List of cities in England

Examples of major urban areas in the England; Liverpool, Southampton, Newcastle upon Tyne; and London.

This is a list of cities in England that are designated such as of 12 November 2022. It lists those places that have been granted city status by letters patent or royal charter.

There are currently a total of 55 in England, 24 of these have Lord Mayors. In some cases, the area holding city status does not coincide with the built up area or conurbation of which it forms part. In Greater London, for example, the City of London and that of Westminster each hold city status separately, but no other local authority in the London Region has been granted city status, nor has the Greater London Authority.

In other cases, such as the cities of Canterbury and Lancaster, the status applies to a local government district which extends over a number of towns and rural areas outside the main settlement proper. In England, the status sometimes applies to civil parishes, such as the city of Ripon; though the status may not apply to the local government district which share their name.

The list does not include places like Luton or Northampton which, despite having populations of over 200,000, have not been awarded city status and thus formally remain as towns. As of 2022, there are currently 5 ceremonial counties which contain 3 cities - Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hampshire, West Midlands and West Yorkshire.

History

Main articles: City status in the United Kingdom

The initial cities (Latin: civitas) of Britain were the fortified settlements organised by the Romans as the capitals of the Celtic tribes under Roman rule. The British clerics of the early Middle Ages later preserved a traditional list of the "28 Cities" which was mentioned by Gildas and listed by Nennius.

York was once the capital city of England. Until the 19th century, city status in England was associated with the presence of a cathedral, such as York Minster.

In the 16th century, a town was recognised as a city by the English Crown if it had a diocesan cathedral within its limits, for which 22 dioceses existed in England. This association between having a cathedral and being called a city was established when Henry VIII founded new dioceses (each having a cathedral in the see city) in six English towns and also granted them city status by issuing letters patent, demonstrating these were discrete procedures. Some cities today are very small because they were granted city status in or before the 16th century, then were unaffected by population growth during the Industrial Revolution, such as Wells and Truro.

The title of city was initially informal and, into the 20th century, royal charters were considered to recognise city status rather than to grant it. The usual criterion in early modern England was the presence of a cathedral, particularly after King Henry VIII granted letters patent establishing six new cities when he established a series of new dioceses in the 1540s as part of the English Reformation. No new cities were created between the 16th and 19th centuries, but following the Industrial Revolution and the accompanying population boom and growth in urbanisation, new sees were established at Ripon (1836) and Manchester (1847); their councils began to style them cities immediately.

In mid-19th century, the process became more formal. A visit by Queen Victoria in 1851 prompted Manchester to petition Parliament for recognition of its status. Ripon followed in the 1860s, and a series of hitherto informal "cities" were formally recognised in the 1880s and 1890s. King Edward VII and the Home Office established three criteria for future applicants in 1907—a minimum population of 300,000, a good record of local government, and a "local metropolitan character" – but these criteria were not made public, and following Leicester's successful elevation in 1919 a series of exceptions were made. The 1972 Local Government Act effectively eliminated all authorities holding city status outside Greater London on 1 April 1974; most of their replacements were confirmed in their predecessor's status—even in cases such as the 1974–2023 City of Carlisle district, where much of the local authority area was undeveloped countryside—but the Borough of Medway was not permitted to continue Rochester's title. In recent times there have been competitions for new grants of city status. Towns or councils that claim city status or add "city" to their name have been known to be rebuked by the Advertising Standards Authority.

List of cities

City	Year granted or confirmed	City council status	Nation/region	Population
City of London	time immemorial	Local government district (sui generis and ceremonial county)	Greater London, England	8,600 (2021)
Westminster	1540	Local government district (London borough)	Greater London, England	204,300 (2021)
Birmingham	1889	Local government district (Metropolitan borough)	West Midlands, England	1,144,900 (2021)
Leeds	1893	Local government district (Metropolitan borough)	Yorkshire and the Humber, England	812,000 (2021)
Sheffield	1893	Local government district (Metropolitan borough)	Yorkshire and the Humber, England	556,500 (2021)
Bradford	1897	Local government district (Metropolitan borough)	Yorkshire and the Humber, England	546,400 (2021)
Manchester	1853	Local government district (Metropolitan borough)	North West, England	552,000 (2021)
Liverpool	1880	Local government district (Metropolitan borough)	North West, England	486,100 (2021)
Bristol	1542	Local government district (Unitary and county)	South West, England	472,400 (2021)
Leicester	1919	Local government district (Unitary)	East Midlands, England	368,600 (2021)
Wakefield	1888	Local government district (Metropolitan borough)	Yorkshire and the Humber, England	353,300 (2021)
Coventry	1102	Local government district (Metropolitan borough)	West Midlands, England	345,300 (2021)
Doncaster	2022	Local government district (Metropolitan borough)	Yorkshire and the Humber, England	308,100 (2021)
Nottingham	1897	Local government district (Unitary)	East Midlands, England	323,700 (2021)
Newcastle upon Tyne	1882	Local government district (Metropolitan borough)	North East, England	300,200 (2021)
Sunderland	1992	Local government district (Metropolitan borough)	North East, England	274,200 (2021)
Brighton & Hove	2001	Local government district (Unitary)	South East, England	277,200 (2021)
Kingston upon Hull	1897	Local government district (Unitary)	Yorkshire and the Humber, England	267,100 (2021)
Plymouth	1928	Local government district (Unitary)	South West, England	264,700 (2021)
Wolverhampton	2001	Local government district (Metropolitan borough)	West Midlands, England	263,700 (2021)
Stoke-on-Trent	1925	Local government district (Unitary)	West Midlands, England	258,400 (2021)
Milton Keynes	2022	Local government district (Unitary)	South East, England	287,000 (2021)
Derby	1977	Local government district (Unitary)	East Midlands, England	261,400 (2021)
Southampton	1964	Local government district (Unitary)	South East, England	261,400 (2021)
Salford	1926	Local government district (Metropolitan borough)	North West, England	269,900 (2021)
Portsmouth	1926	Local government district (Unitary)	South East, England	208,100 (2021)
York	time immemorial	Local government district (Unitary)	Yorkshire and the Humber, England	202,800 (2021)
Colchester	2022	Local government district (Non-metropolitan borough)	East, England	192,700 (2021)
Peterborough	1541	Local government district (Unitary)	East, England	215,700 (2021)
Southend-on-Sea	2022	Local government district (Unitary)	East, England	180,700 (2021)
Chelmsford	2012	Local government district (Non-metropolitan borough)	East, England	181,500 (2021)
Oxford	1542	Local government district (Non-metropolitan borough)	South East, England	162,100 (2021)
Canterbury	time immemorial	Local government district (Non-metropolitan borough)	South East, England	157,400 (2021)
St Albans	1877	Local government district (Non-metropolitan borough)	East, England	148,200 (2021)
Preston	2002	Local government district (Non-metropolitan borough)	North West, England	147,900 (2021)
Lancaster	1937	Local government district (Non-metropolitan borough)	North West, England	142,900 (2021)
Norwich	1094	Local government district (Non-metropolitan borough)	East, England	144,000 (2021)
Exeter	time immemorial	Local government district (Non-metropolitan borough)	South West, England	130,800 (2021)
Cambridge	1951	Local government district (Non-metropolitan borough)	East, England	145,700 (2021)
Gloucester	1541	Local government district (Non-metropolitan borough)	South West, England	121,688 (2011)
Winchester	time immemorial	Local government district (Non-metropolitan borough)	South East, England	116,595 (2011)
Carlisle	1133	Charter trustees	North West, England	107,524 (2011)
Worcester	time immemorial	Local government district (Non-metropolitan borough)	West Midlands, England	98,768 (2011)
Durham	time immemorial	Charter trustees <maplink>: Title "Durham-city.map" is not a valid map data page	North East, England	94,375 (2011)
Lincoln	1072	Local government district (Non-metropolitan borough)	East Midlands, England	93,541 (2011)
Chester	1541	Charter trustees <maplink>: Title "Chester-city.map" is not a valid map data page	North West, England	91,733 (2010)
Bath	1090	Charter trustees <maplink>: Title "Bath-city.map" is not a valid map data page	South West, England	88,859 (2011)
Hereford	time immemorial	Civil parish	West Midlands, England	58,896 (2011)
Salisbury	1227	Civil parish	South West, England	40,302 (2011)
Lichfield	time immemorial	Civil parish	West Midlands, England	32,219 (2011)
Chichester	1075	Civil parish	South East, England	26,795 (2011)
Ely	1109	Civil parish	East, England	20,256 (2011)
Truro (Cornish: Truru)	1877	Civil parish	South West, England	18,766 (2011)
Ripon	1865	Civil parish	Yorkshire and the Humber, England	16,702 (2011)
Wells	time immemorial	Civil parish	South West, England	10,536 (2011)

Conurbations

The term "city" is sometimes loosely applied to conurbations in England. The government tends to recognise these as primary urban areas for statistical and economic purposes, though greater urban areas are what most determine to be a city region. Large cities outside of London such as Manchester or Birmingham are often confused with these greater conurbations. According to the 2011 census, Manchester was significantly less populous than Birmingham, despite Greater Manchester having a larger urban population than the West Midlands conurbation.

Conversely, many official cities in England contain a substantial rural area encompassing settlements which are physically separated from the core urban area. This applies to settlements such as Milton Keynes and Colchester, whose local authorities received Letters Patent, despite the City of Milton Keynes and City of Colchester administrative units covering an area substantially larger than that of their respective core urban areas, meaning that extra-urban settlements such as Olney and West Mersea fall within de jure cities.

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See also

• City status in the United Kingdom
• Centre for Cities
• List of towns in England
• List of urban areas in the United Kingdom

Reference

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This article "List of cities in England" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:List of cities in England. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.{{#set:Article=true}}

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