Look at Greater London – including Middlesex

London is the largest city in western Europe and home to 50 non-indigenous communities with populations over 10,000 using 300 different languages. Greater London has a total area of 1,584 square kilometres, including the City’s square mile with 7.5 million residents in its 32 boroughs (and the City), and an average household size of 2.3 people. The population is expected to increase to more than 8 million by 2020. (For comparison purposes, other measurements include larger tracts of south-east England with a population of 18 million in some 16,000 square kilometres.) If London was a country, it would be the eighth largest in Europe.

The population density is 4,761 people per square kilometre, more than ten times that of any other British region. In terms of population, London is the 25th largest city and the 17th largest metropolitan region in the world. It ranks as one of the most expensive cities in the world, alongside Tokyo and Moscow.

At its core, the ancient City of London, to which the name historically belongs, still retains its limited mediaeval boundaries; but since at least the nineteenth century the name London has also referred to the whole metropolis that has developed around it. Today the bulk of this conurbation forms the London region of Englandand the Greater London administrative area,with its own elected mayor and assembly, and includes the two cities of London and Westminster.

The fundamental factor driving change in London’s employment structure has been the massive substitution of jobs in business services for jobs lost in manufacturing. The finance and business services sector is projected to make the most significant contribution to economic growth over the next 15 years, providing over half of the gross total growth in employment. Other service activities – especially in the creative industries; leisure and retail industries; and in hotels, catering and tourism – will also grow rapidly.

London has the second highest unemployment rate in England; 29% of working-age adults are non-employed, compared to 24% in the rest of Great Britain (25% of all unemployed people in Britain live in London). This rate is even higher among minority ethnic groups.

London’s bid for the 2012 Olympics focuses primarily on East London, and will provide major change and regeneration. Growth projections suggest a net increase in jobs of nearly 650,000 between now and 2016, and this will require the provision of 30,000 new homes a year to meet demand.

The total labour force is around 3.6 million people supplemented by a further 6 million in the south-east and east regions. One in six of Britain’s workforce works in London, and average earnings are almost a third higher than the British average.London has a younger population than the rest of the UK: 41% of Londoners are aged 20 to 44. About 25% of London’s population is over the age of 65.

Financial, professional and business service companies employ 1.3 million people and the City is the world’s largest fund management centre. The office-based workforce requires a significant building and transport infrastructure programme. Seventy FTSE100 firms have their HQs in London, which is the world’s largest international banking centre. The economy of the wider London metropolitan area (the largest in Europe) generates approximately 30% of UK’s GDP. Despite its tiny area, the City of London is Europe’s largest central business district and financial district, the world’s sixth largest city economy and one of three command centres for the world economy.

More than 85% (3.2 million) of the employed population of greater London work in service industries, while another half a million employees resident in Greater London work in manufacturing and construction. Despite a significant fall over the last three decades, there are more than 15,000 manufacturing businesses in the region.London is expected to retain high value-added and design-led manufacturing, engineering, biotechnology and medical devices, and pharmaceutical spin-offs. Other dynamic emerging sectors include e-business, creative industries and environmental industries.

London’s workforce is the most highly qualified in the UK – over a third have a degree – while managers, professionals and technical staff account for 48% of those employed compared to 38% in the rest of the country. London’s ICT sector employs more than 200,000 people, a quarter of the UK’s software professionals.

Tourism is one of London’s prime industries and employs the equivalent of 350,000 full-time workers, while annual expenditure by tourists is well over £15 billion. London is a popular destination for tourists, attracting 25 million visits a year. Nearly 700,000 people are employed in the cultural and creative sectors, generating £25 billion to £29 billion annually.

London has 24 universities and colleges, with 350,000 students, 68 kilometres of the River Thames, 130 kilometres of canals and 1,700 parks. It has four World Heritage Sites, 17 national museums, 11,000 restaurants, cafés and takeaways, 500,000 surveillance cameras, 40,000 shops, 80 individual markets, 1 million schoolchildren and 600 square miles of roads. However, central London traffic moves at the same average speed as it did in 1911. London also contains three of the five most deprived boroughs in England.