The Great City of London, known for its historical landmarks, modern skyscrapers, ancient markets, and famous bridges.

It's arguably the financial capital of the world and home to over 11,000 people.

Wait, what? 11,000?

That's right, but the city of London is a different place from London.

Though London is also known for its historical landmarks, modern skyscrapers, ancient markets, famous bridges, and is home to the government royal family and 7 million people.

But if you look at a map of London crafted by a careful cartographer, that map will have

a one square mile hole near the middle.

It's here where the city of London lives inside the city named London.

Despite these confusingly close names, the two London's have separate city halls and elect

separate mayors who collect separate taxes to fund separate police who enforce separate laws. The mayor of the city of London has a fancy title, the right honorable the Lord Mayor of London, to match his fancy outfit. He also gets to ride in a golden carriage and work in a guild hall, while the mayor of London has to wear a suit, ride a bike, and work in an office building. The city of London also has its own flag and its own crest, which is awesome, and makes London's lack of either twice as sad. To top it off, the city of London gets to act more like one of the countries in the UK than just an oddly located city, for, uniquely, the corporation that runs the city of London is older than the United Kingdom by several hundred years. So how did the UK end up with two London's one inside of the other? Because Romans. Two thousand years ago they came to Great Britain, killed a bunch of druids, and founded a trading post on the River Thames and named it Lundinium. Being Romans, they got to work doing what Romans do, enforcing laws, increasing trade, building temples, public baths,

roads, bridges, and a wall to defend their work. And it's this wall which is why the current

city of London exists. For though the Romans came and the Romans went and kingdoms rose and

kingdoms fell, the wall endured protecting the city within. And the city, governing itself and trading

with the world, grew rich. A thousand years after the Romans, yet still a thousand years ago,

when William the Conqueror came to Great Britain to conquer everything and begin modern British history,

he found the city of London with its sturdy walls more challenging to defeat than farmers on open fields.

So he agreed to recognize the rights and privileges city of Londoners were used to in return for them recognizing him as the new king.

Though after the negotiation, William quickly built towers around the city of London, which were just as much about protecting William from the locals within as defending against the Vikings from without.

This started a thousand year-long tradition whereby monarchs always reconfirmed that, yes, the city of London is a special unique place that's best left to its own business,

while simultaneously distrusting it.

Many a monarch thought the city of London was too powerful and rich,

and one even built a new capital city nearby, named Westminster, to compete with the city of London

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