London

People

In 1992, the population of the City of London, the central downtown part of the city, was estimated at 3,900. The surrounding area of Inner London, consisting of the City of London and 13 boroughs of Greater London, had an estimated population of 2,632,100. Altogether, the population of the 33 boroughs of the Greater London metropolitan area was estimated at 6,904,600.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, London's immigrant communities were mostly small and self-contained, giving it a less cosmopolitan flavor than other comparable cities. Nineteenth-century immigrant groups included Italians, French, Chinese, Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, and, in the last decades of the century, Polish and Russian Jews. (More Jewish immigrants from both Eastern and Western Europe followed in the years before and after World War II.)

City Fact Comparison
Indicator	London	Cairo	Rome	Beijing
	(England)	(Egypt)	(Italy)	(China)
Population of urban area¹	7,640,000	10,772,000	2,688,000	12,033,000
Date the city was founded	1st centuary AD	AD 969	753 BC	723 BC
Daily costs to visit the city²
Hotel (single occupancy)	$219	$193	$172	$129
Meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner)	$79	$56	$59	$62
Incidentals (laundry, dry cleaning, etc.)	$20	$14	$15	$16
Total daily costs	$318	$173	$246	$207
Major Newspapers³
Number of newspapers serving the city	21	13	20	11
Largest newspaper	News of the World	Akhbar El Yom/Al Akhbar	La Repubblica	Renmin Ribao
Circulation of largest newspaper	4,316,825	1,159,339	754,930	3,000,000
Date largest newspaper was established	1843	1944	1976	1948
¹United Nations population estimates for the year 2000.
²The maximum amount the U.S. Government reimburses its employees for business travel. The lodging portion of the allowance is based on the cost for a single room at a moderately-priced hotel. The meal portion is based on the costs of an average breakfast, lunch, and dinner including taxes, service charges, and customary tips. Incidental travel expenses include such things as laundry and dry cleaning.
³David Maddux, ed. Editor&Publisher International Year Book. New York: The Editor&Publisher Company, 1999.

Since the influx of immigrants from Britain's former colonies that began in the 1950s, London's population has steadily grown even more diverse. The new immigrants include West Indians, East Indians, Bangladeshis, and people from a variety of African nations. When the 1991 census was taken, one child of every three born in London was born to an immigrant mother. In 2000, nearly one-quarter of the city's population was born overseas. However, much of the ethnic diversity of Greater London is concentrated in its western boroughs while those to the east are home primarily to British-born whites.