of football was first codified in 1863 in London and subsequently spread worldwide. Key to the establishment of the modern game was Londoner Ebenezer Cobb Morley who was a founding member of the Football Association, the oldest football organisation in the world. Morley wrote to Bell's Life newspaper proposing a governing body for football which led directly to the first meeting at the Freemason's Tavern in central London of the FA. He wrote the first set of rules of true modern football at his house in Barnes. The modern passing game was invented in London in the early 1870s by the Royal Engineers A.F.C.
London also has four rugby union teams in the Guinness Premiership (London Irish, Saracens, Wasps and NEC Harlequins), although only the Harlequins play in London (all the other three now play outside Greater London). London also has many famous other rugby union clubs in lower leagues, including Richmond F.C., Blackheath R.C., Rosslyn Park F.C. and Barnes R.F.C. London also has its own rugby league Super League club in Harlequins RL.
Since 1924, the original Wembley Stadium was the home of the English national football team, and served as the venue for the FA Cup final as well as rugby league's Challenge Cup final. The new Wembley Stadium will serve exactly the same purposes. Twickenham Stadium in west London is the national rugby union stadium, and has a capacity of 82,000 now that the new south stand has been completed.
Twickenham Stadium, 'the home of English rugby'Basketball in London has seen many powerful teams succumb to financial difficulties and disappear without a trace. London Towers are the most recognisable name to experience the rise and fall, and are joined by Greater London Leopards and, in 2007, London United.
The capital's only representative in the top-tier British Basketball League is newly elected London Capital, who boast former Los Angeles Lakers star Steve Bucknall as their coach. They play their home games at Capital City Academy, although rumours abound suggest a future move to Wembley Arena, along with the return of the Towers to the planned Croydon Arena.
Cricket in London centres on its two Test cricket grounds at Lord's (home of Middlesex C.C.C) in St John's Wood, and The Oval (home of Surrey C.C.C) in Kennington.
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. Other key events are the annual mass-participation London Marathon which sees some 35,000 runners attempt a 26.2 mile (~42 km) course around the city, and the Oxford vs. Cambridge Boat Race on the River Thames between Putney and Mortlake.
Source: Wikipedia (Article: London)
|
|
|
