Friday, October 12, 2012

Diamond Jubilee city

Last year I mentioned Reading (pop 370,000) was a town, not a city. That's because in the UK, the title of 'city' is an honorific given by the Crown, and has nothing to do with population size. In fact, one city has less than 2,000 residents! For the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, 3 towns were given city status, one in England, Wales, and Scotland. Sadly, Reading was not selected; Chelmsford (pop. 120,000), in Essex, was. It will likely be many years before the opportunity comes up again; the last time was in 2002 for the Queen's Golden Jubilee.

By the way, London is not a city, but it contains two of them: the City of London (pop. 7,000) and City of Westminster (pop.108,000)
If you want to understand more about this bizarre situation, watch this fantastic video:

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