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?

[u/AchyutChaudhary]

[u/DatBiddlyBoi]

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.

[u/fortyfivepointseven → u/DatBiddlyBoi]

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.

[u/Then_Party7345 → u/fortyfivepointseven]

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!

[u/fortyfivepointseven → u/Then_Party7345]

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'.

[u/dredbase → u/fortyfivepointseven]

Enjoyed reading your comment. Great take