I’ve noticed a reasonable amount on this subreddit and in reddit in general that whenever London is brought up, especially in the context of it being a major world city, there is usually a reply or two saying “Actually, did you know that the City of London is only a square mile in size and has 9000 inhabitants?”. I can see why, it’s a good intersting fact and I’ve repeated it before myself a few times back in the day (I lived in London – not the City – for ten years). But it’s really not true. London is a city of around nine million people, 607 square miles, which contains at its centre the district called the City of London.
The City of London is the central business district within London, slightly smaller than a square mile in size, which is formed of the historic core of London – nowadays dominated by the financial and legal sectors. It’s roughly equivalent to ‘wall street’ in New York – the area south of Wall Street contemporaneous with the historic bounds of old New York which is now similarly dominated by the financial sector. The City of London is also has an interesting and byzantine governing system (which is covered by multiple youtube videos) and which has some administrative independence from the rest of London.
But to be clear, it is not what people mean when they say ‘London’. Whenever anyone says London, unless they specifically say ‘the city’, they mean the larger city, which includes parliament, London Zoo, Regent Street, Abby Road studios, the shard, everything people think of when they think London. etc etc etc.
So what is London? The specific definition is a subject for an interesting pub debate but really it isn’t controversial, unless there’s a specific context it means Greater London. That is the administrative area governed by the mayor and government of London.
Nor is ‘Greater’ London the metro area of the ‘City’ of London. Greater London is an administrative boundary, the metro area is considerably larger, with perhaps a population of 15 million – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_metropolitan_area (As someone who also lived in Surrey for a while I might argue that definition is too reductive and the metro area should stretch much further into the home counties).
But, since arguing about definitions is fun, what do you consider ‘London’?