Location: River Thames, England
AKA: City of London
Dimensions: 1,572.1 km2 (607 sq mi)
Population: 7,825,200
Brief:
London is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its founding by the Romans.
The city is a leading global city, with strengths in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism and transport all contributing to its prominence. It has the most international visitors of any city in the world and London Heathrow is the world's busiest airport by number of international passengers.
London is famed for its police force, the Scottland Yard, and for being the territory of Knight and Squire, two of England's prominant heroes and Batman affiliates. The city itself possesses a small pub called the "Time in a Bottle" which acts as a neutral zone where British heroes and villains peacefully meet due to "truce magic" that is in effect in the location.
The city also possesses an advanced prison for metahumans, known as "Basement 101", and is the homegrounds of occultist John Constantine.
History:
Founded by the Romans in 43 AD, with the collapse of Roman rule in the early 5th century, London was effectively abandoned until the 6th century when an Anglo-Saxon settlement was developed slightly to the west of the old Roman city. In the 9th century London was repeatedly attacked by Vikings, leading to a relocation of the settlement into the old city in order to use its walls for protection. Following the unification of England in the 10th century, London, already the country's largest city and most important trading centre, became increasingly important as a political centre.
In the 11th century King Edward the Confessor rebuilt Westminster Abbey and Westminster. From this point onward Westminster steadily supplanted the City of London as a venue for the business of national government. Following his victory in the Battle of Hastings, William, Duke of Normandy, was crowned King of England in the newly finished Westminster Abbey. William constructed the Tower of London, the first of the many Norman castles in England to be rebuilt in stone, in the southeastern corner of the city to intimidate the native inhabitants.
Disaster struck during the Black Death in the mid-14th century, when London lost nearly a third of its population. London was the focus of the Peasants' Revolt in 1381. The Great Fire of London broke out in 1666 in Pudding Lane in the city and quickly swept through the wooden buildings. Rebuilding took over ten years. The Blitz and other bombing by the German Luftwaffe during World War II killed over 30,000 Londoners and destroyed large tracts of housing and other buildings across London. Immediately after the war, the 1948 Summer Olympics were held at the original Wembley Stadium, at a time when the city had barely recovered from the war.
Trivia[]
- London was the world's largest city from about 1831 to 1925
- London's 43 universities form the largest concentration of higher education in Europe.
- The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world.
- London's bus network is one of the largest in the world, running 24 hours a day, with 8,000 buses, 700 bus routes, and over 6 million passenger journeys made every weekday.
- In the 16th century William Shakespeare and his contemporaries lived in London.