The London Borough of Tower Hamlets ( pronunciation ) is a London borough to the east of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It is in the eastern part of London and covers much of the traditional East End. It also includes much of the redeveloped Docklands region of London, including West India Docks and Canary Wharf. Many of the tallest buildings in London occupy the centre of the Isle of Dogs in the south of the borough. A part of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is in Tower Hamlets. The borough has a population of 272,890, which includes one of the highest ethnic minority populations in the capital and has an established British Bangladeshis business and residential community. Brick Lane's restaurants, neighbouring street market and shops provide the largest range of Bengali cuisine, woodwork, carpets and clothes in Europe. The local authority is Tower Hamlets London Borough Council.

Geography

Physical geography

Tower Hamlets is located to east of the City of London and north of the River Thames in East London. The London Borough of Hackney lies to the north of the borough while the River Lea forms the boundary with the London Borough of Newham in the east. On the other side of the Thames is The London Borough of Southwark to the southwest, The London Borough of Lewisham to the South, and The Royal Borough of Greenwich to the southeast. The River Lea also forms the boundary between those parts of London historically in Middlesex, with those formerly in Essex.

Tower Hamlets was a parliamentary borough constituency in, Middlesex, England from 1832 to 1885. It elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The constituency was one of five new parliamentary boroughs in the metropolitan area of London enfranchised by the Reform Act 1832.

The constituency consisted of a number of communities in the East End of London, between the City of London and the eastern boundary of Middlesex.

Boundaries

Boundaries 1832–1868

The boundaries of the parliamentary borough were defined by the Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832 as "The several Divisions of the Liberty of the Tower, and the Tower Division of Ossulston Hundred".

It comprised the following civil parishes and places:

Boundaries 1868–1885

The Representation of the People Act 1867 widened the parliamentary franchise and also effected a redistribution of seats. This, along with a rapidly increasing population in the East End, resulted in the existing parliamentary borough of Tower Hamlets being reduced in size, with the parishes of Bethnal Green, Hackney and Shoreditch forming a separate Hackney constituency. The reformed Tower Hamlets was defined as comprising:

Tower Hamlets is a borough of London, created in 1965. It may also refer to: