LONDON, Ifizedon (British LuniJayn. or Lan dein : Saxon Landon, Lundone, and other forms; in Tacit us and other Latin writers, Londinium, and Lundinum, Various derivations have been as signed to the name, among which is the old Brit ish lyn-, lake. and din, town, a landing-place: `as until recent dates, the south side of the river was often a lake in some parts and a swamp in others, the name might easily lu ehanged from Lyndin to London and be descriptive of its local position'). The capital of Clue United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the largest city in the world. It is situated at the head of tidewater on the river Thames, where in the days before the Roman occupancy there was a conven ient crossing place, the swamps on the south and the forests on the north being so situated as naturally to cause the northern and southern routes to converge upon this crossing. with the result that a thriving town or trading point was developed. The parallel of latitude of 51° 30' N. bisects the city.
London occupies both banks of the Thames River about 50 miles above its estuary. the river, spanned by numerous fine bridges, flowing through the more southern part of the city with sluggish current and in long, winding reaches, its breadth being from 600 to 900 feet. Below London the land adjoining the Thames is flat, low, and marshy; and the site of the city, whose special characteristic on the left or northern bank of the Thames is that of a gently nndulating plain, is the first upland above the estuary, and a particularly healthful and favorable position for urban development. Most of the city stands upon the sands and gravels of the glacial epoch, which arc underlaid by the London clay that outcrops in some localities. The Fleet River and all the other streams that reached the Thames within the present city limits have disappeared in the sewerage system of the metropolis.
Many factors have contributed to make the greatness of London and its supremacy in the trade of the world. In the course of some cen turies, and particularly of the last century, the Thames was deepened and provided with adequate dockage, so that the port of London was made available to the largest shipping of the world. From its docks extends an unsurpassed waterway by river and sea to all the coasts of Northwest and West Europe, always one of the most impor tant elements in the trade of Great Britain. Its southerly maritime position, in the best-developed part of the British Islands, gave it the mastery both in the home and foreign trade; and from the time when Alfred the Great made London the capital of his kingdom, it became the great centre of British social and political interests. With the growth of its world-wide business relations and the greater intensity of its industrial activ ity the centrifugal tendency of its population in creased. In 1888 London was politically re
stricted to London County, made up of parts of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, covering an area of I18 square miles, and for administrative pur poses, besides the nucleus known as the City of London, was divided into the metropolitan boroughs of Battersea, Bethnal Green, Camber well, Chelsea, Deptford, Finsbury, Fulham, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith, Hampstead. Holborn, Islington, Kensington. Lambeth, Lewis Marylebone, Paddington, Saint Pancras, Poplar, Shoreditch, Southwark East, South wark \Vest, Stepney, Stoke Newington, Wands worth, Westminster, and Woolwich. Most of these, formerly villages and suburbs of historical in terest, are treated under separate titles, to which refer. But many square miles of houses had already been added to the outer edge of this dis triet the market-roads leading into the city were streets lined with houses; suburb after suburb became merged with the city by the building operations that overtook and passed beyond them. Thus the large towns of Edmonton, Enfield, Bornsey, Tottenham, and Willesden in Afiddlei:ex, Croydon and Wimbledon in Surrey, and East and \Vest Ham, Ilford, and Walthamstow in +ssex (qq.v.), ranging in 1901 from 40,000 to over 260,000 population, and scores of smaller places, practically lost their identity, because they be came merely parts of the one great urban aggre gate.
London County and these wide-spreading ac cretions on all sides of it form Greater London. This area, which is accurately defined by the boundaries embracing the Metropolitan and City of London police districts, covers an area of 693 square miles, and had a population in 1891 of 5.633.806, and in 1901 of 6,580.816. It includes all the territory within a radius of about 14 miles from Trafalgar Square, the county of Lon dun. the whole of Middlesex, and parts of Surrey, Kent, Essex, and Hertfordshire. For the Gov ernment postal and telegraphic service, the Metropolitan area is divided into eight postal districts, the Eastern, Northern, Northwestern, Western. Southwestern, Southeastern, East Cen tral, and West Central, which are respectively designated by their initial letters. While extend ing beyond the boundaries of the administrative. county of London, the postal districts do not embrace the whole area covered by the Metro politan police districts.
As in all large cities that include in their limits opportunities for further growth, a con siderable percentage of the surface of Greater London is not yet utilized for streets and build ing-sites. The area under crops and grass in 1S99 was 12,054 acres.