%uLondon%u and other United Kingdom General Tips

Favorite Thing: London was founded by the Romans in about 33 A.D. when they established a small port and trading community on the banks of the River Thames. They called their town Londinium, which was a Latinized version of the old Celtic name for the area.

At the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, London was the largest city in England. Because of its importance as a trading center and its strategic location on the River Thames, the Normans made London their capital.

Up until about 1666, London was confined to a relatively small area within walls. However, in that year, the Great Fire destroyed much of the walled city. As London was rebuilt, the walls were not rebuilt, and the city spread to the area that is now known as the City. By the eighteenth century, London enveloped surrounding settlements including Westminster, which was the political and religious center of England.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, commerce and industry made London the largest and richest city in the world. People from the English countryside poured into the city, and subjects from the far-flung British Empire immigrated to London as well.

During the Second World War, Nazi bombing wiped out many of the central areas of the city. As a result, London saw massive rebuilding projects during the second half of the twentieth century, so that central London is a curious mixture of traditional and modern architecture.

Nowadays, London is still one of the largest cities in the world, with about 13,070,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area. It is also one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, due to immigration from former British colonies all over the world.


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