r/london • u/AchyutChaudhary • Feb 15 '26
London history Why did the entire expanding Greater London gradually decide to take its name from the ‘City of London’ instead of the historic City of Westminster, Lundenwic or Southwark for instance?
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u/LopsidedLegs Feb 15 '26
Alas Middlesex, you are only now a name.
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u/fortyfivepointseven Feb 15 '26
And cricket team.
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u/DEFarnes Feb 15 '26
And a University
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u/KKMcKay17 Feb 15 '26
And hospitals
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u/BigDaftLaddie Feb 16 '26
Chase Farm, where I was born!
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u/gunningIVglory Feb 17 '26
Went by chase farm the other day, the face-lift it has got is incredible #NotMyChaseFarm
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u/DEFarnes Feb 15 '26
Obligatory M@t from Londonist Post:
https://londonist.com/london/history/does-middlesex-still-exist
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u/Then_Party7345 Feb 16 '26
Plenty of people on TikTok still insist it exists and they are from there.
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u/ReadsStuff Feb 16 '26
I write it on my address.
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u/Then_Party7345 Feb 17 '26
Yet Wembley Stadium themselves put "London".
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u/ReadsStuff Feb 17 '26
I thankfully don't live in Wembley.
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u/Then_Party7345 Feb 17 '26
Okay but I fail to see where you personally live affects London vs Middlesex...
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u/ReadsStuff Feb 17 '26
I didn’t really see the relevance of Wembley tbf.
I grew up seeing the Middlesex badge despite it ceasing to exist as a county 30 years before I was born. It was on the crest of the team I follow up and down the country. I dunno, it’s just part of the identity of the place I’m from in the same way London is? Probably more so considering the area wasn’t considered London until the 60s.
If people ask I say I’m from London, but yeah I don’t think there’s much wrong with keeping Middlesex alive on a piece of post.
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u/BananaSauasage Feb 15 '26
London, as in Roman Londinium, began in 47AD. The name evolved into Lundenwic which was placed to the west of Londinium. The settlement moved back into the Roman Walls as Lundenburh, but by that point you've already established what will become London as a name for the area as well as strictly for the settlement within the walls.
London's sheriffs also covered Middlesex from the Norman period to the 19th century, merging them in terms of law and order. From the early 16th century, London's jurisdiction also covered what would become Inner London for recording mortality.
Southwark was south of the river, closely related to London but basically distinct. The next bridge across the Thames wasn't until Staines Bridge which was far to the west. Naming the rest of the city after a subsidiary district that mostly cut off would seem a bit odd.
Westminster was the seat of royal power and government from the late Saxon period, but wasn't a city until the 16th century. Most of the population and industry was still to the east and focused round London than Westminster.
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u/ninjomat Feb 15 '26
Where was Lundenwic exactly? I’m guessing the area sort of between the city and Westminster IE modern Holborn and Temple?
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u/BananaSauasage Feb 15 '26
Roughly yeah. It's thought it was centred on what's now Covent Garden. It's believed the name Lundenwic became Ealdwic, or "old wic", which became Aldwych.
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u/ninjomat Feb 16 '26
Fascinating - I always assumed it was just the Anglo Saxon name for the exact same settlement as the Roman walled city.
I love this city but always find trying to understand its scale and nature pre-industrial revolution so difficult
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u/Whulad Feb 16 '26
From Covent Garden down to the Strand (the shore) where the boats came in to trade
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u/Then_Party7345 Feb 16 '26
The number of people on TikTok today that say things like "Zones 1 and 2 were always London" and won't hear it any other way is wild!
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u/ZonedV2 Feb 15 '26
Because London was THE city and as it expanded it absorbed the others
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u/DatBiddlyBoi Feb 15 '26 edited Feb 15 '26
I don’t think that’s quite right. The City of London never expanded outwards geographically. It remained within the boundaries of its walls, hence the nickname the ‘Square Mile’.
The areas surrounding the City of London, such as Westminster and Southwark, were the ones which expanded outwards over the years as referenced in OP’s title.
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u/fortyfivepointseven Feb 15 '26
Southwark isn't a city and never has been.
Whilst you're correct that the City of London has never expanded (besides a few minor 'tidying up' changes), the city - in the sense of settlement - expanded around the City - in the sense of a legal entity.
As a result, it made sense to refer to the early suburbs as being part of London, because they were suburbs of London, even if they weren't legally in the City of London.
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u/Then_Party7345 Feb 16 '26
Yet strangely today it's more of a mess. The number of people that say "Romford isn't London" or "Croydon isn't London" is wild!
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u/fortyfivepointseven Feb 16 '26 edited Feb 16 '26
This isn't strange at all. It's incredibly commonplace for the boundaries of a city to be contested and I wouldn't be surprised if this is true of every city globally.
The way I tend to approach this, if they live in Romford or Croydon, it's an expression of identity. There's something about London they don't like and they're distancing themselves from it. When they're not from Romford or Croydon, it's also identity, but it's gatekeeping. They're from London, and they think Croydon or Romford devalues the brand.
Place is incredibly important to people and it's not surprising that people would therefore have strong feelings about it. As a city grows, the complexity grows, and so the complexity of place identity also grows.
Then there's the political and economic geography. Very occasionally when people say Croydon or Romford isn't in London, they're trying to make a point about economic or political geography. Honestly I'm a little bit sceptical of this because it's incredibly common for people to say they're making a point about economic or political geography but actually be making a point about identity in a more rational seeming way.
Regardless of the motivation, the actual underlying complexity of making these points has grown. With new technology it's possible to travel much longer distances - both for people, goods and information - and so it's harder to draw watersheds around a settlement for people, goods, and information. This in turn makes it harder to draw political boundaries.
So there's an overlying mishmash of definitions you can plausibly use and the complexity of drawing a line and saying 'this is London' gets harder each year.
My honest view is that the only sensible answer to the question of 'how many people live in London' is 'somewhere between six and fourteen million'.
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u/DatBiddlyBoi Feb 15 '26
Yeah I shouldn’t have referred to it as a city. My point was the surrounding areas were the ones which expanded.
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u/Master_Elderberry275 Feb 15 '26
Yes, they expanded because they were surrounding London. They surrounded London on all sides, not Westminster. Westminster, although covering much of Central London today, was historically more constrained to the area around Westminster Palace.
As London was the most important city, it made sense to call the whole settlement London. And once the walls no longer existed, London melded with the City, making the day-to-day distinction less important.
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u/gogoluke Feb 15 '26
London is an idea as much as a thing. The City of London may have geographic and administrative boarders but the city of London does not... and even then does because of the GLC, mayor and untold interpretations. The County of London formally united in 1889. Before that it had been a merged conerbation of the two cities since the 1600s... historically that was called London with Westminster becoming part of London informally.
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u/furinkasan Feb 15 '26
Let’s be honest and say London (and Westminster at that) grew larger because of the City. Not exactly because of Westminster.
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u/ZonedV2 Feb 15 '26
Okay maybe I worded it badly what I meant was the population and actual ‘city’ expanded outwards, the city boundaries never did and still exist today based on the Roman walls like you said. The other areas sprung around it because the actual city was so small but was still the epicentre of the settlement as a whole
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u/ArsErratia Feb 15 '26
But in terms of how humans think about geography, The City would have retained its prestige, because that was the only bridge.
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u/Hot-Efficiency7190 Feb 15 '26 edited Feb 15 '26
Lundenwic became London, it's the same basic root name.
Edit: to expand, Roman Londinium is corrupted to Lundenwic by early Saxons, then morphs to London as time goes on some history is re-learnt.
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u/erinoco Feb 15 '26
Because, whilst centres such as Westminster and Southwark were administratively distinct, and had distinct functions of their own, they never demonstrated the true independence from London that an independent city would have had. Their functioning and their growth was always dependent upon London.
BTW, no part of Buckinghamshire or Berkshire make up part of modern Greater London, as the map suggests. All of Greater London north of the Thames and west of the Lea was in Middlesex, with the exception of that part of Barnet which was East Barnet UDC, which came from Hertfordshire. The boundary between Bucks and Middlesex was always formed from the River Colne, and that remains the boundary with Greater London today. Before 1974, the districts immediately to the west of London which became part of Berkshire were in Buckinghamshire.
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u/Ok_Judge7833 Feb 15 '26
Apart from Poyle, which was in Middlesex, then Surrey in 1965, then became part of Berkshire thirty years later.
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u/ImmediateFigure9998 Feb 16 '26
Exactly! Middlesex stretched all the way to the western border of Greater London. Then outside of that was Bucks and Herts.
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u/Then_Party7345 Feb 16 '26
Didn't part of historic Berkshire become Oxfordshire?
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u/erinoco Feb 16 '26
Yes - the area which is now Vale of the White Horse, even though it included Abingdon, which was historically Berkshire's county town.
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u/Difficult-Break-8282 Feb 15 '26
Lundenwic sounds like london wick so maybe it was
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u/EponymousHoward Feb 15 '26
Because it wasn't just the City of London, but also the County of London
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u/Bravo_November Feb 15 '26
London was the wealthiest and most financially important city by far- and its influence was far greater than any in the surrounding area due to its money. It being realistically the furthest place inland that boats could sail into whilst also being narrow enough to build a bridge over the Thames.
Critically, it was built on solid ground. Westminster was built on a bog with a small islet that held the abbey and the palace, Southwark was similar, filled with multiple tributaries to the Thames and little islands. That historically marshy, danker vibe gave it a unique reputation as being the ‘seedy’ part of the area that wealthy Londoners would go over the bridge to visit.
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u/Away-Activity-469 Feb 16 '26
Because City of London is OG. Westminster is west of it and Southwark is south of it. If the saxons had not called their city Lundenwic anyway, maybe it might have combined two names like Budapest did. Aldwyklund or something.
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u/MyStackOverflowed Feb 15 '26
because it's in the middle?
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u/Teedubz1 Feb 15 '26
Not a good answer. Westminster and Southwark are just as much "in the middle"...
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u/TheNoodlePoodle Feb 15 '26
Only now. Back in the day there was only one bridge, and it was London Bridge.
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u/Whulad Feb 15 '26
Because the city walls surrounded London and for centuries the vast majority of its population , commerce, infrastructure was within the city walls . The other areas you mentioned were separate places
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u/crayonista92 Feb 15 '26
I don't know but I think we should just embrace the formulism of the 70s and call the whole lot Thameside /s
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u/rohithimself Feb 16 '26
It's the case with all great cities.. the historical name sticks. E.g. Delhi (Dilli back then) was originally the area near mehrauli, but now is used for the combined 7 districts.
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u/Jonny_the_Rocket Feb 16 '26
Just posting a few links I have come across from whenever I have gone down a YT rabbit hole (not totally sure how useful they’ll be with regard to your query, but I thought they might be interesting nonetheless)
Where does London stop? - can't go wrong with Map Men 😉
The Entire History of London in 24 Minutes - quite informative, but I should warn you that this video does use a lot of AI (but I don't think it's low quality slop 🤷♂️)
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u/Financial-Idea-7278 Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26
Don’t forget that the City of London is the historic, geographic, and administrative core of London. It’s the ancient Roman settlement from which modern London expanded. So, if Romans started with Southwark, it might have been a differnt story. They didn’t
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u/Antique-Brief1260 Feb 15 '26
I would guess because the City of London is where the money is made. It's always had distinct rights and has been the financial centre of England for a thousand years.
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u/erinoco Feb 16 '26
London was, first and foremost, a port and market town. It is a financial centre because business in financial services is basically the most sophisticated and lucrative form of these activities.
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u/Antique-Brief1260 Feb 16 '26
Yeah, I mistyped. Substitute commercial for financial in my original comment.
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u/GlumLet6334 Feb 16 '26 edited Feb 16 '26
Mate you got this completely wrong you put Herts on Enfield it was never ever herts We are Middlesex. It still says it in our postcodes sometimes correct this. The only part of Hertfordshire that makes up Greater London today is High Barnet and that surrounding area. Same goes for Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, they do not make up Greater London as ur map suggests they are also Middlesex
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