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London is a city. There is the original City of London, which is now the business district. Places such as Westminster were once independent cities but have long since become part of the London urban area and are legally boroughs. London has thirty-two boroughs and it is governed by the Greater London Administration.

It's because London has been around so long. The City of London is the original area, just one square mile. This is the Londinium of the ancient Romans. Then in the 11th century, Edward the Confessor began to build Westminster Abbey and a palace next to it, and that became the place of government (as it still is) and was called the City of Westminster. So yes, to start with there were two cities on the banks of the River Thames.

It took several centuries before the growth of population and buildings caused the two cities to expand and eventually connect up, then expand even more in all directions, creating the huge London area that there is now. But the Cities of London and Westminster kept their ancient names - typical British: we don't change anything unless we have to and we like keeping historical stuff, even if it confuses everybody else.

The "City of London" is a separate administrative region covering the oldest part of central London (approximately 1 square mile). Westminster was the district that grew up around the Abbey which was located well outside the old city walls. London has grown a lot over the last 1000 years.

Technically the old "City of London" is still a city in its own right. It has its own police force, and even different economic laws (hence why businesses love it).

But ultimately it is now part of Greater London, what most Londoners consider to be the real modern city.

It might have something to do with having a cathedral. I think in the old days, you needed to have a cathedral to be a city.

... So City of London has St Pauls... Westminster Abbey in City of Westminster used to be a cathedral... (Britain is Church of England, so the Catholic and Orthodox cathedrals don't count).

London City is a tiny area compared to what people call London now........... so in reality you have London City then you have Westminister City and lots of other independant original towns which are now merged into one big place called London, or London area each place such as Chelsea, Tottenham, Fulham, , Camden were all towns in their own right, now jboughs in London.....................

Most cities in the world are small, Like the city of London

But people tent to refer to the city and the suburbs as being "the city" which is huge.

I live in the City of Brampton, but when far away from home we say we are from Toronto, because people not familiar with the area can understand

Greater LONDON...a CONURBATION and seen as a CITY by us,IS as you stated The CITY of LONDON, The CITY of WESTMINSTER and all the 30 or so LONDON BOROUGHS......GREATER LONDON does have its OWN ASSEMBLY remember....

We have a similar situation, here in GREATER MANCHESTER, which is a smaller conurbation with 2.7 million...Is TWO cities (WITH that status..as NOT every town, with a bus stop, is a city in the UK, UNLIKE in the US....), PLUS eight other METROPOLITAN BOROUGHS.......Seen from the air, do NOT know where ONE starts and the other ends.....

London is a city. Places like the city of westminster are just names for certain parts of London (Wembly, Waterloo, Chelsea, etc.)