London

Highways

Various highways lead into London from all directions, like the spokes of a wheel, intersecting with highway M25, which rings the Greater London area, and, farther in, with highways A205 and 406, which circle the central part of the city.

Bus and Railroad Service

Eurostar trains provide service between London and six destinations in France and Belgium. London's train stations provide direct connections to the city's buses and Underground. The Chunnel train runs between Paris and London's Waterloo station.

Airports

Located 24 kilometers (15 miles) from the center of London, Heathrow Airport is one of the busiest in the world. Gatwick, which is about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the city, is less heavily used, but traffic there is growing steadily. Smaller airports are Stansted, used primarily for travel to and from the European continent, and London City Airport, which is popular with business travelers from elsewhere in Britain and from northern Europe.

Shipping

Historically, London's location on the Thames and its proximity to both the English Channel and the North Sea—as well as its position as the center of an international empire—made it one of the world's great trading centers. Until World War II the Port of London was the busiest in the world. Since the late 1960s, however, London's shipping traffic has declined dramatically due to competition, labor problems, and changes in the shipping industry itself. In 2000, the Port of London accounted for only eight percent of Britain's total shipping traffic.

London's port is administered by the Port of London Authority (PLA), which handles environmental and navigation issues for the part of the Thames that falls under its jurisdiction. Through its 86 terminals, the port handles a full range of cargo, which is shipped to destinations all over the world.

Bus and Commuter Rail Service

Bus and rail services are operated by London Transport throughout the Greater London area. A fleet of about 5,400 buses covers 700 routes which encompass 140 bus stations and stands and some 10,000 bus shelters. The city's underground trains (known simply as the Underground or "the Tube") service over 260 stations; 500 trains make over 2.5 million passenger journeys daily. The £3.2 billion Jubilee Line Extension, opened in November 1999, runs between Green Park and Waterloo. It is the single largest expansion of the underground system in 25 years.

Sightseeing

A number of bus tours are available, including the hour-and-a-half Original London Sightseeing Tour aboard an old-fashioned double-decker bus. Harrods department store operates its own double-decker bus tours, and Big Bus Company, Ltd. runs two-hour tours in the summertime, covering 18 popular tourist attractions.

Companies offering walking tours include the Original London Walks, Discovery Walks, Guided Walks in London, and John Wittich.

The Port of London, an increasingly popular cruise ship destination, has four cruise ship moorings, at Tower Bridge, Greenwich, West India Dock, and Tilbury. Tours are also offered on London's canals.

Websites

Digital City: London. [Online] Available http://london.digitalcity.com (accessed December 20, 1999).

London official internet site. [Online] Available http://www.LondonTown.com (accessed December 20, 1999).

This is London. [Online] Available http://www.thisislondon.com

Time Out London. [Online] Available http://www.timeout.com/london (accessed December 20, 1999).

UK for Visitors. [Online] Available http://gouk.miningco.com (accessed December 20, 1999).

Government Offices

Prime Minister's Office
10 Downing St.
London SW1A 2AA

Home Office
50 Queen Anne's Gate
London SW1H 9AT

Lord Chancellor's Department
House of Lords
London SW1A 0PW

Tourist and Convention Bureaus

British Tourist Authority
Thames Tower
Black's Rd.
London W6 9EL
United Kingdom

British Visitor Centre
1 Regent St.
Piccadilly Circus
London SW1Y 4PQ

Publications

The Daily Telegraph
1 Canada Sq., Canary Wharf
London, E14 5DT

The Guardian
119 Farrington Rd.
London, EC1R 3ER

The Sun
Virginia St.
London E1 9XJ

The Times
Virginia St.
London, E1 9XT

Books

Bradley, Simon and Nikolaus Pevsner. London: The City Churches. London: Penguin Books, 1998.

Butler, Brian. London for Free: Hundreds of Free Things to Do in London. 3rd rev. ed. Memphis, TN: Mustang Publishing, 1997.

Clout, Hugh, ed. The Times London History Atlas. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Collin, Francesca. The Arts & Entertainment in London. New York: Sterling Publishing, 1997.

Davies, Andrew. Literary London. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988.

Duncan, Andrew. Walking London: Thirty Original Walks in and around London. Lincolnwood, IL: Passport Books, 1994.

Edel, Leon. Bloomsbury: A House of Lions. 1st ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1979.

Hall, Peter. London 2001. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989.

Hendershott, Barbara Sloan, and Alzina Stone Dale. Mystery Reader's Walking Guide, London. 2nd ed. Lincolnwood, IL: Passport Books, 1996.

Howes, Karen. Living in London. Photographs by Simon Upton. London: Thames & Hudson, 1999.

Kureishi, Hanif. London Kills Me: Three Screenplays and Four Essays. New York: Penguin Books, 1992.

Lain, Larry, and Michael Lain. London for Families. New York: Interlink Books, 1997.

Parnell, Geoffrey. Book of the Tower of London. London: B.T. Batsford, 1993.

Porter, Roy. London: A Social History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Weinreb, Ben, and Christopher Hibbert. London Encyclopaedia. Rev. ed. London: MacMillan, 1993.

Young, Ken, and Patricia L. Garside. Metropolitan London, Politics and Urban Change, 1837–1981. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982.