title: London

text: The London Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service for Greater London, run by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. It is the third largest fire service in the world. National Health Service ambulance services are provided by the London Ambulance Service (LAS) NHS Trust, the largest free-at-the-point-of-use emergency ambulance service in the world. The London Air Ambulance charity operates in conjunction with the LAS where required. Her Majesty's Coastguard and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution operate on the River Thames, which is under the jurisdiction of the Port of London Authority from Teddington Lock to the sea.


title: London

text: London is the seat of the Government of the United Kingdom. Many government departments, as well as the prime minister's residence at 10 Downing Street, are based close to the Palace of Westminster, particularly along Whitehall. There are 73 members of Parliament (MPs) from London, elected from local parliamentary constituencies in the national Parliament. , 49 are from the Labour Party, 21 are Conservatives, and three are Liberal Democrats. The ministerial post of minister for London was created in 1994. The current Minister for London is Paul Scully MP.


title: London

text: Policing in Greater London, with the exception of the City of London, is provided by the Metropolitan Police ("The Met"), overseen by the mayor through the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC). The Met is also referred to as Scotland Yard after the location of its original headquarters in a road called Great Scotland Yard in Whitehall. The City of London has its own police force – the City of London Police. The British Transport Police are responsible for police services on National Rail, London Underground, Docklands Light Railway and Tramlink services.


title: London

text: The Ministry of Defence Police is a special police force in London, which does not generally become involved with policing the general public.


title: London

text: Crime rates vary widely across different areas of London. Crime figures are made available nationally at Local Authority and Ward level. In 2015, there were 118 homicides, a 25.5% increase over 2014. The Metropolitan Police have made detailed crime figures, broken down by category at borough and ward level, available on their website since 2000.


title: London

text: Recorded crime has been rising in London, notably violent crime and murder by stabbing and other means have risen. There were 50 murders from the start of 2018 to mid April 2018. Funding cuts to police in London are likely to have contributed to this, though other factors are also involved.


title: London

text: London, also known as Greater London, is one of nine regions of England and the top subdivision covering most of the city's metropolis. The City of London at its core once comprised the whole settlement, but as its urban area grew, the Corporation of London resisted attempts to amalgamate the City with its suburbs, causing "London" to be defined several ways.


title: London

text: Forty per cent of Greater London is covered by the London post town, in which 'LONDON' forms part of postal addresses. The London telephone area code (020) covers a larger area, similar in size to Greater London, although some outer districts are excluded and some just outside included. The Greater London boundary has been aligned to the M25 motorway in places.


title: London

text: Further urban expansion is now prevented by the Metropolitan Green Belt, although the built-up area extends beyond the boundary in places, producing a separately defined Greater London Urban Area. Beyond this is the vast London commuter belt. Greater London is split for some purposes into Inner London and Outer London, and by the River Thames into North and South, with an informal central London area. The coordinates of the nominal centre of London, traditionally the original Eleanor Cross at Charing Cross near the junction of Trafalgar Square and Whitehall, are about . Based on the centre of gravity of its map, the geographical centre of London is in the London Borough of Lambeth, to the north-east of Lambeth North tube station.


title: London

text: Within London, both the City of London and the City of Westminster have city status and both the City of London and the remainder of Greater London are counties for the purposes of lieutenancies. The area of Greater London includes areas that are part of the historic counties of Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, Essex and Hertfordshire. London's status as the capital of England, and later the United Kingdom, has never been granted or confirmed by statute or in written form.


title: London

text: Its status as a capital was established by constitutional convention, which means its status as "de facto" capital is a part of the UK's uncodified constitution. The capital of England was moved to London from Winchester as the Palace of Westminster developed in the 12th and 13th centuries to become the permanent location of the royal court, and thus the political capital of the nation. More recently, Greater London has been defined as a region of England and in this context is known as "London".


title: London

text: Greater London encompasses a total area of an area which had a population of 7,172,036 in 2001 and a population density of . The extended area known as the London Metropolitan Region or the London Metropolitan Agglomeration, comprises a total area of has a population of 13,709,000 and a population density of .


title: London

text: Modern London stands on the Thames, its primary geographical feature, a navigable river which crosses the city from the south-west to the east. The Thames Valley is a flood plain surrounded by gently rolling hills including Parliament Hill, Addington Hills, and Primrose Hill. Historically London grew up at the lowest bridging point on the Thames. The Thames was once a much broader, shallower river with extensive marshlands; at high tide, its shores reached five times their present width.


title: London

text: Since the Victorian era the Thames has been extensively embanked, and many of its London tributaries now flow underground. The Thames is a tidal river, and London is vulnerable to flooding. The threat has increased over time because of a slow but continuous rise in high water level caused by climate change and by the slow 'tilting' of the British Isles (up in Scotland and Northern Ireland and down in southern parts of England, Wales and Ireland) as a result of post-glacial rebound.


title: London

text: In 1974 a decade of work began on the construction of the Thames Barrier across the Thames at Woolwich to deal with this threat. While the barrier is expected to function as designed until roughly 2070, concepts for its future enlargement or redesign are already being discussed.


title: London

text: London has had a small number of earthquakes over the years, notably those of 1750 which macroseismic information indicates had their epicentres directly under the city. In 2018, two active faults were discovered running parallel to each other, directly under the centre of the city. Furthermore, the city has been damaged at least twice (with fatalities) in the earthquakes of 1382 and 1580. Those earthquakes had their epicentres under the English Channel. London's building code is being redrawn so that every new structure must be able to withstand an earthquake of at least 6.5 on the Richter scale.


title: London

text: London has a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb"). Rainfall records have been kept in the city since at least 1697, when records began at Kew. At Kew, the most rainfall in one month is in November 1755 and the least is in both December 1788 and July 1800. Mile End also had in April 1893. The wettest year on record is 1903, with a total fall of and the driest is 1921, with a total fall of . The average annual precipitation amounts to about 600 mm, which is half the annual rainfall of New York City, but also lower than Rome, Lisbon, and Sydney, Australia. Despite its relatively low annual precipitation, London still receives 109.6 rainy days on the 1.0 mm threshold annually. However, London is vulnerable to climate change in the United Kingdom, and there is increasing concern among hydrological experts that London households may run out of water before 2050.


title: London

text: Temperature extremes in London range from at Heathrow on 19 July 2022 down to at Northolt on 1 January 1962. Records for atmospheric pressure have been kept at London since 1692. The highest pressure ever reported is on 20 January 2020.


title: London

text: Summers are generally warm, sometimes hot. London's average July high is 23.5 °C (74.3 °F). On average each year, London experiences 31 days above and 4.2 days above . During the 2003 European heat wave prolonged heat led to hundreds of heat-related deaths. There was also a previous spell of 15 consecutive days above in England in 1976 which also caused many heat related deaths. A previous temperature of in August 1911 at the Greenwich station was later disregarded as non-standard. Droughts can also, occasionally, be a problem, especially in summer, most recently in summer 2018, and with much drier than average conditions prevailing from May to December. However, the most consecutive days without rain was 73 days in the spring of 1893.


title: London

text: Winters are generally cool with little temperature variation. Heavy snow is rare but snow usually falls at least once each winter. Spring and autumn can be pleasant. As a large city, London has a considerable urban heat island effect, making the centre of London at times warmer than the suburbs and outskirts. This can be seen below when comparing London Heathrow, west of London, with the London Weather Centre.


title: London

text: Places within London's vast urban area are identified using district names, such as Mayfair, Southwark, Wembley, and Whitechapel. These are either informal designations, reflect the names of villages that have been absorbed by sprawl, or are superseded administrative units such as parishes or former boroughs.


title: London

text: Such names have remained in use through tradition, each referring to a local area with its own distinctive character, but without official boundaries. Since 1965 Greater London has been divided into 32 London boroughs in addition to the ancient City of London. The City of London is the main financial district, and Canary Wharf has recently developed into a new financial and commercial hub in the Docklands to the east.


title: London

text: The West End is London's main entertainment and shopping district, attracting tourists. West London includes expensive residential areas where properties can sell for tens of millions of pounds. The average price for properties in Kensington and Chelsea is over £2 million with a similarly high outlay in most of central London.


title: London

text: The East End is the area closest to the original Port of London, known for its high immigrant population, as well as for being one of the poorest areas in London. The surrounding East London area saw much of London's early industrial development; now, brownfield sites throughout the area are being redeveloped as part of the Thames Gateway including the London Riverside and Lower Lea Valley, which was developed into the Olympic Park for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.


title: London

text: London's buildings are too diverse to be characterised by any particular architectural style, partly because of their varying ages. Many grand houses and public buildings, such as the National Gallery, are constructed from Portland stone. Some areas of the city, particularly those just west of the centre, are characterised by white stucco or whitewashed buildings. Few structures in central London pre-date the Great Fire of 1666, these being a few trace Roman remains, the Tower of London and a few scattered Tudor survivors in the city. Further out is, for example, the Tudor-period Hampton Court Palace, England's oldest surviving Tudor palace, built by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in about 1515.


title: London

text: Part of the varied architectural heritage are the 17th-century churches by Wren, neoclassical financial institutions such as the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England, to the early 20th century Old Bailey and the 1960s Barbican Estate.


title: London

text: The 1939 Battersea Power Station by the river in the south-west is a local landmark, while some railway termini are excellent examples of Victorian architecture, most notably St. Pancras and Paddington. The density of London varies, with high employment density in the central area and Canary Wharf, high residential densities in inner London, and lower densities in Outer London.


title: London

text: The Monument in the City of London provides views of the surrounding area while commemorating the Great Fire of London, which originated nearby. Marble Arch and Wellington Arch, at the north and south ends of Park Lane, respectively, have royal connections, as do the Albert Memorial and Royal Albert Hall in Kensington. Nelson's Column (built to commemorate Admiral Horatio Nelson) is a nationally recognised monument in Trafalgar Square, one of the focal points of central London. Older buildings are mainly brick built, most commonly the yellow London stock brick or a warm orange-red variety, often decorated with carvings and white plaster mouldings.


title: London

text: In the dense areas, most of the concentration is via medium- and high-rise buildings. London's skyscrapers, such as 30 St Mary Axe, Tower 42, the Broadgate Tower and One Canada Square, are mostly in the two financial districts, the City of London and Canary Wharf. High-rise development is restricted at certain sites if it would obstruct protected views of St Paul's Cathedral and other historic buildings. This protective policy, known as 'St Paul’s Heights', has been in operation by the City of London since 1937. Nevertheless, there are a number of tall skyscrapers in central London (see Tall buildings in London), including the 95-storey Shard London Bridge, the tallest building in the United Kingdom.


title: London

text: Other notable modern buildings include The Scalpel, originally a nickname coined by the "Financial Times" due to its distinctive angular design but subsequently designated as its official name, 20 Fenchurch Street, dubbed "The Walkie-Talkie" because of its distinctive shape that resembles a two-way radio handset, the former City Hall in Southwark with its distinctive oval shape, the Art Deco BBC Broadcasting House plus the Postmodernist British Library in Somers Town/Kings Cross and No 1 Poultry by James Stirling. What was formerly the Millennium Dome, by the Thames to the east of Canary Wharf, is now an entertainment venue called the O Arena.


title: London

text: The London Natural History Society suggests that London is "one of the World's Greenest Cities" with more than 40 per cent green space or open water. They indicate that 2000 species of flowering plant have been found growing there and that the tidal Thames supports 120 species of fish. They also state that over 60 species of bird nest in central London and that their members have recorded 47 species of butterfly, 1173 moths and more than 270 kinds of spider around London. London's wetland areas support nationally important populations of many water birds. London has 38 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), two national nature reserves and 76 local nature reserves.


title: London

text: Amphibians are common in the capital, including smooth newts living by the Tate Modern, and common frogs, common toads, palmate newts and great crested newts. On the other hand, native reptiles such as slowworms, common lizards, barred grass snakes and adders, are mostly only seen in Outer London.


title: London

text: Among other inhabitants of London are 10,000 red foxes, so that there are now 16 foxes for every square mile (6 per square kilometre) of London. These urban foxes are noticeably bolder than their country cousins, sharing the pavement with pedestrians and raising cubs in people's backyards. Foxes have even sneaked into the Houses of Parliament, where one was found asleep on a filing cabinet. Another broke into the grounds of Buckingham Palace, reportedly killing some of Queen Elizabeth II's prized pink flamingos. Generally, however, foxes and city folk appear to get along. A survey in 2001 by the London-based Mammal Society found that 80 per cent of 3,779 respondents who volunteered to keep a diary of garden mammal visits liked having them around. This sample cannot be taken to represent Londoners as a whole.


title: London

text: Other mammals found in Greater London are hedgehog, brown rat, mice, rabbit, shrew, vole, and grey squirrel. In wilder areas of Outer London, such as Epping Forest, a wide variety of mammals are found, including European hare, badger, field, bank and water vole, wood mouse, yellow-necked mouse, mole, shrew, and weasel, in addition to red fox, grey squirrel and hedgehog. A dead otter was found at The Highway, in Wapping, about a mile from the Tower Bridge, which would suggest that they have begun to move back after being absent a hundred years from the city. Ten of England's eighteen species of bats have been recorded in Epping Forest: soprano, Nathusius' and common pipistrelles, common noctule, serotine, barbastelle, Daubenton's, brown long-eared, Natterer's and Leisler's.


title: London

text: Among the strange sights in London have been a whale in the Thames, while the BBC Two programme "Natural World: Unnatural History of London" shows feral pigeons using the London Underground to get around the city, a seal that takes fish from fishmongers outside Billingsgate Fish Market, and foxes that will "sit" if given sausages.


title: London

text: Herds of red and fallow deer also roam freely within much of Richmond and Bushy Park. A cull takes place each November and February to ensure numbers can be sustained. Epping Forest is also known for its fallow deer, which can frequently be seen in herds to the north of the Forest. A rare population of melanistic, black fallow deer is also maintained at the Deer Sanctuary near Theydon Bois. Muntjac deer, which escaped from deer parks at the turn of the 20th century, are also found in the forest. While Londoners are accustomed to wildlife such as birds and foxes sharing the city, more recently urban deer have started becoming a regular feature, and whole herds of fallow deer come into residential areas at night to take advantage of London's green spaces.


title: London

text: The 2021 census recorded that 3,575,739 people or 40.6% of London's population were foreign-born making it the city with the second largest immigrant population after New York, in terms of absolute numbers. About 69% of children born in London in 2015 had at least one parent who was born abroad. The table to the right shows the commonest countries of birth of London residents. Note that some of the German-born population, in 18th position, are British citizens from birth born to parents serving in the British Armed Forces in Germany.


title: London

text: Increasing industrialisation swelled London's population throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, and for some time in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was the most populous city in the world. It peaked at 8,615,245 in 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, but had declined to 7,192,091 by the 2001 Census. However, the population then grew by just over a million between the 2001 and 2011 Censuses, to reach 8,173,941 in the latter.


title: London

text: However, London's continuous urban area extends beyond Greater London and numbered 9,787,426 people in 2011, while its wider metropolitan area had a population of 12–14 million, depending on the definition used. According to Eurostat, London is the second most populous metropolitan area in Europe. A net 726,000 immigrants arrived there in the period 1991–2001.


title: London

text: The region covers , giving a population density of more than ten times that of any other British region. In population terms, London is the 19th largest city and the 18th largest metropolitan region.


title: London

text: Children younger than 14 constituted 20.6% of the population in Outer London in 2018, and 18% in Inner London. The 15–24 age group was 11.1% in Outer and 10.2% in Inner London, those aged 25–44 years 30.6% in Outer London and 39.7% in Inner London, those aged 45–64 years 24% and 20.7% in Outer and Inner London respectively. Those aged 65 and over are 13.6% in Outer London, but only 9.3% in Inner London.


title: London

text: According to the Office for National Statistics, based on 2011 Census estimates, 59.8 per cent of the 8,173,941 inhabitants of London were White, with 44.9% White British, 2.2% White Irish, 0.1% gypsy/Irish traveller and 12.1% classified as Other White. Meanwhile 20.9% of Londoners were of Asian and mixed-Asian descent, 19.7% being of full Asian descents and those of mixed-Asian heritage 1.2% of the population. Indians accounted for 6.6%, followed by Pakistanis and Bangladeshis at 2.7% each. Chinese peoples accounted for 1.5% and Arabs for 1.3%. A further 4.9% were classified as "Other Asian".


title: London

text: 15.6% of London's population were of Black and mixed-Black descent. 13.3% of full Black descent, with mixed-Black heritage comprising 2.3%. Black Africans accounted for 7.0% of London's population, with 4.2% as Black Caribbean and 2.1% as "Other Black". 5.0% were of mixed race. The history of African presence in London extends back to the Roman period.


title: London

text: As of 2007, one fifth of primary school across London were from ethnic minorities. Altogether at the 2011 census, of London's 1,624,768 population aged 0 to 15, 46.4% were White, 19.8% Asian, 19% Black, 10.8% Mixed and 4% another ethnic group. In January 2005, a survey of London's ethnic and religious diversity claimed that more than 300 languages were spoken in London and more than 50 non-indigenous communities had populations of more than 10,000. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that , London's foreign-born population was 2,650,000 (33%), up from 1,630,000 in 1997.


title: London

text: The 2011 census showed that 36.7% of Greater London's population were born outside the UK. Some of the German-born population were likely to be British nationals born to parents serving in the British Armed Forces in Germany. Estimates by the Office for National Statistics indicate that the five largest foreign-born groups living in London in the period July 2009 to June 2010 were born in India, Poland, the Republic of Ireland, Bangladesh and Nigeria. In the 2021 census 40.6% of London residents were foreign-born. The ethnic demographics of the 2021 census were reported as 53.8% White, with White British reported at 36.8%, Asian or Asian British at 20.8%, Black or Black British , 13.5%, mixed 5.7% and other at 6.3%.


title: London

text: According to the 2011 Census, the largest religious groupings were Christians (48.4%), followed by those of no religion (20.7%), Muslims (12.4%), no response (8.5%), Hindus (5.0%), Jews (1.8%), Sikhs (1.5%), Buddhists (1.0%) and other (0.6%).


title: London

text: London has traditionally been Christian, and has a large number of churches, particularly in the City of London. The well-known St Paul's Cathedral in the City and Southwark Cathedral south of the river are Anglican administrative centres, while the Archbishop of Canterbury, principal bishop of the Church of England and worldwide Anglican Communion, has his main residence at Lambeth Palace in the London Borough of Lambeth.


title: London

text: Important national and royal ceremonies are shared between St Paul's and Westminster Abbey. The Abbey is not to be confused with nearby Westminster Cathedral, which is the largest Roman Catholic cathedral in England and Wales. Despite the prevalence of Anglican churches, observance is low within the denomination. Church attendance continues a long, steady decline, according to Church of England statistics.


title: London

text: Notable mosques include the East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets, which is allowed to give the Islamic call to prayer through loudspeakers, the London Central Mosque on the edge of Regent's Park and the Baitul Futuh of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. After the oil boom, increasing numbers of wealthy Middle-Eastern Arab Muslims based themselves around Mayfair, Kensington and Knightsbridge in West London. There are large Bengali Muslim communities in the eastern boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Newham.


title: London

text: Large Hindu communities are found in the north-western boroughs of Harrow and Brent, the latter hosting what was until 2006, Europe's largest Hindu temple, Neasden Temple. London is also home to 44 Hindu temples, including the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir London. There are Sikh communities in East and West London, particularly in Southall, home to one of the largest Sikh populations and the largest Sikh temple outside India.


title: London

text: The majority of British Jews live in London, with notable Jewish communities in Stamford Hill, Stanmore, Golders Green, Finchley, Hampstead, Hendon and Edgware in North London. Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City of London is affiliated to London's historic Sephardic Jewish community. It is the only synagogue in Europe to have held regular services continually for over 300 years. Stanmore and Canons Park Synagogue has the largest membership of any Orthodox synagogue in Europe, overtaking Ilford synagogue (also in London) in 1998. The London Jewish Forum was set up in 2006 in response to the growing significance of devolved London Government.


title: London

text: Cockney is an accent heard across London, mainly spoken by working-class and lower-middle class Londoners. It is mainly attributed to the East End and wider East London, having originated there in the 18th century, although it has been suggested that the Cockney style of speech is much older. Some features of Cockney include, "Th"-fronting (pronouncing "th" as "f"), example, "some fings in life are bad" (heard in opening of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" in Monty Python's "Life of Brian"), "th" inside a word is pronounced with a "v" (brother becomes bruvva), "H"-dropping, example 'Ampshire for Hampshire (as Eliza Doolittle said in "My Fair Lady"), and, like most English accents, a Cockney accent drops the "r" after a vowel, for example, "car" is pronounced "cah". John Camden Hotten, in his "Slang Dictionary" of 1859, makes reference to Cockney "use of a peculiar slang language" (Cockney rhyming slang) when describing the costermongers of the East End. Examples include: using the word "treacle" to mean sweetheart (rhymes with Treacle tart), and "porkies" to mean lies (rhymes with Pork pies). Since the start of the 21st century the Cockney dialect is less common in parts of the East End itself, with modern strongholds including other parts of London and suburbs in the home counties.


title: London

text: Estuary English is an intermediate accent between Cockney and Received Pronunciation. It is widely spoken by people of all classes in London and south-eastern England, associated with the River Thames and its estuary.


title: London

text: Multicultural London English (MLE) is a multiethnolect becoming increasingly common in multicultural areas amongst young, working-class people from diverse backgrounds. It is a fusion of an array of ethnic accents, in particular Afro-Caribbean and South Asian, with a significant Cockney influence.


title: London

text: Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard for British English. It has no specific geographical correlate, although it is also traditionally defined as the standard speech used in London and south-eastern England. It is mainly spoken by upper-class and upper-middle class Londoners.


title: London

text: London's gross regional product in 2019 was £503 billion, around a quarter of UK GDP. London has five major business districts: the city, Westminster, Canary Wharf, Camden & Islington and Lambeth & Southwark. One way to get an idea of their relative importance is to look at relative amounts of office space: Greater London had 27 million m of office space in 2001, and the City contains the most space, with 8 million m of office space. London has some of the highest real estate prices in the world. London is the world's most expensive office market according to world property journal (2015) report. the residential property in London is worth $2.2 trillion – the same value as that of Brazil's annual GDP. The city has the highest property prices of any European city according to the Office for National Statistics and the European Office of Statistics. On average the price per square metre in central London is €24,252 (April 2014). This is higher than the property prices in other G8 European capital cities; Berlin €3,306, Rome €6,188 and Paris €11,229.


title: London

text: London's finance industry is based in the City of London and Canary Wharf, the two major business districts in London. London is one of the pre-eminent financial centres of the world as the most important location for international finance. London took over as a major financial centre shortly after 1795 when the Dutch Republic collapsed before the Napoleonic armies. For many bankers established in Amsterdam (e.g. Hope, Baring), this was only time to move to London. Also, London's market-centred system (as opposed to the bank-centred one in Amsterdam) grew more dominant in the 18th century. The London financial elite was strengthened by a strong Jewish community from all over Europe capable of mastering the most sophisticated financial tools of the time. This unique concentration of talents accelerated the transition from the Commercial Revolution to the Industrial Revolution. Writing about capitalism and the utility of diversity in his book on English society, French philosopher Voltaire expounded upon why England at that time was more prosperous in comparison to the country's less religiously tolerant European neighbours:


title: London

text: By the mid-19th century, London was the leading financial centre, and at the end of the century over half the world's trade was financed in British currency. Still, London tops the world rankings on the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI), and it ranked second in A.T. Kearney's 2018 Global Cities Index.


title: London

text: London's largest industry is finance, and its financial exports make it a large contributor to the UK's balance of payments. Around 325,000 people were employed in financial services in London until mid-2007. London has over 480 overseas banks, more than any other city in the world. It is also the world's biggest currency trading centre, accounting for some 37 per cent of the $5.1 trillion average daily volume, according to the BIS. Over 85 per cent (3.2 million) of the employed population of greater London works in the services industries. Because of its prominent global role, London's economy had been affected by the financial crisis of 2007–2008. However, by 2010 the city had recovered, put in place new regulatory powers, proceeded to regain lost ground and re-established London's economic dominance. Along with professional services headquarters, the City of London is home to the Bank of England, London Stock Exchange, and Lloyd's of London insurance market.


title: London

text: Over half the UK's top 100 listed companies (the FTSE 100) and over 100 of Europe's 500 largest companies have their headquarters in central London. Over 70 per cent of the FTSE 100 are within London's metropolitan area, and 75 per cent of Fortune 500 companies have offices in London. In a 1992 report commissioned by the London Stock Exchange, Sir Adrian Cadbury, chairman of his family's confectionery company Cadbury, produced the Cadbury Report, a code of best practice which served as a basis for reform of corporate governance around the world.


title: London

text: Media companies are concentrated in London, and the media distribution industry is London's second most competitive sector. The BBC is a significant employer, while other broadcasters also have headquarters around the city. Many national newspapers are edited in London; the term Fleet Street (where most national newspapers operated) remains a metonym for the British national press. London is a major retail centre and in 2010 had the highest non-food retail sales of any city in the world, with a total spend of around £64.2 billion. The Port of London is the second largest in the UK, handling 45 million tonnes of cargo each year.


title: London

text: A growing number of technology companies are based in London, notably in East London Tech City, also known as Silicon Roundabout. In 2014 the city was among the first to receive a geoTLD. In February 2014 London was ranked as the European City of the Future in the 2014/15 list by "fDi Intelligence". Computer science pioneer Alan Turing hails from Maida Vale, west London. A museum in Bletchley Park, where Turing was based during World War II, is in Bletchley, north of central London, as is The National Museum of Computing.


title: London

text: The gas and electricity distribution networks that manage and operate the towers, cables and pressure systems that deliver energy to consumers across the city are managed by National Grid plc, SGN and UK Power Networks.


title: London

text: London is one of the leading tourist destinations in the world and in 2015 was ranked as the most visited city in the world with over 65 million visits. It is also the top city in the world by visitor cross-border spending, estimated at US$20.23 billion in 2015. Tourism is one of London's prime industries, employing 700,000 full-time workers in 2016, and contributes £36 billion a year to the economy. The city accounts for 54% of all inbound visitor spending in the UK. London was the world top city destination as ranked by TripAdvisor users.


title: London

text: In 2015 the top most-visited attractions in the UK were all in London. The top 10 most visited attractions were: (with visits per venue)


title: London

text: The number of hotel rooms in London in 2015 stood at 138,769, and is expected to grow over the years.


title: London

text: Transport is one of the four main areas of policy administered by the Mayor of London, but the mayor's financial control does not extend to the longer-distance rail network that enters London. In 2007 the Mayor of London assumed responsibility for some local lines, which now form the London Overground network, adding to the existing responsibility for the London Underground, trams and buses. The public transport network is administered by Transport for London (TfL).


title: London

text: The lines that formed the London Underground, as well as trams and buses, became part of an integrated transport system in 1933 when the London Passenger Transport Board or "London Transport" was created. Transport for London is now the statutory corporation responsible for most aspects of the transport system in Greater London, and is run by a board and a commissioner appointed by the Mayor of London.


title: London

text: London is a major international air transport hub with the busiest city airspace in the world. Eight airports use the word "London" in their name, but most traffic passes through six of these. Additionally, various other airports also serve London, catering primarily to general aviation flights.


title: London

text: The London Underground, commonly referred to as the Tube or just the Underground, is the oldest and third longest metro system in the world. The system serves 272 stations. and was formed from several private companies, including the world's first underground electric line, the City and South London Railway. It dates from 1863.


title: London

text: Over four million journeys are made every day on the Underground network, over 1 billion each year. An investment programme is attempting to reduce congestion and improve reliability, including £6.5 billion (€7.7 billion) spent before the 2012 Summer Olympics. The Docklands Light Railway (DLR), which opened in 1987, is a second, more local metro system using smaller and lighter tram-type vehicles that serve the Docklands, Greenwich and Lewisham.


title: London

text: There are 368 railway stations in the London Travelcard Zones on an extensive above-ground suburban railway network. South London, particularly, has a high concentration of railways as it has fewer Underground lines. Most rail lines terminate around the centre of London, running into eighteen terminal stations, with the exception of the Thameslink trains connecting Bedford in the north and Brighton in the south via Luton and Gatwick airports. London has Britain's busiest station by number of passengers—Waterloo, with over 184 million people using the interchange station complex (which includes Waterloo East station) each year. is the busiest station in Europe by the number of trains passing.


title: London

text: With the need for more rail capacity in London, the Elizabeth Line (also known as Crossrail) opened in May 2022. It is a new railway line running east to west through London and into the Home Counties with a branch to Heathrow Airport. It was Europe's biggest construction project, with a £15 billion projected cost.


title: London

text: London is the centre of the National Rail network, with 70 per cent of rail journeys starting or ending in London. King's Cross station and Euston station, which are both in London, are the starting points of the East Coast Main Line and the West Coast Main Line – the two main railway lines in Britain. Like suburban rail services, regional and inter-city trains depart from several termini around the city centre, directly linking London with most of Great Britain's major cities and towns.


title: London

text: Some international railway services to Continental Europe were operated during the 20th century as boat trains, such as the "Admiraal de Ruijter" to Amsterdam and the "Night Ferry" to Paris and Brussels. The opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994 connected London directly to the continental rail network, allowing Eurostar services to begin. Since 2007, high-speed trains link St. Pancras International with Lille, Calais, Paris, Disneyland Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and other European tourist destinations via the High Speed 1 rail link and the Channel Tunnel. The first high-speed domestic trains started in June 2009 linking Kent to London. There are plans for a second high speed line linking London to the Midlands, North West England, and Yorkshire.


title: London

text: Although rail freight levels are far down compared to their height, significant quantities of cargo are also carried into and out of London by rail; chiefly building materials and landfill waste. As a major hub of the British railway network, London's tracks also carry large amounts of freight for the other regions, such as container freight from the Channel Tunnel and English Channel ports, and nuclear waste for reprocessing at Sellafield.


title: London

text: London's bus network runs 24 hours a day with about 9,300 vehicles, over 675 bus routes and about 19,000 bus stops. In 2019 the network had over 2 billion commuter trips per year. Since 2010 an average of £1.2 billion is taken in revenue each year. London has one of the largest wheelchair-accessible networks in the world and from the third quarter of 2007, became more accessible to hearing and visually impaired passengers as audio-visual announcements were introduced.


title: London

text: London's coach hub is Victoria Coach Station, an Art Deco building opened in 1932. The coach station was initially run by a group of coach companies under the name of London Coastal Coaches; however, in 1970 the service and station were included in the nationalisation of the country's coach services, becoming part of the National Bus Company. In 1988, the coach station was purchased by London Transport which then became Transport for London. Victoria Coach Station has over 14 million passengers a year and provides services across the UK and continental Europe.


title: London

text: London has a modern tram network, known as Tramlink, centred on Croydon in South London. The network has 39 stops and four routes, and carried 28 million people in 2013. Since June 2008, Transport for London has completely owned and operated Tramlink.


title: London

text: London's first and to date only cable car is the London Cable Car, which opened in June 2012. The cable car crosses the Thames and links Greenwich Peninsula with the Royal Docks in the east of the city. It is integrated with London's Oyster Card ticketing system, although the Emirates Air Line fares are not included in the Oyster daily capping. It cost £60 million to build and can carry up to 2,500 passengers per hour in each direction at peak times. Similar to the London Cycle Hire Scheme bike hire scheme, the cable car was sponsored in a 10-year deal by the airline Emirates.


title: London

text: In the Greater London Area, around 670,000 people use a bike every day, meaning around 7% of the total population of around 8.8 million use a bike on an average day. This relatively low percentage of bicycle users may be due to the poor investments for cycling in London of about £110 million per year, equating to around £12 per person, which can be compared to £22 in the Netherlands.


title: London

text: Cycling has become an increasingly popular way to get around London. The launch of a bicycle hire scheme in July 2010 was successful and generally well received.


title: London

text: The Port of London, once the largest in the world, is now only the second-largest in the United Kingdom, handling 45 million tonnes of cargo each year as of 2009. Most of this cargo passes through the Port of Tilbury, outside the boundary of Greater London.


title: London

text: London has river boat services on the Thames known as Thames Clippers, which offer both commuter and tourist boat services. At major piers including Canary Wharf, London Bridge City, Battersea Power Station and London Eye (Waterloo), services depart at least every 20 minutes during commuter times. The Woolwich Ferry, with 2.5 million passengers every year, is a frequent service linking the North and South Circular Roads.


title: London

text: Although the majority of journeys in central London are made by public transport, car travel is common in the suburbs. The inner ring road (around the city centre), the North and South Circular roads (just within the suburbs), and the outer orbital motorway (the M25, just outside the built-up area in most places) encircle the city and are intersected by a number of busy radial routes—but very few motorways penetrate into inner London. A plan for a comprehensive network of motorways throughout the city (the Ringways Plan) was prepared in the 1960s but was mostly cancelled in the early 1970s. The M25 is the second-longest ring-road motorway in Europe at long. The A1 and M1 connect London to Leeds, and Newcastle and Edinburgh.


title: London

text: The Austin Motor Company began making hackney carriages (London taxis) in 1929, and models include Austin FX3 from 1948, Austin FX4 from 1958, with more recent models TXII and TX4 manufactured by London Taxis International. The BBC states, "ubiquitous black cabs and red double-decker buses all have long and tangled stories that are deeply embedded in London’s traditions".


title: London

text: London is notorious for its traffic congestion; in 2009, the average speed of a car in the rush hour was recorded at . In 2003, a congestion charge was introduced to reduce traffic volumes in the city centre. With a few exceptions, motorists are required to pay to drive within a defined zone encompassing much of central London. Motorists who are residents of the defined zone can buy a greatly reduced season pass. The London government initially expected the Congestion Charge Zone to increase daily peak period Underground and bus users, reduce road traffic, increase traffic speeds, and reduce queues; however, the increase in private for hire vehicles has affected these expectations. Over the course of several years, the average number of cars entering the centre of London on a weekday was reduced from 195,000 to 125,000 cars – a 35-per-cent reduction of vehicles driven per day.


title: London

text: London is a major global centre of higher education teaching and research and has the largest concentration of higher education institutes in Europe. According to the QS World University Rankings 2015/16, London has the greatest concentration of top class universities in the world and its international student population of around 110,000 is larger than any other city in the world. A 2014 PricewaterhouseCoopers report termed London the global capital of higher education.


title: London

text: A number of world-leading education institutions are based in London. In the 2022 "QS World University Rankings", Imperial College London is ranked No. 6 in the world, University College London (UCL) is ranked 8th, and King's College London (KCL) is ranked 37th. All are regularly ranked highly, with Imperial College being the UK's leading university in the Research Excellence Framework ranking 2021. The London School of Economics has been described as the world's leading social science institution for both teaching and research. The London Business School is considered one of the world's leading business schools and in 2015 its MBA programme was ranked second-best in the world by the "Financial Times". The city is also home to three of the world's top ten performing arts schools (as ranked by the 2020 QS World University Rankings): the Royal College of Music (ranking 2nd in the world), the Royal Academy of Music (ranking 4th) and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (ranking 6th).


title: London

text: With students in London and around 48,000 in University of London Worldwide, the federal University of London is the largest contact teaching university in the UK. It includes five multi-faculty universities – City, King's College London, Queen Mary, Royal Holloway and UCL – and a number of smaller and more specialised institutions including Birkbeck, the Courtauld Institute of Art, Goldsmiths, the London Business School, the London School of Economics, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Royal Academy of Music, the Central School of Speech and Drama, the Royal Veterinary College and the School of Oriental and African Studies. Members of the University of London have their own admissions procedures, and most award their own degrees.


title: London

text: A number of universities in London are outside the University of London system, including Brunel University, Imperial College London, Kingston University, London Metropolitan University, University of East London, University of West London, University of Westminster, London South Bank University, Middlesex University, and University of the Arts London (the largest university of art, design, fashion, communication and the performing arts in Europe). In addition, there are three international universities in London – Regent's University London, Richmond, The American International University in London and Schiller International University.


title: London

text: London is home to five major medical schools – Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry (part of Queen Mary), King's College London School of Medicine (the largest medical school in Europe), Imperial College School of Medicine, UCL Medical School and St George's, University of London – and has many affiliated teaching hospitals. It is also a major centre for biomedical research, and three of the UK's eight academic health science centres are based in the city – Imperial College Healthcare, King's Health Partners and UCL Partners (the largest such centre in Europe). Additionally, many biomedical and biotechnology spin out companies from these research institutions are based around the city, most prominently in White City. Founded by pioneering nurse Florence Nightingale at St Thomas' Hospital in 1860, the first nursing school is now part of King's College London. There are a number of business schools in London, including the London School of Business and Finance, Cass Business School (part of City University London), Hult International Business School, ESCP Europe, European Business School London, Imperial College Business School, the London Business School and the UCL School of Management.


title: London

text: London is also home to many specialist arts education institutions, including the Central School of Ballet, London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA; president Benedict Cumberbatch), London College of Contemporary Arts (LCCA), London Contemporary Dance School, National Centre for Circus Arts, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA; president Sir Kenneth Branagh), Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, the Royal College of Art, Sylvia Young Theatre School and Trinity Laban.


title: London

text: The BRIT School in the London borough of Croydon provides training for the performing arts and the technologies that make performance possible, with actor Tom Holland among their alumni.


title: London

text: The majority of primary and secondary schools and further-education colleges in London are controlled by the London boroughs or otherwise state-funded; leading examples include Ashbourne College, Bethnal Green Academy, Brampton Manor Academy, City and Islington College, City of Westminster College, David Game College, Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College, Leyton Sixth Form College, London Academy of Excellence, Tower Hamlets College, and Newham Collegiate Sixth Form Centre. There are also a number of private schools and colleges in London, some old and famous, such as City of London School, Harrow, St Paul's School, Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, University College School, The John Lyon School, Highgate School and Westminster School.


title: London

text: Important scientific learned societies based in London include the Royal Society—the UK's national academy of sciences and the oldest national scientific institution in the world—founded in 1660, and the Royal Institution, founded in 1799; the basement of the latter is where Michael Faraday first demonstrated electric motion in 1821. Since 1825, the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures have presented scientific subjects to a general audience, and speakers have included aerospace engineer Frank Whittle, naturalist David Attenborough and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.


title: London

text: Leisure is a major part of the London economy. A 2003 report attributed a quarter of the entire UK leisure economy to London at 25.6 events per 1000 people. The city is one of the four fashion capitals of the world, and, according to official statistics, is the world's third-busiest film production centre, presents more live comedy than any other city, and has the biggest theatre audience of any city in the world.


title: London

text: Within the City of Westminster in London, the entertainment district of the West End has its focus around Leicester Square, where London and world film premieres are held, and Piccadilly Circus, with its giant electronic advertisements. London's theatre district is here, as are many cinemas, bars, clubs, and restaurants, including the city's Chinatown district (in Soho), and just to the east is Covent Garden, an area housing speciality shops. The city is the home of Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose musicals have dominated West End theatre since the late 20th century. Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap", the world's longest-running play, has been performed in the West End since 1952. The Laurence Olivier Awards–named after Laurence Olivier–are given annually by the Society of London Theatre. The Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Royal Opera, and English National Opera are based in London and perform at the Royal Opera House, the London Coliseum, Sadler's Wells Theatre, and the Royal Albert Hall, as well as touring the country.


title: London

text: Islington's long Upper Street, extending northwards from Angel, has more bars and restaurants than any other street in the UK. Europe's busiest shopping area is Oxford Street, a shopping street nearly long, making it the longest shopping street in the UK. It is home to vast numbers of retailers and department stores, including Selfridges flagship store. Knightsbridge, home to the equally renowned Harrods department store, lies to the south-west. Opened in 1760 with its flagship store on Regent Street since 1881, Hamleys is the oldest toy store in the world. Madame Tussauds wax museum opened in Baker Street in 1835.


title: London

text: London is home to designers Vivienne Westwood, Galliano, Stella McCartney, Manolo Blahnik, and Jimmy Choo, among others; its renowned art and fashion schools make it one of the four international centres of fashion. Mary Quant designed the miniskirt in her King's Road boutique in Swinging Sixties London. London offers a great variety of cuisine as a result of its ethnically diverse population. Gastronomic centres include the Bangladeshi restaurants of Brick Lane and the Chinese restaurants of Chinatown. There are Chinese takeaways throughout London, as are Indian restaurants which provide Indian and Anglo-Indian cuisine. Around 1860, the first fish and chips shop in London was opened by Joseph Malin, a Jewish immigrant, in Bow. The full English breakfast dates from the Victorian era, and many cafe's in London serve a full English throughout the day. London has five 3-Michelin star restaurants, including Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea. Many hotels in London provide a traditional afternoon tea service, such as the Oscar Wilde Lounge at the Hotel Café Royal in Piccadilly, and a themed tea service is also available, for example an "Alice in Wonderland" themed afternoon tea served at the Egerton House Hotel, and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" themed afternoon tea at One Aldwych in Covent Garden. The nation's most popular biscuit to dunk in tea, chocolate digestives have been manufactured by McVitie's at their Harlesden factory in north-west London since 1925.


title: London

text: There is a variety of annual events, beginning with the relatively new New Year's Day Parade, a fireworks display at the London Eye; the world's second largest street party, the Notting Hill Carnival, is held on the late August Bank Holiday each year. Traditional parades include November's Lord Mayor's Show, a centuries-old event celebrating the annual appointment of a new Lord Mayor of the City of London with a procession along the streets of the city, and June's Trooping the Colour, a formal military pageant performed by regiments of the Commonwealth and British armies to celebrate the Queen's Official Birthday. The Boishakhi Mela is a Bengali New Year festival celebrated by the British Bangladeshi community. It is the largest open-air Asian festival in Europe. After the Notting Hill Carnival, it is the second-largest street festival in the United Kingdom attracting over 80,000 visitors from across the country. First held in 1862, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show (run by the Royal Horticultural Society) takes place over five days in May every year.


title: London

text: The first gay bar in London in the modern sense was The Cave of the Golden Calf, established as a night club in an underground location at 9 Heddon Street, just off Regent Street, in 1912 and became a haunt for the wealthy, aristocratic and bohemian. While London has been an LGBT tourism destination, after homosexuality was decriminalized in England in 1967 gay bar culture became more visible, and from the early 1970s Soho (and in particular Old Compton Street) became the centre of the London LGBT community. G-A-Y, previously based at the Astoria, and now Heaven, is a long-running night club.


title: London

text: Wider British cultural movements have also influenced LGBT culture: for example, the emergence of glam rock in the UK in the early 1970s, via Marc Bolan and David Bowie, saw a generation of teenagers begin playing with the idea of androgyny, and the West End musical "The Rocky Horror Show", which debuted in London in 1973, is also widely said to have been an influence on countercultural and sexual liberation movements. The Blitz Kids (which included Boy George) frequented the Tuesday club-night at Blitz in Covent Garden, helping launch the New Romantic subcultural movement in the late 1970s. Today, the annual London Pride Parade and the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival are held in the city.


title: London

text: London has been the setting for many works of literature. The pilgrims in Geoffrey Chaucer's late 14th-century "Canterbury Tales" set out for Canterbury from London—specifically, from the Tabard inn, Southwark. William Shakespeare spent a large part of his life living and working in London; his contemporary Ben Jonson was also based there, and some of his work, most notably his play "The Alchemist", was set in the city. "A Journal of the Plague Year" (1722) by Daniel Defoe is a fictionalisation of the events of the 1665 Great Plague.


title: London

text: The literary centres of London have traditionally been hilly Hampstead and (since the early 20th century) Bloomsbury. Writers closely associated with the city are the diarist Samuel Pepys, noted for his eyewitness account of the Great Fire; Charles Dickens, whose representation of a foggy, snowy, grimy London of street sweepers and pickpockets has been a major influence on people's vision of early Victorian London; and Virginia Woolf, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the 20th century. Later important depictions of London from the 19th and early 20th centuries are Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. In 1898, H. G. Wells' sci-fi novel "The War of the Worlds" sees London (and the south of England) invaded by Martians. Also of significance is Letitia Elizabeth Landon's "Calendar of the London Seasons" (1834). Modern writers pervasively influenced by the city include Peter Ackroyd, author of a "biography" of London, and Iain Sinclair, who writes in the genre of psychogeography. In the 1940s, George Orwell wrote essays in the "London Evening Standard", most notably "A Nice Cup of Tea", which concerned the nation's methods on making tea, and "The Moon Under Water", which provided a detailed description of his ideal pub. In 1958, author Michael Bond created Paddington Bear, a refugee found in London Paddington station by the Brown family who adopt him. Paddington has been adapted for the screen, including "Paddington" (2014) which features the calypso song "London is the Place for Me".


title: London

text: London has played a significant role in the film industry. Major studios within or bordering London include Pinewood, Elstree, Ealing, Shepperton, Twickenham, and Leavesden, with the "James Bond" and "Harry Potter" series among many notable films produced here. Working Title Films has its headquarters in London. A post-production community is centred in Soho, and London houses six of the world’s largest visual effects companies, such as Framestore. The Imaginarium, a digital performance-capture studio, was founded by Andy Serkis. London has been the setting for films including "Oliver Twist" (1948), "Scrooge" (1951), "Peter Pan" (1953), "The 101 Dalmatians" (1961), "My Fair Lady" (1964), "Mary Poppins" (1964), "Blowup" (1966), "A Clockwork Orange" (1971), "The Long Good Friday" (1980), "The Great Mouse Detective" (1986), "Notting Hill" (1999), "Love Actually" (2003), "V for Vendetta" (2005), "" (2008) and "The King's Speech" (2010). Notable actors and filmmakers from London include; Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Caine, Emma Thompson, Gary Oldman, Guy Ritchie, Christopher Nolan, Alan Rickman, Jude Law, Helena Bonham Carter, Idris Elba, Tom Hardy, Keira Knightley and Daniel Day-Lewis. Ealing comedies have featured Alec Guinness, Hammer Horrors have starred Christopher Lee, while Richard Curtis's rom-coms have featured Hugh Grant. The largest cinema chain in the country, Odeon Cinemas was founded in London in 1928 by Oscar Deutsch. First held in 1949, since 2017 the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) have taken place at the Royal Albert Hall. Founded in 1957, the BFI London Film Festival takes place over two weeks every October.


title: London

text: London is a major centre for television production, with studios including Television Centre, ITV Studios, Sky Campus and Fountain Studios; the latter hosted the original talent shows, "Pop Idol", "The X Factor", and "Britain's Got Talent", before each format was exported around the world. Formerly a franchise of ITV, Thames Television featured comedians such as Benny Hill and Rowan Atkinson ("Mr. Bean" was first screened by Thames), while Talkback produced "Da Ali G Show" which featured Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali G, a faux-streetwise gangster from Staines, west of London. Many television shows have been set in London, including the popular television soap opera "EastEnders", broadcast by the BBC since 1985.


title: London

text: London is home to many museums, galleries, and other institutions, many of which are free of admission charges and are major tourist attractions as well as playing a research role. The first of these to be established was the British Museum in Bloomsbury, in 1753. Originally containing antiquities, natural history specimens, and the national library, the museum now has 7 million artefacts from around the globe. In 1824, the National Gallery was founded to house the British national collection of Western paintings; this now occupies a prominent position in Trafalgar Square.


title: London

text: The British Library is the second largest library in the world, and the national library of the United Kingdom. There are many other research libraries, including the Wellcome Library and Dana Centre, as well as university libraries, including the British Library of Political and Economic Science at LSE, the Central Library at Imperial, the Maughan Library at King's, and the Senate House Libraries at the University of London.


title: London

text: In the latter half of the 19th century the locale of South Kensington was developed as "Albertopolis", a cultural and scientific quarter. Three major national museums are there: the Victoria and Albert Museum (for the applied arts), the Natural History Museum, and the Science Museum. The National Portrait Gallery was founded in 1856 to house depictions of figures from British history; its holdings now comprise the world's most extensive collection of portraits. The national gallery of British art is at Tate Britain, originally established as an annexe of the National Gallery in 1897. The Tate Gallery, as it was formerly known, also became a major centre for modern art. In 2000, this collection moved to Tate Modern, a new gallery housed in the former Bankside Power Station which is accessed by pedestrians north of the Thames via the Millennium Bridge.


title: London

text: London is one of the major classical and popular music capitals of the world and hosts major music corporations, such as Universal Music Group International and Warner Music Group, and countless bands, musicians and industry professionals. The city is also home to many orchestras and concert halls, such as the Barbican Arts Centre (principal base of the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Chorus), the Southbank Centre (London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra), Cadogan Hall (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) and the Royal Albert Hall (The Proms). The Proms, an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music first held in 1895, ends with the Last Night of the Proms (works by Edward Elgar, Henry Wood, Thomas Arne and Hubert Parry feature at the climax). London's two main opera houses are the Royal Opera House and the London Coliseum (home to the English National Opera). The UK's largest pipe organ is at the Royal Albert Hall. Other significant instruments are in cathedrals and major churches—the church bells of St Clement Danes feature in the 1744 nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons", and the lyrics journey through churches and bells of 18th century London. Several conservatoires are within the city: Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Trinity Laban.


title: London

text: London has numerous venues for rock and pop concerts, including the world's busiest indoor venue, the O Arena, and Wembley Arena, as well as many mid-sized venues, such as Brixton Academy, the Hammersmith Apollo and the Shepherd's Bush Empire. Several music festivals, including the Wireless Festival, Lovebox and Hyde Park's British Summer Time, are held in London.


title: London

text: The city is home to the original Hard Rock Cafe and the Abbey Road Studios, where The Beatles recorded many of their hits. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, musicians and groups like Elton John, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Queen, The Kinks, Cliff Richard, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, T. Rex, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis Costello, Dire Straits, Cat Stevens, The Police, The Cure, Madness, Culture Club, Dusty Springfield, Phil Collins, Rod Stewart, Status Quo and Sade, derived their sound from the streets and rhythms of London.


title: London

text: London was instrumental in the development of punk music, with figures such as the Sex Pistols, The Clash and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood all based in the city. Other artists to emerge from the London music scene include George Michael, Kate Bush, Seal, the Pet Shop Boys, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bush, the Spice Girls, Jamiroquai, Blur, The Prodigy, Gorillaz, Mumford & Sons, Coldplay, Amy Winehouse, Adele, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, Ellie Goulding, Dua Lipa and Florence and the Machine. Artists from London with a Caribbean influence include Hot Chocolate, Billy Ocean, Soul II Soul and Eddy Grant, with the latter fusing reggae, soul and samba with rock and pop. London is also a centre for urban music. In particular the genres UK garage, drum and bass, dubstep and grime evolved in the city from the foreign genres of house, hip hop, and reggae, alongside local drum and bass. Music station BBC Radio 1Xtra was set up to support the rise of local urban contemporary music both in London and in the rest of the United Kingdom. The British Phonographic Industry's annual popular music awards, the Brit Awards, are held in London, usually in February.


title: London

text: A 2013 report by the City of London Corporation said that London is the "greenest city" in Europe with 14,164 hectares (35,000 acres) of public parks, woodlands and gardens. The largest parks in the central area of London are three of the eight Royal Parks, namely Hyde Park and its neighbour Kensington Gardens in the west, and Regent's Park to the north. Hyde Park in particular is popular for sports and sometimes hosts open-air concerts. Regent's Park contains London Zoo, the world's oldest scientific zoo, and is near Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Primrose Hill, immediately to the north of Regent's Park, at is a popular spot from which to view the city skyline.


title: London

text: Close to Hyde Park are smaller Royal Parks, Green Park and St. James's Park. A number of large parks lie outside the city centre, including Hampstead Heath and the remaining Royal Parks of Greenwich Park to the southeast and Bushy Park and Richmond Park (the largest) to the southwest, Hampton Court Park is also a royal park, but, because it contains a palace, it is administered by the Historic Royal Palaces, unlike the eight Royal Parks.


title: London

text: Close to Richmond Park is Kew Gardens, which has the world's largest collection of living plants. In 2003, the gardens were put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. There are also parks administered by London's borough Councils, including Victoria Park in the East End and Battersea Park in the centre. Some more informal, semi-natural open spaces also exist, including the Hampstead Heath of North London, and Epping Forest, which covers 2,476 hectares (6,118 acres) in the east. Both are controlled by the City of London Corporation. Hampstead Heath incorporates Kenwood House, a former stately home and a popular location in the summer months when classical musical concerts are held by the lake, attracting thousands of people every weekend to enjoy the music, scenery and fireworks. Epping Forest is a popular venue for various outdoor activities, including mountain biking, walking, horse riding, golf, angling, and orienteering.


title: London

text: Walking is a popular recreational activity in London. Areas that provide for walks include Wimbledon Common, Epping Forest, Hampton Court Park, Hampstead Heath, the eight Royal Parks, canals and disused railway tracks. Access to canals and rivers has improved recently, including the creation of the Thames Path, some of which is within Greater London, and The Wandle Trail; this runs through South London along the River Wandle, a tributary of the River Thames.


title: London

text: Other long-distance paths, linking green spaces, have also been created, including the Capital Ring, the Green Chain Walk, London Outer Orbital Path ("Loop"), Jubilee Walkway, Lea Valley Walk, and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Walk.


title: London

text: London has hosted the Summer Olympics three times: in 1908, 1948, and 2012, making it the first city to host the modern Games three times. The city was also the host of the British Empire Games in 1934. In 2017, London hosted the World Championships in Athletics for the first time.


title: London

text: London's most popular sport is football, and it has seven clubs in the Premier League in the 2022–23 season: Arsenal, Brentford, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur, and West Ham United. Other professional men's teams in London are AFC Wimbledon, Barnet, Bromley, Charlton Athletic, Dagenham & Redbridge, Leyton Orient, Millwall, Queens Park Rangers and Sutton United. Four London-based teams are in the Women's Super League: Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham and West Ham United.


title: London

text: From 1924, the original Wembley Stadium was the home of the English national football team. It hosted the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final, with England defeating West Germany, and served as the venue for the FA Cup Final as well as rugby league's Challenge Cup final. The new Wembley Stadium serves the same purposes and has a capacity of 90,000. The women's team defeated Germany at Wembley to win Euro 2022.


title: London

text: Three Premiership Rugby union teams are based in London, Harlequins, London Irish and Saracens. Ealing Trailfinders, London Sottish and Richmond play in the RFU Championship; other rugby union clubs in the city include Scottish, Rosslyn Park F.C., Westcombe Park R.F.C. and Blackheath F.C. Twickenham Stadium in south-west London hosts home matches for the England national rugby union team and has a capacity of 82,000 now that the new south stand has been completed.


title: London

text: While rugby league is more popular in the north of England, there are two professional rugby league clubs in London – the London Broncos in the second-tier RFL Championship, who play at the Trailfinders Sports Ground in West Ealing, and the third-tier League 1 team, the London Skolars from Wood Green, Haringey.


title: London

text: One of London's best-known annual sports competitions is the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, held at the All England Club in the south-western suburb of Wimbledon since 1877. Played in late June to early July, it is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and widely considered the most prestigious. Founded in London in 1881, Slazenger has provided tennis balls for Wimbledon since 1902, the oldest sponsorship in sport.


title: London

text: London has two Test cricket grounds, Lord's (home of Middlesex C.C.C.) in St John's Wood and the Oval (home of Surrey C.C.C.) in Kennington. Lord's has hosted four finals of the Cricket World Cup and is known as the "Home of Cricket". Other key events are the annual mass-participation London Marathon, in which some 35,000 runners attempt a course around the city, and the University Boat Race on the Thames from Putney to Mortlake.


title: Taiwan

text: Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. The territories controlled by the ROC consist of 168 islands, with a combined area of . The main island of Taiwan, also known as "Formosa", has an area of , with mountain ranges dominating the eastern two-thirds and plains in the western third, where its highly urbanised population is concentrated. The capital, Taipei, forms along with New Taipei City and Keelung the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Other major cities include Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. With around 23.9 million inhabitants, Taiwan is among the most densely populated countries in the world.


title: Taiwan

text: Taiwan has been settled for at least 25,000 years. Ancestors of Taiwanese indigenous peoples settled the island around 6,000 years ago. In the 17th century, large-scale Han Chinese (specifically the Hakkas and Hoklos) immigration to western Taiwan began under a Dutch colony and continued under the Kingdom of Tungning. The island was annexed in 1683 by the Qing dynasty of China and ceded to the Empire of Japan in 1895. The Republic of China, which had overthrown the Qing in 1911, took control of Taiwan on behalf of the Allies of World War II following the surrender of Japan in 1945. The immediate resumption of the Chinese Civil War resulted in the loss of the Chinese mainland to Communist forces who established the People's Republic of China, and the flight of the ROC central government to Taiwan in 1949. The effective jurisdiction of the ROC has since been limited to Formosa, Penghu, and smaller islands.


title: Taiwan

text: In the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialisation called the "Taiwan Miracle". In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ROC transitioned from a one-party state under martial law to a multi-party democracy, with democratically elected presidents since 1996. Taiwan's export-oriented industrial economy is the 21st-largest in the world by nominal GDP and 19th-largest by PPP measures, with a focus on steel, machinery, electronics and chemicals manufacturing. Taiwan is a developed country, ranking 20th on GDP per capita. It is ranked highly in terms of civil liberties, healthcare, and human development.


title: Taiwan

text: The political status of Taiwan is contentious. The ROC no longer represents China as a member of the United Nations, after UN members voted in 1971 to recognize the PRC instead. The ROC maintained its claim of being the sole legitimate representative of China and its territory, although this has been downplayed since its democratization in the 1990s. Taiwan is claimed by the PRC, which refuses diplomatic relations with countries that recognise the ROC. Taiwan maintains official diplomatic relations with 13 out of 193 UN member states and the Holy See, though many others maintain unofficial diplomatic ties through representative offices and institutions that function as "de facto" embassies and consulates. International organisations in which the PRC participates either refuse to grant membership to Taiwan or allow it to participate only on a non-state basis under various names. Domestically, the major political contention is between parties favouring eventual Chinese unification and promoting a pan-Chinese identity, contrasted with those aspiring to formal international recognition and promoting a Taiwanese identity; into the 21st century, both sides have moderated their positions to broaden their appeal.


title: Taiwan

text: Various names for the island of Taiwan remain in use, each derived from explorers or rulers during a particular historical period.


title: Taiwan

text: In his "Daoyi Zhilüe" (1349), Wang Dayuan used "Liuqiu" as a name for the island of Taiwan, or the part of it closest to Penghu. Elsewhere, the name was used for the Ryukyu Islands in general or Okinawa, the largest of the islands; the name "Ryūkyū" is the Japanese form of "Liúqiú". The name also appears in the "Book of Sui" (636) and other early works, but scholars cannot agree on whether these references are to the Ryukyus, Taiwan or even Luzon.


title: Taiwan

text: The name Formosa () dates from 1542, when Portuguese sailors sighted an uncharted island and noted it on their maps as "Ilha Formosa" ("beautiful island"). The name "Formosa" eventually "replaced all others in European literature" and remained in common use among English speakers into the 20th century.


title: Taiwan

text: In the winter of 1602-1603, a Chinese expedition fleet anchored at a place in Taiwan called Dayuan, a variant of "Taiwan", and met with the native chieftain named Damila. In the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company established a commercial post at Fort Zeelandia (modern-day Anping, Tainan) on a coastal sandbar called "Tayouan", after their ethnonym for a nearby Taiwanese aboriginal tribe, possibly Taivoan people, written by the Dutch and Portuguese variously as "Taiouwang", "Tayowan", "Teijoan", etc. This name was also adopted into the Chinese vernacular (in particular, Hokkien, as ) as the name of the sandbar and nearby area (Tainan). The modern word "Taiwan" is derived from this usage, which is written in different transliterations ( and ) in Chinese historical records. The area occupied by modern-day Tainan was the first permanent settlement by both European colonists and Chinese immigrants. The settlement grew to be the island's most important trading centre and served as its capital until 1887.


title: Taiwan

text: Use of the current Chinese name () became official as early as 1684 during the Qing dynasty with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture centered in modern-day Tainan. Through its rapid development the entire Taiwanese mainland eventually became known as "Taiwan".


title: Taiwan

text: The official name of the country in English is the "Republic of China"; it has also been known under various names throughout its existence. Shortly after the ROC's establishment in 1912, while it was still located on the Chinese mainland, the government used the short form "China" (' ()) to refer to itself, which derives from ' ("central" or "middle") and "" ("state, nation-state"), a term which also developed under the Zhou dynasty in reference to its royal demesne, and the name was then applied to the area around Luoyi (present-day Luoyang) during the Eastern Zhou and then to China's Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state during the Qing era. The name of the Republic had stemmed from the party manifesto of Tongmenghui in 1905, which says the four goals of the Chinese revolution was "to expel the Manchu rulers, to revive "Chunghwa", to establish a Republic, and to distribute land equally among the people.()." The convener of Tongmenghui and Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen proposed the name "Chunghwa Minkuo" as the assumed name of the new country when the revolution succeeded.


title: Taiwan

text: During the 1950s and 1960s, after the ROC government had withdrawn to Taiwan upon losing the Chinese Civil War, it was commonly referred to as "Nationalist China" (or "Free China") to differentiate it from "Communist China" (or "Red China"). It was a member of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when the ROC lost its seat to the People's Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become commonly known as "Taiwan", after the main island. In some contexts, including ROC government publications, the name is written as "Republic of China (Taiwan)", "Republic of China/Taiwan", or sometimes "Taiwan (ROC)".


title: Taiwan

text: The Republic of China participates in most international forums and organizations under the name "Chinese Taipei" as a compromise with the People's Republic of China (PRC). For instance, it is the name under which it has participated in the Olympic Games as well as the World Trade Organization. In 2009, after reaching an agreement with Beijing, the ROC participated in the World Health Organization for the first time in 38 years, under the name "Chinese Taipei". "Taiwan authorities" is sometimes used by the PRC to refer to the current government in Taiwan.


title: Taiwan

text: Taiwan was joined to the Asian mainland in the Late Pleistocene, until sea levels rose about 10,000 years ago. Fragmentary human remains dated 20,000 to 30,000 years ago have been found on the island, as well as later artifacts of a Paleolithic culture. These people were similar to the negritos of the Philippines.


title: Taiwan

text: They are believed to be the ancestors of today's Taiwanese indigenous peoples, whose languages belong to the Austronesian language family, but show much greater diversity than the rest of the family, which spans a huge area from Maritime Southeast Asia west to Madagascar and east as far as New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island. This has led linguists to propose Taiwan as the urheimat of the family, from which seafaring peoples dispersed across Southeast Asia and the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Trade links with the Philippines subsisted from the early 2nd millennium BC, including the use of jade from eastern Taiwan in the Philippine jade culture. The raw jade from Taiwan which was further processed in the Philippines was the basis for Taiwanese-Philippine commerce with ancient Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and Cambodia.


title: Taiwan

text: Han Chinese fishermen had settled on the Penghu Islands by 1171, when a group of "Bisheye" bandits with dark skin speaking a foreign language, a Taiwanese people related to the Bisaya of the Visayas, Philippines had landed on Penghu and plundered the fields planted by Chinese migrants. The Song dynasty sent soldiers after them and from that time on, Song patrols regularly visited Penghu in the spring and summer. A local official, Wang Dayou, had houses built on Penghu and stationed troops there to prevent depredations from the Bisheye. In 1225, the "Book of Barbarian Nations" anecdotally indicated that Penghu was attached to Jinjiang, Quanzhou Prefecture. A group of Quanzhou immigrants lived on Penghu. In November 1281, the Yuan dynasty under Emperor Shizu officially established the "Penghu Patrol and Inspection Agency" under the jurisdiction of Tong'an County, incorporating Penghu into China's sovereign domain, 403 years earlier than Taiwan island. Hostile tribes, and a lack of valuable trade products, meant that few outsiders visited the main island until the 16th century. During the 16th century, visits to the coast by fishermen and traders from Fujian, as well as Chinese and Japanese pirates, became more frequent.


title: Taiwan

text: In the 15th century, the Ming ordered the evacuation of the Penghu Islands as part of their maritime ban. When these restrictions were removed in the late 16th century, legal fishing communities, most of which hailing from Tong'an County, were re-established on the Penghu Islands. The Dutch East India Company attempted to establish a trading outpost on the Penghu Islands (Pescadores) in 1622, but was driven off by Ming forces.


title: Taiwan

text: In 1624, the company established a stronghold called Fort Zeelandia on the coastal islet of Tayouan, which is now part of the main island at Anping, Tainan.


title: Taiwan

text: When the Dutch arrived, they found southwestern Taiwan already frequented by a mostly transient Chinese population numbering close to 1,500. David Wright, a Scottish agent of the company who lived on the island in the 1650s, described the lowland areas of the island as being divided among 11 chiefdoms ranging in size from two settlements to 72. Some of these fell under Dutch control, including the Kingdom of Middag in the central western plains, while others remained independent. The Company encouraged farmers to immigrate from Fujian and work the lands under Dutch control. By the 1660s, some 30,000 to 50,000 Chinese were living on the island.


title: Taiwan

text: In 1626, the Spanish Empire landed on and occupied northern Taiwan as a trading base, first at Keelung and in 1628 building Fort San Domingo at Tamsui. This colony lasted 16 years until 1642, when the last Spanish fortress fell to Dutch forces. The Dutch then marched south, subduing hundreds of villages in the western plains between their new possessions in the north and their base at Tayouan.


title: Taiwan

text: Following the fall of the Ming dynasty in Beijing in 1644, Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) pledged allegiance to the Yongli Emperor of Southern Ming and attacked the Qing dynasty along the southeastern coast of China. In 1661, under increasing Qing pressure, he moved his forces from his base in Xiamen to Taiwan, expelling the Dutch in the following year. Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and some analysts consider his regime to be loyal to the Ming, while others argue that he acted as an independent ruler and his intentions were unclear.


title: Taiwan

text: After being ousted from Taiwan, the Dutch allied with the new Qing dynasty in China against the Zheng regime in Taiwan. Following some skirmishes the Dutch retook the northern fortress at Keelung in 1664. Zheng Jing sent troops to dislodge the Dutch, but they were unsuccessful. The Dutch held out at Keelung until 1668, when aborigine resistance, and the lack of progress in retaking any other parts of the island persuaded the colonial authorities to abandon this final stronghold and withdraw from Taiwan altogether.


title: Taiwan

text: Following the defeat of Koxinga's grandson by an armada led by Admiral Shi Lang in 1683, the Qing dynasty formally annexed Taiwan in May 1684, making it a prefecture of Fujian province while retaining its administrative seat (now Tainan) under Koxinga as the capital.


title: Taiwan

text: The Qing government generally tried to restrict migration to Taiwan throughout the duration of its administration because it believed that Taiwan could not sustain too large a population without leading to conflict. After the defeat of the Kingdom of Tungning, most of its population in Taiwan was sent back to the mainland, leaving the official population count at only 50,000: 546 inhabitants in Penghu, 30,229 in Taiwan, 8,108 aborigines, and 10,000 troops. Despite official restrictions, officials in Taiwan solicited settlers from the mainland, causing tens of thousands of annual arrivals from Fujian and Guangdong by 1711. A permit system was officially recorded in 1712 but it likely existed as early as 1684. Restrictions related to the permit system included only allowing those who had property on the mainland, family in Taiwan, and those who were not accompanied by wives or children, to enter Taiwan. Many of the male migrants married local indigenous women. Over the 18th century, restrictions on entering Taiwan were relaxed. In 1732, families were allowed to move to Taiwan, and in 1790, an office to manage cross-strait travel was established. By 1811 there were more than two million Han settlers in Taiwan and profitable sugar and rice production industries that provided exports to the mainland. In 1875, restrictions on entering Taiwan were repealed.


title: Taiwan

text: Three counties nominally covered the entire western plains, but actual control was restricted to a smaller area. A government permit was required for settlers to go beyond the Dajia River at the mid-point of the western plains. Qing administration expanded across the western plains area over the 18th century, however this was not due to an active colonization policy, but a reflection of continued illegal crossings and settlement. The Taiwanese indigenous peoples were categorized by the Qing administration into acculturated aborigines who had adopted Han culture to some degree and non-acculturated aborigines who had not. The Qing did little to administer or subjugate them. When Taiwan was annexed, there were 46 aboriginal villages under its control, likely inherited from the Kingdom of Tungning. During the early Qianlong period there were 93 acculturated villages and 61 non-acculturated villages that paid taxes. The number of acculturated villages remained unchanged throughout the 18th century. In response to the Zhu Yigui uprising, a settler rebellion in 1722, separation of aboriginals and settlers became official policy via 54 stelae used to mark the frontier boundary. The markings were changed four times over the latter half of the 18th century due to continued settler encroachment. Two aboriginal affairs sub-prefects, one for the north and one for the south, were appointed in 1766.


title: Taiwan

text: During the 200 years of Qing rule in Taiwan, the plains aborigines rarely rebelled against the government and the mountain aborigines were left to their own devices until the last 20 years of Qing rule. Most of the rebellions, of which there were more than 100 during the Qing period, were caused by Han settlers. More than a hundred rebellions, riots, and instances of civil strife occurred under the Qing administration, including the Lin Shuangwen rebellion (1786–1788). Their frequency was evoked by the common saying "every three years an uprising, every five years a rebellion" (三年一反、五年一亂), primarily in reference to the period between 1820 and 1850.


title: Taiwan

text: Many officials stationed in Taiwan called for an active colonization policy over the 19th century. In 1788, Taiwan Prefect Yang Tingli supported the efforts of a settler named Wu Sha in his attempt to claim land held by the Kavalan people in modern Yilan County. In 1797, Wu Sha was able to recruit settlers with financial support from the local government but was unable to officially register the land. In the early 1800s, local officials convinced the emperor to officially incorporate the area by playing up the issue of piracy if the land was left alone. In 1814, some settlers attempted to colonize central Taiwan by fabricating rights to lease aboriginal land. They were evicted by government troops two years later. Local officials continued to advocate for the colonization of the area but were ignored.


title: Taiwan

text: The Qing took on a more active colonization policy after 1874 when Japan invaded aboriginal territory in southern Taiwan and the Qing government was forced to pay an indemnity for them to leave. The administration of Taiwan was expanded with new prefectures, sub-prefectures, and counties. Mountain roads were constructed to make inner Taiwan more accessible. Restrictions on entering Taiwan were ended in 1875 and agencies for recruiting settlers were established on the mainland, but efforts to promote settlement ended soon after. In 1884, Keelung in northern Taiwan was occupied during the Sino-French War but the French forces failed to advance any further inland while their victory at Penghu in 1885 resulted in disease and retreat soon afterward as the war ended. Colonization efforts were renewed under Liu Mingchuan. In 1887, Taiwan's status was upgraded to a province. Taipei became a temporary capital and then the permanent capital in 1893. Liu's efforts to increase revenues on Taiwan's produce were hampered by foreign pressure not to increase levies. A land reform was implemented, increasing revenue which still fell short of expectation. Modern technologies such as electric lighting, a railway, telegraph lines, steamship service, and industrial machinery were introduced under Liu's governance, but several of these projects had mixed results. The telegraph line did not function at all times due to a difficult overland connection and the railway required an overhaul while servicing only small rolling stock with little freight load. A campaign to formally subjugate the aborigines was launched with 17,500 soldiers but ended with the loss of a third of the army after fierce resistance from the Mkgogan and Msbtunux peoples. Liu resigned in 1891 due to criticism of these costly projects.


title: Taiwan

text: By the end of the Qing period, the western plains were fully developed as farmland with about 2.5 million Chinese settlers. The mountainous areas were still largely autonomous under the control of aborigines. Aboriginal land loss under the Qing occurred at a relatively slow pace due to the absence of state sponsored land deprivation for the majority of Qing rule. Qing rule ended after the First Sino-Japanese War when it ceded Taiwan and the Penghu islands to Japan on 17 April 1895, according to the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki.


title: Taiwan

text: Following the Qing defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), Taiwan, its associated islands, and the Penghu archipelago were ceded to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki, along with other concessions. Inhabitants on Taiwan and Penghu wishing to remain Qing subjects and not to become Japanese had to move to mainland China within a two-year grace period. Very few Formosans saw this as feasible. Estimates say around four to six thousand departed before the expiration of the grace period, and two to three hundred thousand followed during the subsequent disorder. On 25 May 1895, a group of pro-Qing high officials proclaimed the Republic of Formosa to resist impending Japanese rule. Japanese forces entered the capital at Tainan and quelled this resistance on 21 October 1895. About 6,000 inhabitants died in the initial fighting and some 14,000 died in the first year of Japanese rule. Another 12,000 "bandit-rebels" were killed from 1898 to 1902. Several subsequent rebellions against the Japanese (the Beipu uprising of 1907, the Tapani incident of 1915, and the Musha incident of 1930) were all unsuccessful but demonstrated opposition to Japanese colonial rule.


title: Taiwan

text: The colonial period was instrumental to the industrialization of the island, with its expansion of railways and other transport networks, the building of an extensive sanitation system, the establishment of a formal education system, and an end to the practice of headhunting. During this period, the human and natural resources of Taiwan were used to aid the development of Japan. The production of cash crops such as sugar greatly increased, especially since sugar cane was salable only to a few Japanese sugar mills, and large areas were therefore diverted from the production of rice, which the Formosans could market or consume themselves. By 1939, Taiwan was the seventh-greatest sugar producer in the world.


title: Taiwan

text: The Han and aboriginal populations were classified as second- and third-class citizens. Many prestigious government and business positions were closed to them, leaving few natives capable of taking on leadership and management roles decades later when Japan relinquished the island. After suppressing Han guerrillas in the first decade of their rule, Japanese authorities engaged in a series of bloody campaigns against the indigenous people residing in mountainous regions, culminating in the Musha Incident of 1930. Intellectuals and labourers who participated in left-wing movements within Taiwan were also arrested and massacred (e.g. Chiang Wei-shui and Masanosuke Watanabe). Around 1935, the Japanese began an island-wide assimilation project to bind the island more firmly to the Japanese Empire. Han culture was to be removed, and Chinese-language newspapers and curriculums were abolished. Taiwanese music and theater were outlawed. A national Shinto religion (國家神道) was promoted in parallel with the suppression of traditional Taiwanese beliefs through the reorganization of their temples and ancestral halls. Starting from 1940, families were also required to adopt Japanese surnames, although only 2% had done so by 1943. By 1938, 309,000 Japanese settlers were residing in Taiwan.


title: Taiwan

text: Burdened by Japan's upcoming war effort, the island was developed into a naval and air base while its agriculture, industry, and commerce suffered. Initial air attacks and the subsequent invasion of the Philippines were launched from Taiwan. The Imperial Japanese Navy operated heavily from Taiwanese ports, and its think tank "South Strike Group" was based at the Taihoku Imperial University in Taipei. Military bases and industrial centres, such as Kaohsiung and Keelung, became targets of heavy Allied bombings, which also destroyed many of the factories, dams, and transport facilities built by the Japanese. In October 1944, the Formosa Air Battle was fought between American carriers and Japanese forces in Taiwan.


title: Taiwan

text: During the course of World War II, tens of thousands of Taiwanese served in the Japanese military. In 1944, Lee Teng-hui, who would become Taiwan's president later in life, volunteered for service in the Imperial Japanese Army and became a second lieutenant. His elder brother, Lee Teng-chin (李登欽), also volunteered for the Imperial Japanese Navy and died in Manila. In addition, over 2,000 women, euphemistically called "comfort women", were forced into sexual slavery for Imperial Japanese troops.


title: Taiwan

text: After Japan's surrender in WWII, most of Taiwan's approximately 300,000 Japanese residents were expelled and sent to Japan.


title: Taiwan

text: While Taiwan was still under Japanese rule, the Republic of China was founded on the mainland on 1 January 1912, following the Xinhai Revolution, which began with the Wuchang uprising on 10 October 1911, replacing the Qing dynasty and ending over two thousand years of imperial rule in China. From its founding until 1949 it was based in mainland China. Central authority waxed and waned in response to warlordism (1915–28), Japanese invasion (1937–45), and the Chinese Civil War (1927–50), with central authority strongest during the Nanjing decade (1927–37), when most of China came under the control of the Kuomintang (KMT) under an authoritarian one-party state.