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Archive 5←Archive 8Archive 9Archive 10Archive 11Archive 12Archive 13

Lead image

I preferred the previous montage image in the infobox. Anyone support reverting it. Mtaylor848 (talk) 11:28, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

So did I, the new one is far too small. However the last one could be a lot better, it's certainly not a patch on the photo montage on, for example, New York City. There are so many iconic images of London, surely we can have a better set of images here.
I would suggest that we should have a proper montage, in the style of the New York article, including all of: St Pauls, the London Eye (the current image is very good), Houses of Parliament (the current image is very good), Tower Bridge (the current image is very good), The Gherkin, Piccadily Circus, Canary Wharf and a London taxi or double decker bus.Rangoon11 (talk) 11:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
The current image is definitely on the small side. I favour reverting it to one of the larger montages that was used before. If somebody wants to create a new montage and post it on the discussion page for consensus, that could be an option too. TheSuave 17:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
2 and half months since anything was said here, but I think this is better than starting a new section. I don't regularly contribute to this article, but I prefer the montage that was here previously. A different one was added with this edit, with no edit summary. The new one is almost exactly the same, but cuts off a part of the Palace of Westminster, and doesn't have the weird edges to the images. I prefer the borders of this image, but I don't particularly like the image of the palace of Westminster used. Anyone else support changing it back? Anoldtreeok (talk) 10:15, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Personally I much prefer the new montage, the ragged borders on the old one looked truly awful and really let down the whole article. I would be strongly against simply replacing the new montage with the old one for this reason.
However I am open to changing the image of the Palace of Westminster within the new montage if that is possible and a better picture can be proposed. Rangoon11 (talk) 16:47, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Fair enough. I also don't like the borders/edges of the old montage, which give it a hazy look. I do think a different Westminster image is needed. I don't have access at the moment to any quality image editing software, so I'm of no use in this regard.
It's not a major issue though, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Anoldtreeok (talk) 23:55, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
It would appear that the montage previously featured a complete image of the Palace of Westminster and was pretty much exactly the same (only higher resolution), but was changed (by someone who didn't make the montage, but that doesn't make it less valid), so perhaps I could revert it back to the way it was? I don't want to take the liberty of making a major change, so I decided to throw it out here. Anoldtreeok (talk) 10:25, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Is it possible for you to post a copy of the proposed new montage here? Rangoon11 (talk) 11:21, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
My proposed montage is the same as the one there is now with just a better Westminster image. I don't see what's necessarily wrong with the one used currently, but then again I'm not from London so wouldn't be the greatest at deciding what images represent it the best. Anoldtreeok (talk) 13:23, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Picture

Suggestion, perhaps a picture of St Paul's that is more representative can be found? The wide angle distorts the structure 86.144.199.72 (talk) 12:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Dvjvvikramaditya, 18 February 2011

{{edit semi-protected}}


Dvjvvikramaditya (talk) 09:02, 18 February 2011 (UTC) Hi,

I am writing this mail to request you to update information under the section " 7.1 Tertiary education ".

In 2009, one of the prestigious business school - Hult International Business School( formerly known as Arthur D Little School of Management) was established near Russell square area, London. The school is ranked globally 27th - economic intelligence unit, 1st in international experience and top 100 according to Financial times.

I request you to include the name of the school in the description of business school and please list it between European Business School London, and Imperial College Business School.

Hope you will add details as per my request.

Thank you very much for your time and help

Sincerely, Vikram

Do you really want it listed? The only proper place to put it would be to put it near the London Business School. Do you really want to see something like, "The LBS (1st in the world according to the latest Financial Times) and the nearby HIBS (84th in the world according to the latest Financial Times, but 27th according to the Economist)"? It just seems like your school would sort of lose out on the immediate comparison so such a good school, but I'll add it if you really want me to. If you'd like any further help, contact me on my user talk page. You might instead want to put a {{help me}} template up on your own user talk, or put the {{edit semi-protected}} template back up on this page and either way someone will be along to help you. :) Banaticus (talk) 10:27, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Introduction issues: FAKE FACTS

I am very proud of what London has become and that is why I don't see the point about lying about it in the introduction:

  • 1- is home to the headquarters of more than 100 of Europe's 500 largest companies.[16]: the source is fake, linking to an article about a Mumbai business district!! I tried to find the info but it was nowhere on the internet, however which is true is that as of 2009 London hosts 15 Fortune Global 500 headquarters (Source: Fortune Global 500 official website CNNmoney [[1]])
  • 2- It is the most visited city in the world.[17]: the ranking contradicted all official records, London is a world leading tourist destination but it is not the world's most visited city (which is Paris) (Sources: London 2009 official figures [[2]], Paris 2009 official figures [[3]], World Travel Organization datas [[4]] + 3 other sources ranking Paris 1st [[5]], [[6]], [[7]])

Can this be corrected to properly informing people about the great city London is ?

There is nothing 'fake' about either fact and both are properly cited. The source of the headquarters citation is a very established Indian newspaper, and the detail appears around three-quarters of the way through the article in question. A Google search reveals other references to this fact elsewhere, but this citation is more than sufficient.
The citation in the article regarding the most-visited city detail is from a report conducted annually by Euromonitor International, one of the world's largest market information companies with offices worldwide. However the sources which you quote are either low quality blogs, non-comparative (i.e. using different definitions of 'visitor') or erroneous (the 'World Travel Organization' claim links back to the homepage of the World Trade Organization, with no mention of the quoted visitor numbers). Rangoon11 (talk) 21:00, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
There's often a problem with obtaining up-to-date figures for company rankings on the web - many sources like the FT are behind paywalls. I was a bit dissatisfied with the Chennai story as a ref for a London fact when I saw it - we should be able to do better. I'm also not sure if we need the sentence - everyone knows that London is an important city and there is a fair bit of ego-pumping going on in the intro at the moment. Probably if we can't get a UK/Europe source of quality to back it up, we should ditch it. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 21:21, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
There are a couple of issues here. Firstly I personally can't see why a very reputable Indian newspaper should be regarded as a less valid source for a citation than, say, an American, Australian or Dutch one. Please can those suggesting why this might be the case explain their reasoning. There is absolutely no requirement in Wikipedia policy for the source for a fact on a European city to be European.


It has been stated above that 'everyone knows that London is an important city'. Firstly this is not true, and in any case everyone has to learn everything for the first somewhere. Secondly, it is the role of the London article to describe London accurately and fully to readers. A very important feature of London which it is vital to understand in order to gain a reasonable level of knowledge about the city is that it is one of the two or three most important business and commercial centres in the world. This is best done through the use of facts. Rangoon11 (talk) 23:22, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
About the Euromonitor rankings : very big doesn't means very serious. The rankings are erroneous, please see the two discussions on the talk page of the article "Tourism". Cordially, En-bateau (talk) 15:04, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
The rankings are of a far higher quality than any quoted in favour of Paris, and are good enough for Reuters: [8].Rangoon11 (talk) 11:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


Since you don't answer to the observations made about the Euromonitor ranking, I write them in this section :
  • 1 - For 2008, the source of Euromonitor for Paris rankings seems to be here, page 18 : http://en.parisinfo.com/uploads/9e//chiffres-cles-2009.pdf. In the (only ?) case of this city, Euromonitor choose to count only the hostel rooms datas (Foreign visitors : 8.375 M ; Sum-total : 15.04 M). You can see on the same document, page 3, that the real total number of visitors (local + foreign) is estimated at 28 million...
  • 2 – The study counts only intra-muros hostels. Almost half of the Paris hostels are outside of the city limits. That explains the Région Ile-de-France figures (although outdated) : 45M visitors (around 27M foreign visitors) : http://www.iledefrance.fr/english/sports-loisirs-tourisme/tourism/tourism/. But we can argue about the legitimacy to integrate or not extra-muros statistics into the Paris figures, which don’t change the ranking anyway.
  • 4 – In the 2007 Euromonitor figures, among the 50 first cities, only Paris shows a huge fall : -10 % in one year! How could it be credible knowing that both Paris and France announced a record of international frequenting for that year ? (http://www.parisinfo.com/uploads/22//CC07_pour%20web.pdf)
  • 5 – Compare it with the World Tourism Organisation study (http://www.unwto.org/facts/menu.html) : London is visited by 50% of UK visitors (14.06 / 28.0) : that’s coherent. But, according to Euromonitor, Paris is visited by only 10% of France visitors... (7.75 / 74.2). That’s ridiculous. The Ile-de-France datas are way more rational (27M foreign visitors : around 36% of France visitors).
I concentrate on the debate mentioned here but I could speak about other curiosities like unexplained breakthroughs of some cities, the absence of other ones, or the figures mathematically wrong in the growing column of the former study.
Considering that, you have the choice to ignore it and be objectively sure that you can rest on these rankings, or you can prefer the official city statistics, for both London and Paris, which are the only ones to have raw datas. Now, if you or Euromonitor can tell me why I’m stupid and can justify these figures, mea culpa, and it will be with pleasure.
Cordially, En-bateau (talk) 02:26, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
The Euromonitor figures are from an independent and well respected source, and are good enough for media outlets of the stature of Reuters. In all of your (impressionistic) comments above you have not provided a single independent citation showing Paris receiving more international visitors, you have merely stated your views on your assumptions of Euromonitor's methodology. Rangoon11 (talk) 12:41, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Always the same thing to justify fake facts on Wikipedia : a big compagny which provides manifest incoherent informations stays a “reliable source”, cause… that is. It’s a big compagny. Is this argument sufficient unto itself ? Do you really think Reuters checks the sources of their sources ?
For you, the CVB of Paris, the Regional Council and the World Tourism Organisation are not independent, unlike Euromonitor, a very independent London-based private organisation which lives on its clients’ generosity. And yet, Euromonitor uses my non independent sources (http://blog.euromonitor.com/2011/01/euromonitor-internationals-top-city-destinations-ranking.html) →
”In line with the change in methodology applied in 2009, city arrivals data was sourced directly from national tourist offices and national statistics offices for the 55 major markets under review. For the additional 150 market insight countries researched by Euromonitor International at national level, the global travel research team identified a further 10 countries whose cities merited further investigation.
Main secondary sources include governmental, inter-governmental and other official sources; national and international specialist trade press and trade associations; industry study groups and other semi-official sources; reports published by major operators, travel retailers, online databases and the financial, business and mainstream press. Trade interviews were conducted with national tourist offices, trade associations and travel operators to fill gaps in secondary research.”
Now, once more, if you read page 3 and page 18 (http://en.parisinfo.com/uploads/9e//chiffres-cles-2009.pdf), you’ll see that the figure they took concern only a part of tourists (and in a part of a geographical area).
Could you pretend that you don't understand this incoherence ? I'm human and I can mistake ; but if it's the case, I would like good explanations, no dogmatic "we know them, they're serious". In any case, as a Parisian, I won't modify this information, I don't want to be suspected of Paricentrism. So the ball is in your court. And I count on your objectivity.
Cordially, En-bateau (talk) 17:18, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
No figures from the World Tourism Organisation have been provided which contradict the Euromonitor information. I repeat: in all of your comments you have not provided a single independent citation showing Paris receiving more international visitors than London.
Regarding the Paris official figures, yes they may well have informed the Euromonitor research. However Euromonitor will have needed to ensure that all data received from official sources in different countries was used in such a way as to remove the effects of differences in definitions, methodologies etc used by different countries. Rangoon11 (talk) 17:55, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
That's precisely what I deny. The differences are too huge to be coherent. The study of World Tourism Organisation (http://www.unwto.org/facts/menu.html) shows that France is by far the most visited country in the world : 74M visitors, more than twice more than UK (30M). However, the study of Euromonitor pretends that only 7,75M visit Paris, twice less than London. That's a contradiction for me. Moreover, 30% of the French hotels are located in Ile-De-France (Ministry of Tourism : http://www.tourisme.gouv.fr/stat_etudes/memento/2009/ht_freq_reg.pdf). On the same document, you can see that the number of foreign tourists in Ile-de-France hotels was 14,44M in 2008. Like the Paris study, that's concerning ONLY the hotels, intra and extra-muros. You can see that the total number of foreign tourists in French hotels is 32,14M in 2008, far from the 79M foreign visitors that year (in all accommodations).
I don't know why I need to prove why the official sources are correct : they precisely supposed to be Euromonitor's sources.
As a consequence, we decided to take the official estimated number Paris visitors (27M : page 3) and extrapolated from the number of foreign tourists in Paris hotels (7.9M/14.4M : page 18) on the same document, with a note. We choose to not include extra-muros visitors, considering only the city in its administrative limits. But the real number of foreign tourists in Paris metropole is at least 25M (like the official region estimation).
But still, if you're really convinced by the correctness of the Euromonitor study, let's keep it, if the other contributors have the same opinion.
Cordially, En-bateau (talk) 19:57, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Samuel Pepys Diary

I was just taking a look through the references to see if I could fix any of them and I noticed the date for Pepys' diary is given as 2001. Surely it should be given as 1700 or whenever it was originally published? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 14:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Pepy's diary was not published in unexpurgated form until comparatively recently. But more to the point, the reference will have a page number which is applicable to a given edition. Rich Farmbrough, 19:37, 5 February 2011 (UTC).
Actually the solution is to use extra parameters: there's date for the date it was written, origyear when it was first published and publication-date when this edition was published. But as it turns out the citation didn't use a page number or a date, so there was no reason to use the Random House edition as source. Instead, I've linked to the text at Project Gutenberg, which is based on the 1893 edition now in the public domain. The footnote now reads as follows - Pointillist (talk) 13:25, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
[58] ^ Pepys, Samuel (September 2nd, 1666) [1893], Mynors Bright (decipherer); Henry B. Wheatley, eds., The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 45: August/September 1666
Great :). -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:40, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

French population

The Economist has an article this week about the French community of London, numbering 400,000. But this article claims that in 2001, there were just 38,000 French-born people in London. Has the French community really increased by a factor of 10? If not, what explains this discrepancy? 98.209.116.7 (talk) 23:34, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Anecdotally The Economist number sounds far closer to the current position, the difference is probably in part the result of the undercounting of short term residents by the census as well as a substantial growth in the French community since 2001. Unfortunately the census is only conducted every 10 years and we can't really update the numbers in the table for one group based on a separate source to the others. A sentence in the text might be appropriate however. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? Rangoon11 (talk) 00:50, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
In March 2008 The Economist estimated there were 200,000 French in London (archive) and it now says the French Embassy estimates 400,000 (archive). That's ten times more than the 2001 census figure, so it should be mentioned. I've footnoted the France figure in the original table—hope that is OK with everyone. - Pointillist (talk) 11:55, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that most (all) of the populations listed in the table have changed since 2001 and if we include updated figures for one, then why not others? Also, if we use estimates from different sources, we can't ensure they are comparable. I think the best thing to do is to keep the table simple and only include 2001 figures until the results of the 2011 census are available. Cordless Larry (talk) 14:17, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps I haven't explained properly. The actual figure in the table is unchanged (still 38,130) because yes, all the data in the table should come from the same source. All I've done is to footnote the figure for France, so that anyone who is relying on it can see that substantially different figures have twice been reported by a reliable source (five times higher in March 2008, ten times higher last month). This is an exceptional and extraordinary claim: that there are more French than in London than there are people born in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka combined. A footnote like this131 isn't intrusive. Perhaps you could reconsider? - Pointillist (talk) 15:04, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
Sure, I understand that it's only a footnote, but what about other populations that have also grown, such as the Polish? Why are we only footnoting the French case? Also, the claim about the French-born population overtaking Asian-born populations would require comparable data, which is precisely what we don't have. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:05, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

2001 Census data may be misleading

Polish-born people in employment in the UK 2003-2010, Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.1.0

Cordless Larry makes a good point immediately above. The population has changed very significantly since the 2001 census. For example, from 2003 to 2010 the UK's Polish population grew sevenfold (from 75,000 to 520,000) and the ONS estimates that in June 2010 London had 122,000 Polish residents (source)—but the 2001 census table in the London article shows none.

I haven't checked out other nationalities, but given that current French and Polish figures seem so far removed from the 2001 data, surely the 2001 census table should either be footnoted or removed entirely? It is misleading to have a graphic – which draws the eye with its little flags – that doesn't reflect the current situation. - Pointillist (talk) 23:44, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it's potentially problematic, especially now that it's one whole census-round out of date. It will presumably be some time before the results of this year's census start to be released, so does anyone have suggestions for what to do in the meantime? Cordless Larry (talk) 13:50, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
Well, would a couple of footnotes (one for France, the other for Poland) really do so much harm? - Pointillist (talk) 14:03, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
Why just two? I'm sure we could find recent estimates for other countries of birth as well and that they would show big changes. The point is that this solution doesn't seem to include any criteria for selecting which countries we footnote and which sources we use for those footnotes. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:32, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

(←) That's a fair point too. As I see it there are two issues: (i) discourage readers from treating the 2001 census data as being reliable for 2011, and (ii) avoid introducing unreliable data into the article, e.g. by selective use of later data, perhaps using incompatible measurements such as nationality rather than country of birth. On that basis I think The Economist's French numbers are a dead loss, and arguably the only source we can consider is the ONS. They have published data on the UK population by country of birth (here) since 2004, and the biggest change has indeed been Poland (up 4.47x from 95,000 in 2004 to 520,000 in June 2010). At national level ONS reports 60 countries, but for London they only report the top five, which are as follows:

London's population by top five country of birth Source: ONS
2001 Country 2001 Population 2004 Country 2004 Population 2010 Country 2010 Population
India 172k India 190k India 248k
Ireland 157k Bangladesh 127k Poland 122k
Bangladesh 85k Ireland 124k Ireland 110k
Jamaica 80k Jamaica 74k Bangladesh 107k
Nigeria 69k Kenya 73k Nigeria 95k
Kenya 66k
Poland 22k

I'm not claiming to have the answer, but I do think the 2001 table in the article needs to be explicitly qualified somehow. - Pointillist (talk) 17:25, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I didn't realise that the ONS country-of-birth data was available for London only (I'm familiar with the UK-wide data from editing Foreign-born population of the United Kingdom). In that case, I think we should try to employ that data in some way. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:14, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
Great! Table 6 in the DMAG Update has the London population figures for 235 countries of birth, with Poland's 2001 figure (22,224) ranking 25th (28th if you separate England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). If you use this as the starting point you can footnote the later ONS data with or without an additional column. Anyway, I'm yielding to you to find the best way forward and—terchinggggg—have now taken all of this off my watchlist. - Pointillist (talk) 23:21, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
I've opted for this solution. Thoughts and comments are welcome. Cordless Larry (talk) 01:14, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
2001 United Kingdom Census
Country of birth Population
United Kingdom United Kingdom 5,230,155
India India 172,162
Republic of Ireland Republic of Ireland 157,285
Bangladesh Bangladesh 84,565
2009–10 ONS Estimates
Country of birth Population
India India 248,000
Poland Poland 122,000
Republic of Ireland Republic of Ireland 110,000
Bangladesh Bangladesh 107,000
I think you've hit on the "least worst" way of doing it, which of course I mean as a compliment. I've added to each template a top row that shows the source period. This helps make the difference clearer and means they are both nearly the same width, as right. Revert if you wish! - Pointillist (talk) 00:19, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Toponymy and Welsh

I propose a revision or possible deletion of the final paragraph in the Toponymy section. It doesn't add any relevant information to the topic, it merely contradicts what has already been established as a consensus of opinion above. The whole thing looks like a personal theory backed up by disparate sources.

  • MacBain (the source cited) does not appear to discuss the origins of London and does not give the etymon *Lou-nd-e-njo-m
  • MacBain is discussing Gaelic linguistics here and mentions Welsh only in passing
  • Jackson, who is a more reliable source of Brythonic sound laws, gives the source of London as British *Lōndonion, which agrees with what is stated in the preceding paragraph
  • Jackson also says that the Welsh Llundein is a BORROWING from Old English so it is effectively irrelevant to the discussion; if it were a direct descendant we would expect **Llunnein
  • Latin -ō- does not represent Celtic -ou-, it represents the sound which developed from -ou-, which was already some kind of long -o- when the Romans got to Britain and was subsequently written -ū- as it changed again towards W. -u-. It must have been relatively close to Latin -ō- during the Roman occupation because the sounds fell together (eg. L fōrma > W. ffurf). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Psammead (talk • contribs) 19:12, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
I've removed it. Whether we like the theory or not, it is unequivocally original research and doesn't belong here. --ColinFine (talk) 20:28, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
Appreciated, just wanted a second opinion. Psammead (talk) 22:35, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Rjstevens, 4 April 2011

Two recent discoveries indicate that London could be much older than previously thought. In 1999 <http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba46/ba46news.html>, the remains of a Bronze Age bridge were found on the foreshore North of Vauxhall Bridge. This bridge either crossed the Thames, or went to a (lost) island in the river. Dendrology dated the timbers to 1500BC.

In 2010, the foundations of a large timber structure, dated to 4500BC, were found on the Thames foreshore, South of Vauxhall Bridge <http://www.thamesdiscovery.org/frog-blog/london-s-oldest-find-discovered-at-vauxhall>. The function of the mesolithic structure is not known, but it covers at least 50m x 10m, and numerous 30cm posts are visible at low tides. Both structures are on South Bank, at a natural crossing point where the River Effra flows into the River Thames, and 4km upstream from the Roman City of London. The effort required to construct these structures implies trade, stability, and a community size of several hundred people at least.

Please add to prehistory section R. J. Stevens richard..no spam..@thestevensfamily.org.uk Photos available if required

I'm researching this now. More information by 13:45 UTC. Jsharpminor (talk) 13:35, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Density

"In the dense areas, most of the concentration is achieved with medium- and high-rise buildings"

This is incorrect, there is little to no correlation between height of buildings and population density within London. see here: http://data.london.gov.uk/visualisations/atlas/ward-profiles-2010/atlas.html?indicator=i8&date=2009. 85.228.215.80 (talk) 20:28, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

«London attracts over 15 million international visitors per year, making it the world's most visited city» Please look at this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism#Most_visited_cities_by_international_tourist_arrivals

Tourism

«London attracts over 15 million international visitors per year, making it the world's most visited city» Please look at this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism#Most_visited_cities_by_international_tourist_arrivals — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.159.30.231 (talk) 10:04, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Snow is relatively uncommon?

Its snowed in London every year for the past 3/4 years. Saying its uncommon is a bit odd, yes it only snows in winter but still its expected every year by most Londoners now. Likelife (talk) 15:55, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Yet it still takes the transport system entirely by surprise. Martin Hogbin (talk) 23:41, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Over 74% of Children died before the age of 5

"Over 74 per cent of children born in London died before they were five.[61]"

It seems surprising to have such a precise estimate of the number of children dying before the age of 5. Furthermore, everyone knows that child mortality was much higher in the middle ages than today, but 74% before the age of 5? Even if there is a reference, I would like to see other evidence of these numbers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.145.159.240 (talk) 16:27, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Climate Data

The Climate data charts (temperature highs and lows, etc) has a title that says it is for Helsinki, not London - Anyone know if it is the title that's incorrect or the data? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.248.128.54 (talk) 17:53, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

River Thames

The Thames, as well as being a famous feature, has been fundamental in London's development as a city, and so I feel it deserves at least a mention in the introduction:

Owing to its position on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its founding by the Romans, who called it Londinium.

If anyone can think of anything better then do improve it. Cooltrainer Hugh (talk) 00:33, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree that it deserves a mention in the lead, I have slightly tweaked the wording though as I feel that London's status has been the result of many factors e.g. being the capital of a major power.Rangoon11 (talk) 01:00, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Population fact in lead

Another editor has three times removed the fact that London was the world's biggest city. Rather than edit-war, I thought I would start a discussion here. I think it belongs in the lead because it is such a remarkable fact. How many other cities can say that? --John (talk) 07:23, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Quite a few - in China especially. But you've also got the cities of Paris and Rome to deal with. Check articles on New York, Paris and Rome; no precedent. Historical population stats don't belong in intros. RonaldMerchant (talk) 07:31, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
It is cited, appropriate and highly relevant to the lead. There is no reason for the precise text of article leads to match and the article lead of this article is, in my view, far superior to those of the articles quoted above. The attempt to impose removal of text from the stable version of the article through edit warring by new user RonaldMerchant is extremely disappointing and makes me reluctant to want to waste my time on extended discussion with them. Rangoon11 (talk) 11:28, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
It's an exceptional fact which is absolutely deserving of a place in the lead. What is or is not included in the leads of articles is completely irrelevant. RonaldMerchant may also take note that edit warring is no way to gain consensus. nancy 11:58, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

London wiki

Should it be linked to from here - it is at [9] and I seem to be the only person currently adding to it. Jackiespeel (talk) 20:40, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I thought London wasn't a city

The very first sentence of the article says that “London is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom.” There are other places in this article and on other Wikipedia articles like this one (which lists London as the 17th most populous cities in the world) that consider London to be a city. The answer to the FAQ above of “Is London a city” says that it is officially not a city, but a region with many boroughs and 2 cities. How can London be the capital city of England and the UK if it is officially not a city and how can it be consider a city if it has 2 cities? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to write that London is the capital municipality of England and the UK? Willminator (talk) 02:08, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that the word 'city' has several meanings, the most common meaning being 'any large town or populous place'. There is also a more specific meaning in the UK of 'a large town that has received this title from the Crown'.
It is right that we should start by using the general meaning of the word 'city' to describe what London is. Later on we should make clear the exact status of London in the UK according to the specific official UK meaning of the word 'city'. Martin Hogbin (talk) 23:40, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
You'll also find that there is in fact such a thing as the City of London or "The Square Mile", which, if you wanted to be extremely technical, could be considered the capital. Lord British (talk) 10:47, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

London consists of 32 boroughs and the City of London. The City of Westminster is also a London borough. I would also counter the claim that if we were extremely technical, that the City of London woud be the capital. Using that argument the City of Westminster would technically be the capital. Furthermore, the argument about what constitutes a city would extend to most other large cities, like Paris, Tokyo and Los Angeles to name a few obvious examples. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.73.217.243 (talk) 11:32, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

At one time, for a large town to be legally called 'city' it had to have its own cathedral. That's why some English 'cities' are still referred to as 'towns', no matter how large they might be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.57.101 (talk) 20:33, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Population of London's Entire Metropolitan Area, or Commute to Work Zone

The way the British government uses census data to determine the population of what most cities call their "metropolitan area" is at small but significant variance with other government's practices. Generally this leads to a rather significant understating of the population of the metropolitan area around London. As best as I can determine using 2001 census data, the population within a 60 mile radius of London would have exceeded 15 million by a few hundred thousand. Surely, considering the size of London, such a radius would not be unwarranted. I imagine the population after the 2011 census data is collected would now place the same area's population above 16 million. Considering the fact that cities of similar size (New York, Los Angeles, Paris etc) allow a larger geographic area to be included as long as population density within the radius generally reflects significantly increased density based on the accessibility of and to the metropolitan core, I would argue for the inclusion of the larger population figure based on such a radius. Certainly it would more accurately reflect the true scale of population in the London area, and provide a more accurate figure for comparison with other similarly-sized world cities.(E.a.weinstein (talk) 14:06, 16 August 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by E.a.weinstein (talk • contribs) 08:25, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Highest temperature in October

Is currently 26 degrees. Tomorrow is the 1st October and the forcast is 29 degrees. I will probably be on to update! Cls14 (talk) 16:16, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

London Moves Ahead Of New York

http://www.gfsnews.com/article/3089/1/EU_financial_centres_plunge_in_rankings, That's all the important index's now and the article should reflect that. 10:30, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Note that this index is a measure of competitiveness, not the relative size or importance of financial centres. I still think that it is most accurate to say 'the leading financial centre alongside New York', as New York remains a larger centre for a number of key areas, e.g. equities. In my view this index certainly merits a mention in the Economy section though.Rangoon11 (talk) 11:48, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Chinatown

An IP is insisting that this document produced by local government is unreliable. If reasons are not produced, backed by reliable sources, the information should be restored. Nev1 (talk) 23:59, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I just looked for other sources and found this from Reuters which does in fact contradict the existing source: [10]Rangoon11 (talk) 00:33, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
It makes the situation interesting, but both Westminster City Council and Reuters can be considered reliable sources, the question is which is correct? But since it doesn't look like it's going to be a clear cut case, I don't have an issue with leaving out the claim. Nev1 (talk) 00:40, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
The fact that the Reuters source actually comments that London's Chinatown is relatively small (as well as stating that the Paris one is the largest, as the IP claimed) makes me fairly certain that the Westminster City Council source is incorrect. I haven't been able to find any other source describing London as the largest.Rangoon11 (talk) 00:48, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Climate Data

The Climate data charts (temperature highs and lows, etc) has a title that says it is for Helsinki, not London - Anyone know if it is the title that's incorrect or the data?

The figures for average snowfall in London are plainly wrong. I don't know the correct figures, but 46.7cm in an average Winter is too high by a factor of three, at least. In a typical Winter, London will have one or two snowfalls that persist on the ground, with each snowfall consisting of 2 to 15 cm. It's not unusual for no snow at all to fall in London over an entire Winter and any individual fall of more than 15cm is exceptional, to the point of triggering newspaper headlines and urban paralysis. 82.35.103.182 (talk) 11:50, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Most visited city?

Section London#Tourism refers to London as most visited of the world. However, Tourism has a list of cities by visitors, and Paris is #1. Has London taken over the #1 spot, and that list is old news, or what? 82.141.73.142 (talk) 22:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

This has been discussed before at length, please look back through the archive.Rangoon11 (talk) 22:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
The debate began few months ago but hasn’t been closed. Euromonitor (a London-based private institute) base their calculations on official datas (almost every city provide annualy an official report about tourist economy). The problem is there : they count for Paris (and apparently just for Paris in the main cities) only partial datas (hotels arrivals) and ignore the rest of the official figures to extrapolate an average. On the tourism article, we counted 15.1 million by extrapolation, though it seems a little bit underestimate : Paris municipal office furnishes a global figure of 17 million international tourists per year. On every case, we’re far from the 7.7 million counted by Euromonitor, and a little bit above the London figures (14.6 million). I said to Rangoon11, who disagree, that I won’t remove this source on this article without other agreements. The question is not if the Euromonitor figures reflect reality – they don’t – but if, despite the fallacious comparison, we can accept it as a reliable or simply valid source. I don’t think so, but other opinions would be welcomed to close the debate. Moreover, the comparison could be fallacious for another reason : we compare here Greater London (27 million domestic and foreign tourists in 2010) to Paris intra-muros (28.2 million in 2010), and not to Greater Paris (around 42 million). Cordially, En-bateau (talk) 18:01, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I recently contacted the author of the study about the Paris case, and good news, they're going to examine the problem, we should have a response soon. Cordially, En-bateau (talk) 23:28, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I have a very precise answer from Euromonitor. Indeed, they count for Paris only hotel arrivals. The problem is the same for some other cities. Actually, there is two main methodologies : CVBs can count all the tourists in the city or they can count only hotel arrivals with partial but very precise data (which allows economic studies monthly and precisely). Paris CVB furnishes both (14.4 million for hotels and 28.2 for all accommodations), but in the second case, the city doesn't furnish the part of foreign tourists (however, the city, like I said, furnished an approximate number of 17 million foreign tourists on a total of 27 million few years ago). Euromonitor bases its study on precise statistics. Consequently, the study is faithful to the official data but compares different statistics from different methodologies. For a better clarity, they will mention it on the next edition of the study. To come back to the subject of this topic, I think the problem is solved now. Cordially, En-bateau (talk) 21:29, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Interesting and thanks for posting. However since the current source still supports the text as written I think that it can remain as is for now. Depending upon what is stated in the next Euromonitor survey - and it sounds like they may give a more detailed breakdown - perhaps we can present the information with some sort of qualification, either in the text or a foot note.Rangoon11 (talk) 21:53, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
To mention that London "has the most international visitors of any city in the world" when we know it's not the case is not a honest approach. The study compares statistics which are not comparable and we jump to fallacious conclusions, that's difficult to ignore it. The study currently doesn't mention it, but will in the next edition, so I think the contrary : we should wait for this edition. In every case, it won't change anything about the London and Paris case, but the study will be more reliable and usable for other cases (like the number of tourists of small cities which don't offer public informations). Cordially, En-bateau (talk) 11:38, 14 October 2011 (UTC)


On another note, why is the Paris article part of the Geography portal, Europe portal and European Union portal and the London article is not part of any of these portals? Let's have some consistency, please. London is also part of Europe and the European Union. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.92.233.153 (talk) 13:16, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

There's obviously an omission. Done. En-bateau (talk) 13:42, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Semi-Protect the London page.

{{edit semi-protected}}

This template is for requesting specific edits to the page, to request protection please visit WP:RFPP--Jac16888 Talk 12:15, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Edit request on 18 December 2011

The climate data for London is wrong. Please change the record high for April, because in 2011 it reached 28 degrees Celsius. Also, the record high for October is incorrect as it should be 30 degrees Celsius as on 1st October 2011 it reached 30 degrees in the centre of London.

Spanner pig (talk) 13:09, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a source for these? Based on this those are incorrect. --Jnorton7558 (talk) 06:01, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Edit request December 2011

Please add short info about 'pods' (the so called ultra system) - in my, other, news-editors, Wikipedia articles, users, and specialists this is probably the newest, and most advanced RPT system in London. Ok, it is short now, but working well for months(and bus service on this line was cancelled). -for e.g. - "Transport in London also include 'pods' ULTra system."

It is probably the symbol of "new, and modern London" as well - as far as I remember that type of similar pods was in sci-fi games, films.

Link? EDIT: Do you mean this?-- Eraserhead1 <talk> 15:33, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
It can be as well. But I added the hyperlink to Wikipedia article, please check references: [11]
OK? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 16:11, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Nice, but - in my opinion - is hard to treat this as the "air" section(unless there are hidden transformer plane ;-) ). This not the "counter" at Heathrow, rather some new way of transport, and if it work as the bus replacement, it can be easily adopted everywhere else, like DLR. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.75.70.254 (talk) 19:46, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Looks like the request was completed, until the pods are put in more places in London (the subject of this article) than just a single airport, they can probably stay in the "air" section. If you'd like any further help, contact me on my user talk page. You might instead want to put a {{help me}} template up on your own user talk, or put the {{edit semi-protected}} template back up on this page and either way someone will be along to help you. :) Banaticus (talk) 22:49, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Capital city?

"London is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom". I never thought twice about it before ... not until I read some other Wikipedia articles. "London" is usually referring to Greater London, but Greater London doesn't have city status, so de-jure it's not a city and hence cannot be the capital city. According to the section City status in the United Kingdom#Greater_London the City of London and Westminster have city status. The government and the queen is situated in Westminster if I've understood it correctly. That would de-jure make Westminster the capital, wouldn't it? :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.191.119.55 (talk) 23:08, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Well considering that there is an elected mayor and assembly over all 32 boroughs headquartered at one main city hall, I would say that all 32 boroughs make up one city, like the 5 boroughs of New York City make up one city. I can see where you can get confused about it though, and there wasn't always one overreaching government over all of London.Bjoh249 (talk) 02:29, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

The word city is used here with its more general meaning here rather than the specific UK meaning as in City_status_in_the_United_Kingdom. Although London is a leading global city it might be worth mentioning that Londoners often refer to it as London Town and use terms like 'in town' when referring to being in London. Martin Hogbin (talk) 00:40, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Financial Centre

I will try to assume good faith regarding user:MazabukaBloke even though he/she is unable to have the decency of doing likewise.

“It is one of the world's leading financial centres” would suggest it places in the top 5-10, not the top which the references state.

I have amended this sentence to more accurately reflect the references:

“It is the world's leading commercial centre [[12]] and most economically powerful city[[13]] [[14]]”

1) The Mastercard reference [[15]] ranks London as the leading commercial city in the world.

2) The Forbes reference [[16]] ranks London number 1 in its list of “World's Most Economically Powerful Cities”

3) The Zyen reference [[17]] ranks London number 1 as “Global Financial Centre”

I strongly suggest user user:MazabukaBloke carefully reads Wikipedia:Verifiability before blindly reverting my edit and contribute towards discussion. Zarcadia (talk) 22:19, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I have reverted to the pre-edit war text (i.e. "It is the world's leading financial centre alongside New York and has the fifth-largest city GDP in the world (and the largest in Europe).")
This is a wording which is factually accurate and had been stable for some time. To state that London is the most 'economically powerful' city is a real stretch when its total economic output is well under half that of either Tokyo or New York. 'World's leading commercial centre' is very vague - what does commercial mean in this context? Rangoon11 (talk) 00:04, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
I have no intention of entering into an edit war, I'm editing the text to reflect the sources, Wikipedia relies on citing reliable sources to create verifiable articles. Rangoon11 I would appreciate if you would actually address the points I have made above, the excuse that it is "factually accurate" is not acceptable as the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth and "been stable for some time" is not an excuse to prevent improving the article. Zarcadia (talk) 10:27, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


Would someone like to correct the "Expression error" on the Information Box? Surlyduff50 (talk) 15:44, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Population data issues

Population of London's Entire Metropolitan Area, or Commute to Work Zone

The way the British government uses census data to determine the population of what most cities call their "metropolitan area" is at small but significant variance with other government's practices. Generally this leads to a rather significant understating of the population of the metropolitan area around London. As best as I can determine using 2001 census data, the population within a 60 mile radius of London would have exceeded 15 million by a few hundred thousand. Surely, considering the size of London, such a radius would not be unwarranted. The 2011 census data is now becoming available and would now place the same area's population well above 16 million. Considering the fact that cities of similar size (New York, Los Angeles, Paris etc) allow a larger geographic area to be included as long as population density within the radius generally reflects significantly increased density based on the accessibility of and to the metropolitan core, I would argue for the inclusion of the larger population figure based on such a radius. Certainly it would more accurately reflect the true scale of population in the London area, and provide a more accurate figure for comparison with other similarly-sized world cities.I will be publishing the 60-mile radius data in the next 4-6 weeks, and ask for opinions for including that statistic once that has been completed.68.37.54.53 (talk) 03:09, 17 January 2012 (UTC)(point first raised by E.a.weinstein (talk) 14:06, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

London is 32 London boroughs, anywhere beyond that is they're own town, city or village. Yes the Commuter Belt goes out to places like High Wycombe and Southend, but this article is just on the city its self, governed by City Hall not County councils like Kent, Essex and Herts. As for New York City, the population is 8 million within its city limits and much more in the whole tri-state region but Tri-state is not just NYC. We must go by the boundaries to be actuate. Likelife (talk) 10:43, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
It seems Likelife your answering the question what is a city. Even though it isnt being asked. On a related note they should redraw London's boundaries as there's numerous places in counties like Surrey and Hertfordshire which are entirely within London's Urban Area. I think there would be great benefit in new London Boroughs such as the Borough of Watford or the Borough of Staines.
In response to the IP, I think this data would be more useful in the London Commuter Belt article which is about London's metropolitan area and could do with some work (especially a good map). I think just taking a radius would be a bit too simple as some towns like Reading are quite far from London but definetly part of it's metropolitan area (look at a map the urbanization is near continuous) whilst towns such as Oxford, Cambridge, Milton Keynes and Bedford aren't much further away (less than your suggested 60 mile radius) but there is alot less urbanization connecting them and hence lower population density. However your data may take that into account. Eopsid (talk) 14:22, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Capital of England

Given that a footnote on the Article says:

"According to the Collins English Dictionary definition of 'the seat of government', London is not the capital of England, as England does not have its own government. According to the Oxford English Reference Dictionary definition of 'the most important town' and many other authorities."

Is it not a bit odd that the lead that London is the capital of England without any qualification? It gives all the appearance of editors choosing the source they prefer. — Blue-Haired Lawyer t 17:00, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

This one has been done to death, have a look through the previous years of this talk page. The consensus is that London is the capital of England and there are many sources to support that. Note that the Collins English Dictionary does not say anywhere that London is not the capital of England it merely gives a definition of 'capital' that might allow that conclusion to be drawn. We have the footnote, which I think is right, in fact I put it there, but the current lead reflects the long term consensus. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:48, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps not enough! I happen to agree that London is the capital of England but my opinion and everybody else's doesn't make it. Consensus is irrelevant. Our collective opinion doesn't account for anything. My real point was that on the basis of the definition of the word capital given by Collins English Dictionary wouldn't it be appropriate to put a caveat in the text (or even in a footnote) explaining the basis of our description of London as the capital of England? — Blue-Haired Lawyer t

23:55, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree that there should be a footnote explaining things better. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:17, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Outlook on London (external link)

http://filesmelt.com/dl/3987401_460s.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jesus6767 (talk • contribs) 14:07, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Infobox image

This article is being let down by the current infobox image which is inferior to the more comprehensive New York City page montage. The City of London is given too much prominence at the expense of other landmarks (no St. Pauls!), on the Paris page La Defence is only in the far distance of a panoramic photo. The File:Londoncollage2011.png is similar to the NYC image and has been added a few times by various editors since it was created in December, only for it to be immediately reversed by Rangoon11 usually on the grounds that the previous image is "longstanding".--Paul011089 (talk) 18:12, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Last time I checked St Pauls was in the City of London so your propsed image actually has two images of the City rather than one, as well as two of Canary Wharf where there is currently none.
To be clear, the change of image was reverted because, on balance, the current image is in my view superior. The current montage is in my opinion excellent - I should add that I had no role in its creation - but I am not averse to any change or amendment of it, although more images does not in my mind directly equate with "better".
Some of the images in the new montage I like, some however I don't think are suitable for the infobox. In particular the image of an escalator (which could be from anywhere), of Westfield (a bland shopping mall which only recently opened and is visually generic) and of the Emirates Stadium (not particularly iconic of London and again fairly generic). The image of the London Eye is fine but the present one is in my view clearer.
I also have concerns about whether the images included are in fact free use, the image of the Emirates Stadium looks like it has come straight from a promotional brochure, and the image looking down on the City has been taken from a helicopter. Rangoon11 (talk) 19:28, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Hi, I've just been reading this discussion and I tend to agree with Paul011089 that the "collage 2011" photo is better. It has more images than the (rather dull IMO) original and so reflects more of the city. Apart from anything, it's more up to date because it shows a more current City skyline, which is these days very different from the one shown in the original collage. With even more developments in the City and elsewhere such as The Shard, wouldn't London's olympic year be a great time to update the main image?
Even if there are copyright issues with the "2011" one, that does not mean to say that a similar collage couldn't be created from scratch. The photos could be custom-made for Wikipedia by a generous editor. Personally, I'd recommend the inclusion of the panorama east from Hungerford bridge which takes in not only the City (with St Paul's looking great!), but also the South Bank (inc London Bridge skyline) and the Embankment.
I'm a new editor and so do not have the 'powers' to edit the LDN page but even if I could, I wouldn't replace the photo because I think it's more constructive to have a debate outlining the costs and benefits of changing it instead of entering into an edit war. These are my thoughts and I'd be interested to hear other users' opinions. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:17, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
BTW, I don't by any means think the "2011" version is perfect; the locations you cited as being bland could easily be replaced with the Globe, or Buckingham Palace, or the olympic stadium, or even my Hungerford bridge idea! --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:21, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
Although I do personally like the current montage, which I find aesthetically pleasing - the blues blend together very well for example - and a nice mix of old and new, I have nothing in principal against changing it. I agree that it would be reasonable to update the City panorama image in view of recent developments. We should remember that the possibility exists to replace some, or even just one, of the current images. The picture of Tower Bridge is in my view excellent and should be kept. The picture of the Houses of Parliament is good, and fits very well with the other images, but there is a shadow across part of the building's frontage. New York City used to have a great montage but it was changed recently and in my view is now cluttered, busy and fragmented. I think over five images starts to look too cluttered. Looking at the montages of many major cities it seems that the temptation to add more and more images has not been restrained, often with unfortunate results. A good way forward might perhaps be to post proposed individual images here first for discussion. Rangoon11 (talk) 20:09, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
OK that's agreed then. In the next few days I'll look around the commons for different photos. If there's nothing of interest, hopefully someone with a decent camera will be able to take a couple of new photos (I still think the City from Hungerford Bridge would be great!). I see what you mean about NYC, it does look rather crowded,especially with the Statue *underneath* the overall skyline... not pretty! I think 5 up to date high quality photos would be good for LDN. Personally, I like the Parliament and Tower Bridge pics but I think the wheel's a bit unispiring and the old skyline rather dull. Would the Tower not be a more iconic image of the capital? Perhaps not the best examples, but something like this:
  • Tower 1
    Tower 1
  • Tower 2
    Tower 2
The page Waterloo Bridge (right at the bottom) has an outdated version of the photo I'm on about, but it's a panorama and probably too wide for an infobox. Hopefully other Wikipedians will have something to add on this matter.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:41, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
An image of the Tower is a fair suggestion and the left-hand photo I like and could conceivably see working in the montage. The right-hand photo is a reasonable photo but I don't think that it would work well at a small size in a montage as the main points of interest just get lost. I also find the colours rather dull and lifeless, unlike the left hand image where the sky is a vivid blue which contrasts well with the stonework of the building.
It is also important that the images work well together, as well as independently. This can only be discovered through experimentation. How the colours of the images contrast or blend is in my view important. One of the things that I really like about the current montage is the colours, and the way in which the bottom three images in particular fit well together. Rangoon11 (talk) 22:57, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
  • (1)
    (1)
  • (2)
    (2)
  • (3)
    (3)
  • (4)
    (4)
  • (5)
    (5)
  • (6)
    (6)

The skyline choice currently on Wikipedia seems quite limited. My personal favourite (of Canary Wharf) is (1).

An equivalent one of the City would be in my view preferable, but the only one I can locate is called File:Cityoflondonatnight10.jpg and is currently pending deletion. Perhaps, when it is deleted, someone will replace it with a daytime shot? I have searched famous arial views of London (Parliament Hill, London, Primrose Hill, Alexandra Palace and the London Eye for good skyline pics with no luck. Perhaps an updated version of (2) could be used?

I like how the complex layers of buildings contrast both each other and the moody sky, but think the completed towers and minimal crane impact would imprve the photo further.

In response to an earlier (now banned, but I thought it was a good point they raised!) user's request for the inclusion of St Paul's, the best of a bad bunch are (3) and (4).

I apologise profusely for the terrible formatting! What does anyone else think? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:44, 28 April 2012 (UTC) Urgh, this formatting's even worse than I thought! Would someone please be able to fix it and explain to me where I went wrong? Sorry guys. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:52, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Apologies for another delayed response.
Image (1) of Canary Wharf I really like, and I think could work well in a montage.
Image (2) is not quite right. It would be great if it was a bit to the left, and more focused on the cluster of towers. As it is there is too much foreground and a nasty shadow bottom left. The idea of a picture like this is good in principle however and the image has a great sky.
Image (3) I like the concept and aspect but the image looks a little lifeless and dead although I can't quite put my finger on why. I do however like the idead of a contrast between the white of St Pauls and the darker buildings around. Perhaps if this image was taken again at a slightly different time of day and/or with a better camera, a great montage image could be achieved.
Image (4) is a nice photo in itself but I don't think that this concept would work well at a small size and in a montage, due to too much sky and foreground, and the eye getting lost in the detail of the bridge and the buildings in front of St Pauls. For me this is the type of image which works best at a large size with a white surround. Rangoon11 (talk) 00:57, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
No problem at all about the lateness; participation isn't compulsory! I agree with much of what you have written here and am glad that you like the Canary wharf photo as much as I do. I think in (3), the cathedral dosn't stand out enough from the rest of the picture in itself, because it was taken at such a straight angle. Hoping it'll be taken again is unrealistic methinks because it appears to have been done from the air. So to re-cap, it seems we would both like to keep the Parliament and Tower Bridge pics from the old montage and would also support the inclusiuon of 'Tower 1' (real name: File:Tower of London, April 2006.jpg) and Image (1) (real name: File:Canary Wharf at night, from Shadwell cropped.jpg). Do you know how we might get other users interested? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 19:51, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes that's a fair summary. I'm surprised that thus far no one else has joined the discussion. I have posted a message on the talkpage of the London project to try to get some more people involved. Rangoon11 (talk) 21:18, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi all, just thought I'd dive in (I've never been involved in image montages before, so take what I say with a grain of salt). I think, at the small size we're dealing with, the current is far better than the new. I've lived in London my whole life and I (genuinely) had no idea that was the Emirates Stadium until I read the discussion. I know that's the Westfield logo, but I'm pretty sure that's only because I'm a Londoner. I'd like something transport, but that bottom-right photo isn't the way to do it. From the images above, (1) of Canary Wharf is the only one I'd consider including. Here's my suggestions:  • Keep most of the images from the current montage  • If possible, update the skyline one to include The Shard  • Add something London transport (NB4L, Tube?)  • Include (1). Cheers, Alex Muller 10:33, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems we (Rangoon11) both had the same idea. I went to the call for editors on the LDN project and also the talk pages of the 'cities', 'England' and 'UK Geography' projects. And it seems it might've worked ^ :) Thank you so much for coming along, Alex! I agree there is a lot about the new montage that is bad and I think they managed to pick the dullest tube station in London to put on there (apart from maybe Seven Sisters). What about either (5) or (6), that I've added above? (5) isn't the best photo in the world, I know, but in my view the Piccadilly Circus entrance is the most iconic in London. As a photo, I really like (6), but have reservations on how good it would be to have two big bens in one montage. As you can probably tell from my above messages, I would disagree with you about not including 'Tower 1', but we'll see how it goes. I like your Shard idea and it would be good to get one from the air on the south side of the Shard to get the City in the shot as well, a la the opening sequence from 'The Apprentice'. However, that would be probably quite impractical. I still think a good new shot from the Hungerford Bridge would be good, including the Embankment, St.Paul's, the City, the Shard and even the South Bank. Also, whoever managed to fix the formatting thanks a lot! --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:44, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that we need a transport-related image (why transport rather than education for example, or a museum) but for me the most visually iconic London transport images are the red double-decker bus, the black taxi and the underground map. The station entrances are not particularly, neither are the trains. Note that we have this image in the article already:
The red double-decker bus is an iconic symbol of London
If we are going to keep to five images max then there will probably not be room for a transport image in any case. I think that we are generally agreed that the current top image in the montage is weak and in need of updating. What would be great is if some alternatives could be taken and put up here for discussion. I would offer but at present that is geographically impossible.Rangoon11 (talk) 19:16, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
I will be able to take such photos on my (fairly average) digital camera (nothing a true photographer would be happy with!) but not for several weeks until my A Levels are finished. After that, I should have plenty of time to get down to the South Bank. However, I couldn't guarantee a good quality pic. Perhaps it might be better for someone with a semi-pro camera who can easily get into town soon to do so. Is there a user category of photographers? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:21, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Sports edit

Under "Sports", London has six teams in the Premier League, not five

86.41.116.83 (talk) 02:03, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorted. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:19, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
I marked this as answered, since it seems to be fixed now. RudolfRed (talk) 01:40, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Noteable world "firsts": considerations for opening paragraph

London is considered, rated or ranked a world "first" or leader in several fields that are not included in the opening paragraph, fields that are mentioned in other city wikis. Here are two examples; are these select fields worthy enough to be mentioned in the opening paragraph:

  • "London is considered a world sporting capital"

In May 2012, London was crowned as the world's premier sporting city in a study conducted by the industry-prestigious SportBusiness Group, at the SportAccord convention in Quebec.[1] The study was reported worldwide by many respectable news outlets, such as the BBC[2] and Herald Sun[3], and is cited in numerous government publications worldwide, such Singapore[4] and Australia.[5] Away from this particular ranking, London has often been described as the (or a) world sporting capital, from as far away as the Sydney Morning Herald.[6] Is this statement worthy of inclusion in the opening paragraph?

  • "London's real estate market is among the most expensive in the world"

The wiki page on New York City makes this same assertion in its opening paragraph. If you look at the source provided,[7] NYC ranks 3rd in the world and London ranks 2nd. With an even higher ranking than New York (who deems this statement noteworthy enough to include in its initial paragraph), would it not be even more noteworthy for London to do the same? The expensiveness of London's real estate market is an extremely noteworthy aspect of this city, which includes the world's most expensive residential property.[8] With all things considered, are these two points at least worthy of inclusion in the opening paragraph?

There are a great number of notable facts which could be added to the lead of this article and the line must be drawn somewhere, editorially. Arguably the lead is already slanted too much towards the present with too little historical detail. Arguably there is already too much mention of sport (a whole sentence for the Olympics, then mention of "sporting events", Wimbledon and Wembley Statium in the fourth paragraph. "A world sporting capital" is also a pretty meaningless phrase, and is somewhat duplicative of the "world cultural capital" phrase already in the lead (sport being a (small) part of culture).
The real estate market is an aspect of the current economy, which already receives a fairly large amount of space in the lead. The lead does not mention that London has the largest non-food retail sales of any city in the world. It does not mention that London is home to two of the highest ranked universities in the world (UCL and Imperial).
If the lead is to be expanded at all at this point I think that more historical detail should be added.Rangoon11 (talk) 22:26, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
I agree that there is a limit on how much information can be put in the lead. We should at least make sure though that all the facts noted above are on the body of the article somewhere. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:48, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
I've no problem with inclusion in the main text.Rangoon11 (talk) 22:50, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Cheers, thanks for your speedy replies.Southlondoneye (talk) 11:50, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Eurovision Song Contest templates

According to Rangoon11 (talk · contribs) the template Template:Eurovision Song Contest is trivial and keeps removing the template from this article - actually removing it twice (1 and 2) in a short period of time which the second rerevert goes against WP:BRD anyway. But come someone please explain that a contest that has been going on since 1956, is watched by 125 million viewers worldwide, and brings tourism to the city hosting the contest, how can it be deemed as a "trivial competition" that doesn't hold any notability to the article? London hosted the contest 4 times in the 58-year history, thus meaning it played host to a notable event. Each time London hosted the contest, tourists came to attend, and they spent money in London which in turn helps the economy of London - and yet it is still trivial? Does the user know the difference between what is trivial and what is notable? We are an encyclopaedia, and suppose to be providing as much notable data that is relevant to the articles subject. How do you expect the general viewer to know that London played host to a notable event if the template is removed? Articles on all host cities are vital to the WikiProject Eurovision, they provide information on the host city to people interesting in Eurovision-related articles. It allows a user to find out more about London if they so wish. Other articles include the templates, so why should this one be any different and not contain the template? Also the Project banner appears to have been removed too, why is that so? Wesley Mouse 18:23, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The contest is trivial in the context of London and its history (culturally and even more so in terms of tourism and the economy). As I explained there are a large number of templates which *could* be included here but the line must be drawn somewhere to avoid bloat. For example, despite already having 12 templates, London does not include the template for cities bombed in the Second World War, nor the Hanseatic League template. How can you justify adding a template for this absurd song contest, which is a complete joke in the UK, and not including those templates?Rangoon11 (talk) 18:35, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
You are failing to grasp the core reasons for including content in an article. Regardless of whether you think a contest is a "joke", the fact of the matter is the contest is still notable, it is the personal opinions of the public who think it is a joke. An article is suppose to adhere to a neutral point of view, and we're not to omit content that we personally think shouldn't be there just because we have a personal disliking to something. Not one section in the entire article is there a mentioning that London hosted a notable event 4 times. Yet it mentions over events and musical competitions that are less notable than Eurovision itself. Dublin, Vienna and the other host city articles all mention the fact they hosted a notable event at some stage or another. Why should this article be given a different treatment? I think one needs to familiarise oneself with WP:N and avoid personal judgement of what should get included in an article. We're an encyclopaedia, which hold notable facts - we don't filter out content just because we think something is a joke. Wesley Mouse 18:43, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
The contest is notable, that is not the issue. The issue is whether a Eurovision template should be added to this article, which already has 12 templates, when there are other far more significant templates which have been excluded to avoid bloat.Rangoon11 (talk) 18:51, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Firstly, when an article gets "bloated" with templates then they are permitted to be grouped together in a drop-down template (see Düsseldorf, Paris for examples). The have grouped together individual templates into what I can only describe as storage templates, each one headed in regards to relevance and the templates for that particular headed group are placed into storage. Secondly, the contest is notable, but still doesn't answer the question why hasn't the notable fact been mentioned in the article? London hosted a notable event 4 times. Those 4 times are part of London's history of hosting some form of event. So we just forget those parts of London's history by not including them because one person thinks the contest is a joke? Ha, that excuse alone is more of a joke. This needs wider scope, perhaps RfC or 3O this one, as it is clear that you are not taking the matter seriously, when you keep referring to a contest as trivial/joke. Wesley Mouse 18:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Rangoon, you may find Help:Template handy to read. Wesley Mouse 19:04, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Template is not needed, it is to allow users to navigate between articles and the chances that somebody with an interest in Eurovision would navigate from say London to Dublin because of this template is probably zero. Users would be more likely to navigate between the contest articles not the host cities and London is clearly linked from the contest article. If we had a template for everything that London had hosted in the last 1000 years it would not only be a long list of templates but add no value to the article. MilborneOne (talk) 19:07, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
I can understand that point of view Milborne, but it still doesn't answer my other question as to why there is no mention of London hosting the notable event to begin with. Not even a short sentence is included. Its like a piece of London's history of hosting the contest has just been made invisible because some people hold a personal opinion about it. Wesley Mouse 19:11, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Probably because it is more appropriate in Culture of London. MilborneOne (talk) 19:14, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
I didn't even know Culture of London article existed to be honest with you. But that article doesn't mention anything about the contest either. Its like we're saying that London hosted some contest 4 times but we can't be arsed to tell the general viewer about it because we personally think the contest is a pile of rocking horse pooh. It is just utter ludicrous that we should hide notable information from the people who may want to research such matter. Wesley Mouse 19:21, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
You should not assume the motives of other users, I cant see anybody saying dont include this because its crap, what is being said in the last 1000 years a few international music contests are really not that notable in what is an overview article of London. If it is missing from Culture of London it would be more appropriate than here, wikipedia is a work in progress you could try adding a mention in that article. MilborneOne (talk) 19:51, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not assuming the motives of others. The "its like we're saying" statement is an euphemism, or at least that was the way it suppose to have come across. But one user has explicitly stated the contest is a "joke" that the contest is a "trivial competition", which is basically saying that the contest is a pile of crap and shouldn't get mentioned anywhere. Would you like me to provide diffs for those statements to show that I haven't made things up? Wesley Mouse 19:55, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

OK understood I will withdraw that comment, I dont have an issue with the importance of the contest just that it is not that important in an overview article of London. MilborneOne (talk) 20:03, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
No worries, the cultural article does seem to be the better compromise in all honesty. Plus there are no templates there, so would it be appropriate enough to include the template over there, and perhaps add the project banner too? Wesley Mouse 20:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps you should be bold and see if watchers on that page accept it or not, it would certainly seem a more reasonable place for such information. MilborneOne (talk) 20:24, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

No picture of the Shard

The Shard is now the tallest building in Europe. We should have its picture somewhere in the article. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:18, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


It is extraordinary that the skyline shots are so out of date. I work in the City and it is drastically different from what is on there now. The Heron Tower is now built, the Walkie-Talkie is under construction, as is the Pinnacle, etc. Doesn't reflect well at all. 176.251.26.211 (talk) 15:58, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Probably because this is an encyclopedia not a travel guide, the images dont have to be the most recent. MilborneOne (talk) 18:25, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Intro length

I know this has been discussed before, but isn't the Lead getting a bit over the top? The fourth paragraph with its long list of tourist sites could, to my mind, be taken wholesale into the article. See New York, Tokyo and Paris by way of comparison, all three of which have much tighter, more concise intros. I think we are heading into "let's list everything cool about London in the intro" territory. My proposal is that we do a bit of thinning throughout and basically dump the 4th para, or at least slim it down radically. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 07:17, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that the lead is, overall, about the right length considering the topic and the article length. There is room for adjustment however.
Things that I had been thinking about, but had not yet made an attempt to implement are:
- removing the wording "and the second-most extensive (after the Shanghai Metro)" at the end of the para - what makes the underground most interesting and lead worthy is its age rather than length, and this would remain the case even were it to become only the 20th longest.
- Changing the sentence "London is home to numerous museums, galleries, libraries, sporting events and other cultural institutions, including the British Museum, National Gallery, Tate Modern, British Library, Wimbledon, and 40 West End theatres" to "London is home to numerous museums, galleries, libraries, sporting events and other cultural institutions, including the British Museum, National Gallery, British Library, Wimbledon, and around 40 theatres"
- From the sentence "Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square and Wembley Stadium." removing the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus and Wembley Stadium.
Thoughts?Rangoon11 (talk) 14:32, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Para 4 is really a list of attractions, some of the things it references are not covered in the main article (a no-no) and it's also directly repetitive, the line "London is home to numerous museums, galleries, libraries, etc..." is directly repeated almost verbatim in the Culture section. On the general issue, New York gets by with a much terser intro and it doesn't make sense to have what are basically a list of principal attractions in the Lead - we could have a "London is particularly famous for..." line but long lists of tourist sites like this don't make sense. Not sure why this has happened, they didn't used to be there. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 16:20, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
New York City looks longer to me, I think you are looking at the article of New York state. There is nothing wrong with content from the lead being repeated in the article, this is perfectly normal as the lead is supposed to be a standalone summary of the topic, and of the article. An introduction to London which does not mention the things mentioned in para 4 would in my view be badly lacking.
Do you have any thoughts on the specific ideas I have mentioned above? Rangoon11 (talk) 18:06, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Hmm. What it is? Details about population of city/urban and metropolitan area exist in separate section, data about population within city limits and metropolitan area are sufficient in intro. Data about urban area is redundant in intro. Subtropical-man (talk) 14:15, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
This is a separate issue so should really be in a separate thread. The subject of the article constitutes overwhelmingly the largest part of the urban area to which the reference relates and the information is both highly relevant and useful. Rangoon11 (talk) 18:57, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Largest GDP confusion

The article states "London generates approximately 20 per cent of the UK's GDP[157] (or $446 billion in 2005); while the economy of the London metropolitan area—the largest in Europe—generates approximately 30 per cent of the UK's GDP (or an estimated $669 billion in 2005)". However, in the Paris Wikipedia article, I read "Paris and the Paris Region, with €552.1 billion (US$768.9 billion) in 2009, produce more than a quarter of the gross domestic product of France". Since, Paris is in the EU, how can London have the largest economy in Europe? In addition, the Economy of London article in Wikipedia states that: "London has the sixth largest city economy in the world, after Tokyo, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Paris with a GDP of $565 billion in 2008." Could you please correct this error?

You are comparing figures for 2005 and 2009 mon ami. That London has a larger GDP than Paris when using the same year, and a reliable third-party source, is clear from the PwC report linked to in this article. Rangoon11 (talk) 22:51, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Nonetheless, the article could be more neutral and suggest the two points of view, like the Paris one do, cause firstly, it draws a one direction conclusion from a study which furnishes an insignificant 0.17% difference between the two cities (565 bn for London, 564 for Paris) and secondly ignores another third-party non private institute, Eurostat, which gives opposite results for the same year (491 at PPS for lle-de-France, 376 for Greater London), not to mention that it was before the financial crisis. The true information is that Paris and London have more or less the same weight in terms of gross domestic product, that’s the sole reliable and relevant information, rest is chauvinism cher ami, from both sides. En-bateau (talk) 12:36, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
Agree with the initial comment here - this article is completely biased concerning GDP and also tourism figures. London comes "only" second... to Paris. Like it or not. But what else should we expect from the Brits?


Well, your figures are based on the PwC that is not really a reliable information since it's an estimate, you just have to read the document and the methodology to understand that, you could also take the city mayors study too ! why not ? it just only show a different picture where London doesn't rank 5th. Also, the European union disagrees with that statement : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_in_the_European_Union_by_GDP As you can see, Paris is way ahead London and because of the economic crisis, I'm not sure London is in a better shape. What I fail to understand is why the LUZ is ok to calculate the population and not when it's about GDP ????? all of this doesn't make any sens. Also, I'm afraid there is a huge confusion between what is a metropolitan area, what is an urban area and what is a LUZ in the introduction of the article.

BTW, the largest URBAN AREA is not London, but Paris, it's written here, and it is said by demographia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_urban_areas_of_the_European_Union#Urban_areas_over_750.2C000_inhabitants The rule is simple : Urban areas are contiguous built-up areas where houses are typically not more than 200 m apart or here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_by_population#Urban_areas_.28population_over_2.2C000.2C000.29_ranked_by_2012_projected_population As you can see, both cities have got a A, it means it is a RE-LI-A-BLE population estimates. Maybe you prefer the united nations ? who knows : http://geography.about.com/od/worldcities/a/unlargecities.htm

As for the Metropolitan area you can find a lot of informations here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_in_Europe As you can see, UN and OECD disagree with Eurostat... not just the university of Avignon.

Last but not least, the study made by mastercard about tourism is flawed, they made this study without understanding that Paris was a little bit more than the inner city... Actually, most of the hotel are in the outskirts of the city... so, Paris is way ahead any other city in the world in terms of tourist. Don't you find weird to have got 29 millions of people visiting UK each year with 20.1 in London only ???? really ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings

BTW, in France it's about 80 millions ! but only 18 millions go there... frankly ! lol


It's a shame ! this article is written by teenagers ! we want reliable information, and all we've got is a stupid and chauvinistic and inaccurate article. A kind of propaganda aimed to show how London is powerful... a dope for you, we all know it !

PS : I just read the introduction... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E35:2F2A:5410:AD3B:E7C8:EC93:113C (talk) 00:45, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

+1 my friend. What a chauvinistic wikipedia article. It might not be children who wrote it, but Boris! There is no difference, I know! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.8.33.69 (talk) 14:11, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 25 August 2012

Hello! Please may you change the population of London's urban and metropolitan area's. London's urban area has increased since 2001 from 8,278,251 to 9,086,254 in 2011. And London's metropolitan area has increased from 13,709,000 in 2001 to 15,435,700 in 2011. Powerof97 (talk) 11:56, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

 Not done: Please provide a reliable source for the change. Elockid (Talk) 12:47, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

The last edits about GDP and tourism figures

About GDP, here’s the situation: one study gives almost equal results for London and Paris (PwC: 565 – 564), two others give a slight (McKinsey: 751.8 - 764.2) or large (Eurostat: 376.5 - 490.9) difference at the advantage of Paris. What’s the methodology here? Pick a unique study and not the most recent (PwC), ignore the others (McKinsey and Eurostat) and draw a peremptory conclusion from a ridiculous difference (565-564) which certainly not intersects the margin of error. How can it be justified? The sentence "London is, along with Paris, Europe's biggest city economy and one of the largest in the world.", as mentioned in the Paris article, would be more adapted.

About the tourism figures, I will be less categorical but still critical: Rangoon, you say that “the tourism figures need to be using the same metrics, and from the same third party source” but you had no problem with Euromonitor for a long time, which precisely collects official sources using different metrics: where’s the study since London doesn’t appear at the top anymore? Did it become less reliable? The Mastercard study is based on aerial traffic and compare, from this criterion, cities with very different accessibility characteristics: London is on an island and naturally has a very important aerial traffic. In Paris, more than 40% of the tourists come from border countries (Parisinfo.com), and not by plane for a large part. The last study (the second) partially proceeded to a methodological correction (20.1 for London, 18.1 for Paris in 2011 ; 16.9 for London, 16 for Paris in 2012). But incidentally, there's a problem : according to the first results, 2012 will be a record year for both cities. Moreover the study has another flaw: we can land in a city to visit another which has no airport or only a local airport. I think the Mastercard study is promising and give guarantee of transparency, and since the methodology is clear, I don’t see why we shouldn’t mention it. But in that state it will not replace official hotel statistics which are the most precise statistics we can have. And since you think that we have to compare figures with same metrics, why shouldn’t we compare Greater London with Greater Paris? The results won’t be the same.

Cordially, En-bateau (talk) 10:44, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

The source which was used from McKinsey does not in fact make the statement claimed of it. I read it yesterday all the way through. It is disappointing when editors attempt to use sources for explicit factual claims when the source does not even include the said claim.
I therefore have yet to see a link to a source from either McKinsey or Eurostat which states that Paris has a larger GDP.
Regarding tourism, it is essential that the same metrics be used to enable meaningful comparison. This means that the same third party source must be used for both cities. I note also that the source for Paris which was attempted to be added yesterday was in fact from the Paris tourism promotion agency.
If French editors are concerned about accuracy then I suggest that they focus on the lead of the article for Paris, which contains a number of dubious and improperly cited claims such as "The Paris region is the first in Europe in terms of research and development capability and expenditure", and Paris "has the highest concentration of higher education students in the European Union", both sourced from the wholly non neutral Paris Region Economic Development Agency, and "Paris is the most visited city in the world", which is unsourced. Rangoon11 (talk) 16:59, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
For GDP - McKinsey : http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/13/the_most_dynamic_cities_of_2025 / Eurostat : http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tgs00004&plugin=1
About tourism statistics, you use the same arguments, as if I didn't wrote anything.
For the other claims (about R&D and student statistics), why is this a subject ? Nobody complained and no sources denied these assertions, but you can modify any false information if you have new elements. However, I agree that these sentences are not very essential and shouldn't be mentioned in the lead of the article, I will modify this. But i'm sorry, in the end, the London article is way more pompous than the Paris one and certainly not as neutral.
Incidentally, and once more, I don't know when official institutes (citing other official sources by the way) became more suspect than private institutes depending on private companies.
Cordially, En-bateau (talk) 20:40, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Based upon the source now provided from McKinsey - which I had not seen before as no link had been provided - I have updated the article regarding GDP and added a note of explanation. I have not included the Eurostat source as it uses the Île-de-France region, which includes rather more than the Paris metropolitan area. The subject of this article is also not an NUTS-1 Region of the European Union.
My point regarding arrivals remains, the same metric must be used for each city or the comparison is meaningless. Can you provide a reliable third party source which describes Paris as having more international arrivals than London? I have yet to see one. I have added some clarification in the article on the point however.Rangoon11 (talk) 00:18, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
About Eurostat you confound the areas: the Paris metropolitan area (14,549 km² for 12.1 M inhabitants) is larger than Île-de-France region (12,012 km2 for 11.7 M inhabitants). Moreover, like you say in your note, there are "differences in the definition of the boundaries and population sizes of the areas compared". So I don't see any reason to exclude Eurostat, especially as it shows a stronger difference.
For your observations about tourism, incidentally and just for the contradiction, I didn't see when the Euromonitor study, using different metrics, was a problem for you until London was not at the top anymore. But I always agreed with your new position : studies have to use same metrics, and from this token of neutrality, I'm sure that you will agree that studies have to compare what is comparable. If an institute made a study based on road or rail traffic, maybe you would think that it is not totally adapted. There's no study which furnishes precise statistics for the simple reason that no one have those for all cities. The only precise and reliable figures we can compare are the arrivals in the hotels, but London doesn't furnish that figure. So why Paris authorities claim that it is the most visited city in the world? Maybe it's because it has strong clues : when Greater London had 26.3 million visitors in 2011, Greater Paris had 42 million : these figures reflects the totality of the tourists. Few years ago, Île-de-France region said that approximately 60% of those came from abroad. Secondly, when the city intra-muros was visited by 27 million visitors, 17 million came from abroad (www.paris.fr/viewmultimediadocument?multimediadocument-id=33133) : in other words, a part of Greater Paris was already more visited than the totality of Greater London nowadays... The trends are distinct. Like I said, the Mastercard study is promising (they start to correct methodological flaws) and at least it gives its methodology, but I think a note should mention that the study is based on aerial traffic.
Cordially, En-bateau (talk) 10:08, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes I'm happy to have a note for visitors. I will have a go at adding one. I do understand where you are coming from regarding flaws in the methodologies used by various sources to calculate the "most international visitors" to cities however it remains the case that no single reliable third party source has be provided which contradicts the multiple sources which state London to currently have the most. Your comments are therefore interesting but original research. Rangoon11 (talk) 22:39, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Well, nobody asked you to add such a note for GDP, which is quite useless regarding to the results. And what about Eurostat ? Anyway, you are still evasive to comment on my comments about tourism. We can suppose that, as for Euromonitor, as long as London will be at the top, Mastercard study will be a good and flawless study which doesn't deserve a note. And no way to moderate it with these partial (and far more precise) official sources. We'll deal with it.
Cordially, En-bateau (talk) 09:27, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The timing of the 7/7 bombings in relation the awarding of the 2012 Olympics.

​ The last sentence of the "Late modern and contemporary" section of the History part of the article currently reads "A day after the July 7th terrorist attacks London was awarded the 2012 Summer Olympics, making London the first city to stage the Olympic Games three times." when in fact the Games were awarded to London on July 6th 2005.

Please change "A day after the July 7th terrorist attacks London was awarded the 2012 Summer Olympics, making London the first city to stage the Olympic Games three times." to "A day before the July 7th terrorist attacks London was awarded the 2012 Summer Olympics, making London the first city to stage the Olympic Games three times."

I found a source for that.  Doing... A boat that can float! (watch me float!) 06:33, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
 Done A boat that can float! (watch me float!) 06:57, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Why do we have this news event at all?

Look at the New York page. You will see no mention of a much more significant event, the September_11_attacks. I think the NY article has got it right, cities are not defined by terrorist actions. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:54, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

You were confused which article you were reading. New York is about the state, and says so at the top of the article; the article about the city is New York City, which does mention (and link to) the September 11 attacks. David Biddulph (talk) 14:12, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
The attacks of September 11 killed over 3,000 and changed the course of world history including two major wars, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, restrictions on civil liberties and changes to airport security. They also involved the destruction of three of the largest skyscrapers in the world.
The events of 7/7 are simply not comparable in terms of scale and I'm not personally convinced that they warrant a mention in this article. Rangoon11 (talk) 17:59, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
The two attacks are not comparable in scale and world-changing power, no. The 7/7 attacks did not kill thousands. Neither did they remove a noticeable landmark from London's cityscape. But this is not an article about significant criminal events, or even about ways in which London has changed the world. This is a page about London. In particular, this is a section about the history of London.
The 7 July 2005 was a very significant day for London and Londoners. As far as I am aware, it was the first successful terrorist attack on the British mainland since the days of the IRA. It had a profound impact on the psyche of London's people. Its timing, just one day after the announcement that London had won the right to host the Olympics, was impeccable in bringing the city crashing back to the real world. It did affect security at the airport; before it we never had to take our shoes off or dispose of baby's milk bottles when boarding a plane. There were never constant announcements on stations about leaving ones baggage unattended and there were not frequent security alerts brought about by such unattended items until after July 2005. So, our civil liberties have been adversely affected by this event.
The attacks made the people of London and the country as a whole realise that terrorists did not have to come from far off lands or war zones. The perpetrators of these attacks were British, they lived in this country. It alerted people to the fact that there is a very real danger of the so-called radicalisation of young men and women from the UK.
Politics aside, I would argue that few events have more defined the recent history of London. Go and ask random people in the streets of London what happened to the city on 7/7 and I'd wager that 9 people out of 10 would respond correctly. Citing other events in the 'late modern and contemporary history' section, how many of the ten would know why Canary Wharf was built, or when the Thames Barrier was constructed, or indeed what year the race riots in Brixton took place? Not very many I think.
A comparable event, the massacre in Norway of last year, is mentioned in the page Norway's history section. This event had little impact on the world as a whole. Yes, it appalled us and it reminded us all how dangerous the followers of Nazi-style ideologies can be, but it didn't exactly bring about any profound change in the world. Yet it did affect the people of Norway in a massive way and will continue to do so for many years to come, just like 7/7's legacy will continue to haunt Londoners for decades.
Norway's article has a concise and tastefully brief mention of Anders Breivik's actions: "In 2011 Norway suffered a pair of devastating attacks conducted by Anders Behring Breivik which struck the government quarter in Oslo and a summer camp of the Labour party's youth movement at Utøya island, resulting in 77 deaths and 96 wounded."
There is no reason why London's worst massacre since the 1941 Blitz can't have a similar mentioning. Granted there shouldn't be a big thing made of it, because although it was significant it wasn't exactly the event of the century, but it does deserve to be included (after the Olympics announcement for continuity's sake).
I'd just like to end this rather essay-like response with a final thought. A good way of judging whether to include a particular event in a brief summarised history of events is to consider whether the event in question will be taught in history classes of the future. I would be very surprised if these attacks do not one day feature very prominently in 21st century British history modules in secondary schools all over London and the UK.
Anyway, that's enough from me for now. Goodnight all and enjoy the rest of your weekends, whatever they may consist of. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:06, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
ThunderingTyphoons, I have to disagree with some of your statements and implications above. Firstly, is there any evidence to show that the attack was timed to coincide with the Olympic announcement? This seems extremely unlikely to me since, until the announcement, no one knew that London was to host the Olympics. The attack had clearly been planned in advance.
Checking of shoes and liquids at airports was not a result of the 7/7 attack but of the shoe bomber and a foiled attempt to detonate a liquid explosive on an aircraft.
You say, 'few events have more defined the recent history of London'. I do not thinks so, these events have had no lasting effect and I do not think there are specially in the minds of Londoners.
The radicalisation of Brits has no special connection with London. Martin Hogbin (talk) 23:26, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. I was there in London on that day and the attacks certainly had no lasting effect on me or my view of London or the UK. Life went back to normal very quickly. The riots last year, despite not killing anyone, were in my view a more significant event, although I wouldn't include them either. This is a history of the city over its entire very long history and these events are in the scheme of things minor. Rangoon11 (talk) 00:32, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
No there is no evidence for the timing of the bombings being for the Olympics, but that wasn't really what I was saying. I was more referring to how their coincidental timing was sufficient to overshadow the 'Olympic feel-good factor'.
I will concede that Martin's version of how the horrendous airport security checks came to be sounds more plausible than my own, so I won't labour that particular point anymore. However, I remain skeptical at both your conclusions that the event does not qualify as a significant historical event. Rangoon11, you state that the riots were more significant despite not killing anybody. Why do you think this? Is it because they were more widespread, or more recent so you remember the atmosphere they created more vividly than the bombs?
Both of your assertions that the bombings have caused no lasting effect are understandable, but is that the only thing that makes events interesting or valuable to a wider historical picture? I would also like to hear of all of these events that "have more defined the recent history of London". The Para-jubi-lympic summer, the financial crash and the millennium celebrations certainly have, but what else? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:19, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I would say that a significant historical event should be one that changed the look or skyline of the city, the way it works, the way its inhabitants feel about it, its relationship with other cities, or the way that it is perceived by the outside world.
The only one of these that might IMO be relevant is how London is percieved by the outside world. Had London been free from terrorist attacks until 7/7 there might be an argument for saying that the attacks changed outsider's views of the city (even though similar terrorist attacks have occurred in many other capital cities), however, the IRA attacks had already had a larger impact on London life and how the city was seen by others. I do not think the 7/7 attacks produced any significant change in attitude towards London. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:29, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I might like to argue that the attacks could have potentially changed the way Londoners felt about their own city, that despite it becoming a less safe place to be, it and its people were determined to not be scared into submission. However, this reaction is unlikely to be particularly unique or distinctive to London and judging by the previous posts on this thread I'm unlikely to change either of your opinions.
With this in mind, unless there be any forthcoming postings from users that share my position, I'd like to withdraw my opposition to the attack's exclusion from this article. I haven't changed my position on whether it should be in there (it certainly should, IMO) but I can see that I'm in the minority so will (hopefully graciously!) admit defeat. I'll be back... :D --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:18, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 10-1-12

I do not know where else to put my edit insertion suggestion.....as there is no previous editing about London's religions.

I would, myself, edit that whole first paragraph about London's "Christianity" (and other beliefs) but it would be a major undertaking, and I do not have that much time. So I will give you the updated facts here, and hope at some time that I see my edit incorporated into the "London" page.

Per my church's previous Assistant Pastor's wife (who worked for the Christian organization Biblica - before she resigned for reasons she would not disclose to me).....when I talked with her about being upset after reading how totally out of control Britain has become regarding the newspaper-reported rampant teen pregnancies, and since then also reading that the British government has allowed followers of Paganism to become an official religion - Cheryl told me that Britain (and possible the whole British Isles) has been "Post-Christian" ever since Henry the VIII killed the head of the Catholic church, and had many of the catholic churches throughout Britain burned. And I have since read that the Anglican church (which may also be the Church of England) is not based on the Bible at all. The ONLY thing the Anglican "church" follows is 2 books of someone's prayers. THAT'S IT !!! And considering that Henry VIII started the Church of England on what he wanted to do and believe......there is almost no biblical foundation to that religious entity either.

Per CRU's (formorly Campus Crusade for Christ) general website, and newspaper articles......Britain is 87% atheist, 7 to 10% agnostic, leaving only a very few percent other religions, and Chrisitanity (however vague it is over there) at only 5 - 6%. Therefore, Britain is NOT Christian.

However, there IS a small, but growing Christian happening throughout the British Isles, especially in Britain - this new Christianity IS based not on following the dogma of theocratic religion, but with the emphasis of each person learning about how Jesus did His ministry against the Romans, and acceptance of Jesus as Savior. (Jesus' rebellion against the Romans seems to "hit a nerve" with Brits, especially the younger ones - they relate to Jesus more through that angle). — Preceding unsigned comment added by PedroPointGirl (talk • contribs) 16:23, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Any such section, as indeed any and all content on Wikipedia, would need to be accompanied by reliable sources, per WP:RELIABLE, rather than personal observation. 76.248.149.47 (talk) 16:28, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
"Cheryl told me that Britain (and possible the whole British Isles) has been "Post-Christian" ever since Henry the VIII killed the head of the Catholic church, and had many of the catholic churches throughout Britain burned." - You may want to read our articles about Henry VIII and the English Reformation, rather than listen to 'Cheryl'. The Church of England has many problems, and is not now nearly as dominant as it used to be, but I don't think its dominance over much of the period since Henry VIII would allow one honestly to describe the nation as 'post-Christian'. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:05, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 11 December 2012

Religion demographics section needs to be updated with 2011 census data. It has been updated in the main article Religion in London. Census data can be take from there or is available from the government weblink

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-286262


Hussaintutla (talk) 12:58, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Not done: please make your request in a "change X to Y" format. Rivertorch (talk) 05:07, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

snow

london averages at least 12 inches of snow per year — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.226.19.183 (talk) 14:59, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

French community

It's been estimated that there are between 300,000 400,000 French people living in London (see here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18234930), but this article reports only 66,000. What explains the discrepancy? 108.254.160.23 (talk) 00:26, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 12 January 2013 London

Hello Editors for London page,

My Zns Smith and I would like to request to edit info on London’s page. This additional text I have provides important overlooked historical facts regarding London. Thank you.

Zns Smith (talk) 19:40, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

 Not done as no specific change was specified. "This template may only be used when followed by a specific description of the request, that is, specify what text should be removed and a verbatim copy of the text that should replace it." --McGeddon (talk) 19:43, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Issues that need to be addressed on the London article of Wikipedia

I have a few points to mention here, which I shall list in order:


1) I believe the picture montage in the article's infobox needs to be changed as it is outdated due to a number of recent building that have been built in London as well as leaving out other iconic landmarks and not including providing enough images to give a bigger picture of London. For example, the Heron Tower has already been built in the City of London, as well as others currently under construction such as 122 Leadenhall Street and 20 Fenchurch Street. In addition, The Shard has been completed since 2012 and deserves a place in the montage, already having become a very recognisable landmark, as well as holding the prestigious title of being the tallest building in London. Buckingham Palace is more worthy of being in the montage than the London Eye, being more recognisable, iconic and having been part of the history of London and the United Kingdom for much longer. Likewise with Big Ben, St.Paul's Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus, Canary Wharf/Isle of Dogs, Oxford Circus (and its station) etc.

I agree, The Shard is the tallest building in Europe and certainly deserves a place. Would you like to compile a new montage? Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:24, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
If it helps at all, I raised the same point several months ago and there was quite a lengthy exchange of ideas before the inevitable loss of interest and drying up of contribution. I expect if you access the archives of this talk page, then you can read it (if it helps at all or you have any desire to that is).
I don't think the montage should be too 'busy'- 5 or 6 high quality photos at the most would be sufficient. One of those should be a skyline (preferably the City incorporating the Shard somehow). I'm not convinced of the need for including the Isle of Dogs as well. I like the current image of the Palace of Westminster and think that the Eye is certainly more iconic than either Trafalgar Square (which is really too wide and flat in my opinion for a montage) or Oxford Circus (which is just a road junction, nothing exceptional). I would support the inclusion of St Paul's (possibly from the Millennium Bridge or Bankside if there's such a photo on Commons) and Piccadilly Circus (preferably at night with the billboards lit up). I wouldn't oppose Buckingham Palace on principle (I agree it's very iconic) but I wouldn't prioritise it over the others. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:37, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

2) The statement that London "is the world's leading financial centre alongside New York City" is contradicted by the article on New York city which states that New York City is the "financial capital of the world". Having looked at the references on the New York City article, many of them are not relevant to the statement made. For example, one reference is from a book with no clear indication of any text that supports the statement, or a an easy way to access it and verify any information without obtaining a physical copy. Another reference, titled "New York Eclipses London as Financial Center in Bloomberg Poll" is also irrelevant, as as it based on an opinion poll, with no other evidence and results that can vary hugely when conducted at other times and in other locations. Furthermore, whilst the reference "Xinhua-Dow Jones International Financial Centers Development Index (2011)" includes a table, marginally placing New York at the top, the document also comments that "New York and London rank the top two and take an absolute dominant position among the international financial centers". It is absurd to claim New York is the financial capital when both are so far ahead of others and both are labelled as "dominant", as opposed to just New York being called 'dominant' or the 'leading financial city'. Lastly, there is an article in Spanish which cannot be accurately be used as a reference by anyone other than those who are fluent in Spanish and understand the language fully.

That comment looks more like it should be directed at the New York article. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:24, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

3)Looking at the references for the statement that London "is the world's leading financial centre alongside New York City", there is in fact actually more to suggest that London is the one leading financial centre. It ranks 1st by a sizeable margin in the "Worldwide Centres of Commerce Index 2008". It also ranks (marginally) 1st in "Global Financial Centres 9" with the comment that "London’s position is still regarded by many as virtually untouchable". Forbes' "World's Most Economically Powerful Cities" also ranks London as 1st. Numerous other references I found online such http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london-is-the-world-capital-of-the-21st-century-says-new-york-7179018.html also support this, as even the New York Times themselves pay "homage to London, claiming the financial, cultural and culinary benefits now tower over those of its home city" Furthermore, the highly reliable, relevant and perhaps biggest indicator that London is the world's financial capital is the Global Financial Centres Index http://www.longfinance.net/Publications/GFCI%2012.5.pdf, which ranks London as 1st, a significant percentage above New York, in the most recent (January 2013) rankings yet.

This subject is often under discussion. The current statement was intended to be less controversial. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:24, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

My edit of the London page on 22:21, 25 January 2013 clearly shows the information with all reliable sources. For some reason however, it was undone by MazabukaBloke. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kishan95 (talk • contribs)

I think these issues need to be looked at and the relevant wikipedia article edited to amend these points. Kishan95 (talk) 01:54, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Mazukabloke, Kishan95 presented some good arguments and sources for his changes. What are your objections? Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:24, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
I am sorry Martin, I was not seeing your question before now. The sources you are quoting are seeming to be old or unreliable. And in the case of the Global Financial Centres Index, I am personally not putting much stock in this source because several prominent (North) American and Indian cities are strangely missing from the list which are financial centres in their own right. A UK-based source is also arousing suspicion because it is a small country relative to others and is probabilistically breeding additional bias, I feel, although this is not the main point. The "New York is the top" sources are seeming to be stronger and more convincing also. In my heart of hearts, I am believing that London is carrying nowhere near the breadth or dephth of New York as a financial centre, and furthermore, London may be imminently in danger of falling to the third spot, behind an Asian city. I would actually be feeling more comfortable saying, "London is the second largest financial centre, after New York City", but I can be compromising as well. But I am definitely not comfortable to say that London is the largest financial centre on its own. What is far more concerning to me, however, is that adding in trivial nonsense and exaggeratingly coloured statements will jeopardise the Featured Article status of our neutrally crafted page thus far. Let us please be keeping the encyclopaedic nature of our page in place. (And incidentally, I am hoping for the London Eye to stay in the montage, because it is being photographically attractive!) MazabukaBloke (talk) 16:24, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
They are not my sources and I am not supporting any city. I am suggesting that, together with editors of the NYC article (and any other contenders for the title) we should look at all the sources in a neutral manner and see if any conclusion can be reached.
My opinion is that, if there is not a clear and consistent winner, then we should avoid using the term 'financial capital' for any city and use something like 'a leading world finance centre'. (I agree with you about the Eye). Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:13, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Furthermore, if there is sufficient evidence (i.e. the number of reliable sources pointing to London specifically outnumber those claiming for NYC) then I don't think being 'controversial' is an issue. This is an encyclopaedia and shouldn't neglect to report the facts, even if those facts upset some people. What might need to be done is a debate between the editors of this page and the New York page to see if we can come to a consensus on this issue once and for all.
I make it sound so easy... --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:50, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps it might be a good idea to first discuss the principles on which a decision might be made. Martin Hogbin (talk) 00:01, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I propose restoring Kishan95's edit

As no reason has been given for reverting Kishan95's edit and Kishan95 has given good supporting references, I propose restoring it unless anyone can give a good reason not to. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:22, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

The only good reason I can think of is that this article would then be contradicting others such as the NYC one. However, I do think that there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that London is indeed the "financial capital of the world" rather than just a leading centre alongside New York, especially when the sources provided for the latter's statement don't demonstrate what they claim to (rather they show London as top, not "alongside" anywhere). I think the [WP:PROVEIT|burden of proof] lies with those such as Mazabukabloke who are blocking the change to find sources to prove their claim. By contrast, a single article from Vogue magazine isn't really enough to claim London as the fashion capital of the world. Furthermore, I also think we should talk more about the infobox montage (but preferably under the right section of this page). --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:21, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I have placed a comment on the NYC talk page suggesting we look at this issue. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:39, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Nicely done, I hope you don't mind me editing your post so it links to this discussion? New York editors may not immediately realise where to go since there isn't any conversation specifically titled 'world financial capital'. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:52, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
No problem. I think we should try to talk as generally as possible about in what circumstances a city should have such an accolade and what sources would be needed to support it. The discussion would have general applicability to other cities and accolades. Martin Hogbin (talk) 19:17, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
I take it that your edit to NYC is intended as a precursor for (depending on the outcome of the discussion of course) eventually describing London's position as higher than that of New York? Just to raise an alternative, we could just keep both cities' articles as claiming to be joint first, which could be more accurate since it is likely that the 1st and 2nd positions will likely switch repeatedly in future (as they have done in the past). It's kind of like claiming Oxford to be the top uni in the UK, when in fact Cambridge is often rated better. Anyway, that's two potential conclusions of this discussion, a third (and least desirable) option would be to just stick to the long-standing status quo. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:27, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
I am keeping a completely open mind. We need to decide how such an issue should be decided and then see where that leads us. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:04, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Etymology of London

Others believe that London derived from Slavonic words "Lono" and "don" which being combined means "river bosom" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulnewyork2000 (talk • contribs) 23:18, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Unlikely story. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 23:37, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
That's putting it mildly, although if he can find a wp:reliable source he's welcome to post it here so we can explain how anything that would say that is not at all a reliable source.
Second, you have to love that "bosom" is the first Wiktionary entry I've ever seen that includes an image. ^_^  — LlywelynII 06:00, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation of London

I'm sure it's there because someone thinks it's appropriate, but it simply isn't. We already have that information at wiktionary and it's frankly ridiculous that anyone who could read this article at all ("conurbation" shows up in the first paragraph) can't already pronounce the word. I could see the point at something like Worchestershire where the pronunciation has no basis whatever in the spelling, but London's not even one where the RP and American pronunciation differ at the IPA level.

When consensus-change time comes here or at some obscure corner of the MOS, kindly add my name on the list.  — LlywelynII 06:09, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Just because something is widely known does not mean that we should not include it in WP. There may be some people who do not know how to pronounce 'London'. Its English spelling is not pronounced phonetically after all. Martin Hogbin (talk) 19:02, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

London flag

Could someone add londons flag please 46.19.138.110 (talk) 16:04, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

This one or this one? And where do you think it should go? Rivertorch (talk) 19:55, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

RfC on 'Financial capital of the World'

There is an RfC on whether any city should be described as the 'financial capital of the world' at Talk:World_financial_capital. Editors here are welcome to comment. Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:08, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

The RfC has now expired with a clear consensus not to use the term 'financial capital of the world'. I have changed both the London and New York City articles to say 'one of the world's leading financial centres/centers'. Now this argument has been resolved, I suggest that some of the excessive references are removed. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:42, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 14 March 2013

I guess, in Paragraph 3/4: Population, people and demographics, the sentence should start with "As a multicultural city", instead of "A multicultural city". I can`t give any references, its only based on my language comprehension. 93.203.162.137 (talk) 11:39, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

 Not done The grammar and convention there is fine. TBrandley (review) 14:33, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I just removed that phrase, which was added in this edit, and is redundant to "London has a diverse range of... cultures" which follows it. – Wbm1058 (talk) 14:58, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Why is it described as the biggest city in the EU, not ? in the world?

Is there any reason for this other than POV to make it look more important? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_by_population gives 34 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population gives 21 94.139.28.177 (talk) 06:24, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

  • I don't think there's anything wrong with local comparisons. It would be silly, for example, to say that Canterbury is the 8259th largest city in the world, but to say it's the 5th largest city in Kent (or whatever it is) would be more useful. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 11:11, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Winchester the Anglo-Saxon capital?

‎Til Eulenspiegel has restored the statement, which I deleted, that Winchester was the capital of Anglo-Saxon England. He states that his view is based on carefully researched facts, but the source cited is Frank Stenton's standard history, Anglo-Saxon England, which says the opposite: "In the eleventh century the conception of a capital city had not yet taken definite shape anywhere in the west. The centre of government in England was the king's mobile court." (page 539)

Other academic historians take the same view. For example, the article on Winchester in the Blackwell Encylopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, makes no mention of it being the capital. Is there any source by an academic expert which states that Winchester was the capital? Dudley Miles (talk) 19:33, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Did you even look to see if you can find any before asking? Or is this that old game where any source stating Winchester was the capital automatically becomes "not by an academic expert" according to you? For starters, I found the following book titles with about five seconds of searching google books:
  • Historic Winchester: England's first capital
  • Historic sketches round about Winchester: the old capital of England
  • The Pictorial History of Winchester: In Ancient Times the Royal Capital of England (1962 book)
  • Royal Winchester: Wanderings in and about the Ancient Capital of England

I could continue, but that's just book titles, never mind hundreds of other books stating this fact but not in the title. Stenton is speaking specifically of only the 11th century, it seems, not the time previous to that. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 21:04, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

You have edited so as to make Stenton the source for stating that Winchester was the old capital, when he stated the opposite. He said that the conception of a capital had not yet taken definite shape by the eleventh century, so he was not just referring to that period. Professor Sir Frank Merry Stenton was a leading authority on Anglo-Saxon England and president of the Royal Historical Society. The other source I cited, the article on Winchester, is by Dr John Crook, an authority on Winchester and the author of books published by the Oxford and Yale University Presses. The idea that England had a capital in the Anglo-Saxon period is current among popular authors, but I have never seen it in an academic history. Maybe there are serious historians who think Winchester was the capital, but if so you need to cite them as your source, not just list book titles on the talk page without even giving the names of the authors. Dudley Miles (talk) 00:12, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
You missed my point, which is, it wouldn't take a very large IQ for anyone to be able to come up with abundant reliable academic sources stating that Winchester was indeed the capital of Anglo-Saxon England. And this isn't "current among popular authors", it is what serious academic authors have stated for centuries. I don't need to waste my time proving that the ocean is wet if you still want to argue that Winchester was not the Anglo-Saxon capital. I did come across something Stenton wrote where he seems to be the lone dissenter challenging Winchester's role as former capital. But what he wrote certainly didn't disprove Winchester being the capital; on the contrary, he merely recited some of the most common evidence that it was the capital, and then dismissively pooh-poohed it as 'inconclusive' without really proving or disproving anything. The consensus of 99% of the sources, however, is that it was the capital. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 02:48, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
First you say that Stenton was referring only to the 11th century, and when I point out that this is wrong you claim that he was the lone dissenter. If you can cite reliable sources then cite them in the article. Wikipedia rules require you to cite reliable sources, not claim they exist on the talk page to justify an edit which makes an author the authority for the opposite of what he says. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:40, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
You seem to suffer from reading comprehension as well. What I said at first was that it looked like Stenton may have been referring to the 11th century only. But then, (without even having seen your "correction") I looked a little deeper and came across something Stenton wrote where he offhandedly brushes off the commonly held consensus that Winchester was indeed the capital of England, without actually getting into any evidence that it wasn't, or anything like that. So either Stenton is right and the rest of the world is wrong, or Winchester was the capital of first Wessex and then all England like everyone else says. With all these many hundreds of reliable sources affirming unequivocally that Winchester was the capital of England, I do hope I can be forgiven for supposing that Winchester was the capital of England. Once again, with today's technology, any fool should be able to find copious sources attesting this with minimal effort (a few seconds at most), so I'm not sure what the major hang-up is here. I don't have to "prove" something that is common knowledge like the ocean is wet to someone who wants to be a blockhead and demand sources for that fact.Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:19, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Robert Rouse in The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance, p.152 quotes another leading historian of Anglo-Saxon England, Barbara Yorke, as saying that speaking of a capital is misleading in the ninth century. He says that Winchester's rise to prominence began under Alfred the Great, and it seems to have replaced Southampton as the seat of royal adminstration in Wessex in the late ninth century. It grew in importance in the tenth and eleventh centuries to become one of the two chief cities alongside London, reaching its zenith immediately after the Norman Conquest. This is very different from saying that Winchester was the capital, an old idea still propagated by popular authors but now regarded by historians as anachronistic. However, as I have no intention of getting into an edit war, no doubt the misinformation will remain. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Winchester was indubitably the "seat of royal administration" going at least as far back as Alfred. It seems hard to come up with a definition of "capital" designed to include London but exclude Winchester by saying "a seat of royal administration is not the same thing as a capital". And as a technical point, William the Conqueror even officially proclaimed both Winchester and London as his dual capitals, making his reign a transitional period between the old capital and the current one. So the debate is indeed strictly "academic", if only they would look at the full documentation. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 21:41, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
Sarah Foot, Oxford University Professor of History, in her biography Æthelstan: the first king of England, pp. 78-79: "Even if the court spent increasing amounts of time there, especially in Elder the Edward's day, this did not make Winchester the 'capital' of Wessex, or of the expanded English realm. It remained just one of the West Saxon king's many royal residences, albeit apparently a favourite one for the family in death as well as in life. Æthelstan did not, however, share his father's preference. His difficult relationship with some factions in Winchester may in part have accounted for his seldom spending time there..." Dudley Miles (talk) 15:11, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
See also An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England by Peter Hunter Blair, p. 213: "For most of the Anglo-Saxon period kings moved about the country without any permanent capital, living upon royal estates or their subjects. There is some evidence that by the beginning of the eleventh century Winchester had come to be regarded as the permanent resting-place of the king's treasure chests." Dudley Miles (talk) 11:49, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
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