On Jul 19, 1:49*am, John B wrote:

On Jul 18, 7:57*pm, Arthur Figgis wrote:

Lots of places have signs but no distinct government. I think I've seen
"England" on signs, and even "London" is rather complex concept to pin
down as a specific "thing".

England exists, legally, though - e.g. the Department of [English]
Health.

Rubbish - see Charles Ellson's answer. The Department of Health has a
whole number of UK-wide responsibilities as well as its (primary)
responsibility for healthcare in England and Wales.

England does of course exist legally - though there are a number of
areas where a reference to England is actually an abbreviated
reference to England *and* Wales (e.g. reference to contracts being
enforced according to "English law" in "English courts"). In the past
one could have said that constitutionally Wales was basically part of
England, but with devolution this description would be less apt.


London is easy: the Corporation's area is the City of London, the GLA
area is Greater London, and there isn't anything else.

Yes there is. There's the London postal district - and there's a whole
number of places within Greater London that are outwith the London
postal district (e.g. in the south east fringes there's lots of places
with "Bromley" as the post town and hence BRx postcodes - back when
the postal county was properly included as part of the address, these
places would have had Kent in their address too, and many people still
continue to include it).

Sewardstone, near Epping Forest, meanwhile is outside Greater London
but has a London postcode - E4.

The London telephone dialling code 020 covers a larger area than the
London postal district, including many places outside of Greater
London. Meanwhile other places on the edges of Greater London have
dialling codes other than 020 London.

The Met Police District used to cover an area larger than Greater
London, but this was rationalised when the GLA was created and these
areas were transferred to the appropriate home counties police force.

The London fares (aka Travelcard) zones of course cover an area larger
than Greater London - and that's the case even if we're only talking
about the 'proper' zones 1-6.

I think there's a number of other examples where an official or quasi-
official body of one sort or another defines London in different ways.