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Comment by gadders | Hacker News Reader

It's Charing Cross: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charing_Cross#:~:text=Since%20....

Some years ago, I was looking for London hotels on some booking site, and noticed that they were listed as being so-and-so many km (with .1 or even .01 precision) from London, which seemed amusing given that they were all in London. So I fired up QGIS and drew a circle (in some suitable projection!) with the indicated radius around each hotel, and found that they intersected on Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square.

As the parent indicated, this stuff is surprisingly standardised in London.

Distance is measured from Charing Cross.

The Cross is near Nelson's Column, but I would be surprised if the column was actually the central point.

As others have pointed out, this leads to some weirdness, as lots assume that the City (old London & older Roman London) would be the obvious place to measure things from.

The original Charing Cross was at the south of the square, where the statue of Charles I is now. (The cross at the railways station nearby is a Victorian folly).

In a similar vein, for New York City the official highway distance to the city is measured from Columbus Circle [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Circle

In Edinburgh, it's the old post office building at the end of Princes Street.

Which is also where the A1, A7, and A8 meet.

There's also the confusion as to whether people mean 'Greater London' or 'The City of London'. For the centre of the City, i've generally thought that Leadenhall Market is the centre, given it is built on the original Roman Forum.

For non-Londoners, the city was originally a walled city, and lies to the east end of what is now considered greater london. It's these days synonymous with the financial industry. There are special laws for it, honours like Freedom of the City, it's quite an interesting place.

Although the wall is long gone, there are place names which refer to it, and the gates which exited through it. So we have roads like 'London Wall' and locations like Bishopsgate, Aldgate etc. Newgate was added in the 12th century, so not exactly 'New' these days, so not a very future proof naming convention...

https://leadenhallmarket.co.uk/history-of-leadenhall-market/

https://inspiringcity.com/2013/04/13/the-seven-gates-of-lond...

>>Although the wall is long gone...

You can still see chunks of the wall: https://livinglondonhistory.com/londons-ancient-roman-and-me...

Also, if you want see some cool Roman stuff, there is a Temple of Mithras under the new Bloomberg headquarters near Cannon Street station.

https://www.londonmithraeum.com/

Free to enter, but pre-booking recommended.

There aren’t any special laws for the City of London (except any local byelaws). The City is administered in its own unique way, but English law applies just like anywhere else in England.

https://www.quora.com/Does-the-City-of-London-as-it-is-defin...

By far my most hated misconception about London. If what people say were true, every company in the world would be based there.

As a non British person I would think the center of the city would be some point equidistant centrally between the boundaries of the original roman city wall, in the square mile, but the actual center of the city seems to have migrated since then.

> I would think the center of the city would be some point equidistant centrally between the boundaries of the original roman city wall

That would be the centre of the City, but not necessarily of the city.

Modern London encompasses two historic settlements (the city of London, and westminster). What is now consider the centre is somewhere between the two.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster

The center of the city has just as much (or more) to do with vibes than physical geography.

Anything that is south of the River Thames is considered "South" (prounounced "Souf" in MLE [1]), no matter the actual distance.

E.g. Waterloo Station would be considered South London but is actually at the same latitude as Buckingham Palace!

Hence why a Londoner would never describe Vauxhall as "Central".

Londoners would generally discount any part of this map south of the river from "Central London":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_London#/media/File:Ope...

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