The City

The City is a part of London. It used to be the old Roman and medieval town of London, but is now the area of London with all the banks. The City is one of the most important financial centres in the world. Although the City is only one square mile (2.5 km²), 300,000 people work there. It contains 555 banks from many different countries.

The City earns over £ 25 billion a year by selling its financial services. Every year it handles 32 per cent of the world's foreign exchange trade (buying and selling of foreign currencies), twice as much as the next main centre, New York.

Michael Vaughan-Rees, Geraldine Sweeney, Picot Cassidy: In Britain. 21st Century Edition, Cornelsen Verlag, 2000, page 42