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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.

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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.

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