London is a large and permanent human settlement.
London . Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain , London has been a major settlement for two millennia . Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population ( corresponding to Greater London ) was 8,673,713 , the largest of any city in the European Union , and accounting for 12.5 % of the UK population . Ocean colonization or ocean colonisation is the theory and practice of permanent human settlement of oceans .