世界城市博览（58）London（英国）

f a challenge, especially if you have just a little time. Even in the 18th century, Daniel Defoe found London "stretched out in buildings, straggling（蔓延）, confused, out of all shape; neither long nor broad, round nor square." The City of London proper （真正的伦敦城） is merely one square mile of very expensive real estate around the Bank of England. All the gargantuan rest of the city is made up of separate villages, boroughs（自治市镇）, and corporations（市政府）--Westminster, Chelsea, Hampstead, Kensington, and many more--each with its own mayor and administration ready to fight for its independent status. Together, however, they add up to a mammoth metropolis, once the largest on the globe.

Luckily, whether you''re looking for Dickens'' house or the Dr. Marten''s Superstore, only a minute fraction of London''s huge territory need concern you. The heart of this behemoth（原意是巨兽）is one of the most fascinating areas on earth, and for about a century, one-quarter of the world was ruled from central London. With almost every step you take, you''ll come across signs of the tremendous influence this city has exerted over our past, both in thought and action.

London is a mass of contradictions. On the one hand, it''s a decidedly royal city, studded （点缀）with palaces and court gardens. Yet it''s also the home of the world''s second-oldest parliamentary democracy (Iceland was the first).

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