John Strype's map of 1720 describes London as consisting of four parts: The
City of London,
Westminster,
Southwark and the eastern 'That Part Beyond the Tower'. As London expanded, it absorbed many hundreds of existing towns and villages which continued to assert their local identities.
Mark Twain described London in 1896 as "fifty villages massed solidly together over a vast stretch of territory".
Steen Eiler Rasmussen observed in 1934 that "London became a greater and still greater accumulation of towns, an immense colony of dwellings where people still live in their own home in small communities with local government just as they had done in the Middle Ages."
London boroughs are the result of amalgamations of hundreds of ancient parishes that date from at least the 12th century and are in some cases based on earlier
manors. == Areas of London ==