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Please explain why cities officially called ”City of”

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exRanger profile picture exRangerApril 2021
Where, by contrast, if one refers to Chicago as The City of Chicago, it is precisely the same as saying (simply) ”Chicago”. Likewise New York City, Los(t) Angeles, and myriad other metropolitan centers throughout The States and world. Paris is an interesting -- partial -- exception: The imagined ”hypercentre”, i.e., the location of the original 20 arrondissements, are known as Île de la Cité -- the city’s center. (Think ”Downtown” in terms of American and other of the world’s cities) -- and the areas that are situated outside the Île de la Cité are the ”environs” of Paris, also known as ”les banlieues” of Paris: part of ”greater Paris” but regarded by many as ”suburbs” of Paris. In Moscow, you have a hypercenter (or, simply, center), where the Kremlin, Red Square, etc, are located, surrounded by ”greater Moscow” ... called (in Russian) ”pod moskovniye” (literally ”under Moscow). Re; ”City of London”, think of it as defining the main location of the city’s -- and the nation’s (1) municipal and national governments and (2) chief financial enterprises.
  • AussieInBg profile picture AussieInBgMay 2021
    Ummmmm no. You’re talking total garbage about ”City of London” defining the main location of the national government....

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Westminster

    Its formal location is ”City of Westminster” actually...

    The main business and financial district associated with ”London” does get referred to as ”City of London” because its physical location is actually the territory of ”City of London” - as opposed to the British Parliament which is not on the territory of ”City of London” but ”City of Westminster”. You might be getting mixed up with ”Greater London”, which of course is something different.

    As a homework exercise, you can Google/Duckduckgo/Bing to find out the difference between ”City of London” and ”Greater London”...
AussieInBg profile picture AussieInBgApril 2021
”City of” usually is used in the official title for a city area controlled by a local government which makes its own laws and regulations for that region.

For example, the local government for London is not over the whole area of many hundreds of square what we think of as ”London”, but for only a few square kilometres in the centre. This is referred to as ”City of London”.

Other famous areas in London have their own local governments. For example, Westminster, which you might think of as being part of London because it is so close to the centre. This region has its own local government and has the official title of ”City of Westminster”.

Setsukochan profile picture SetsukochanApril 2021

I would add that on a more grammatical viewpoint, they are "officially" called so in order to create a contrast with other cities in the world. It is one of the roles of the structure that can be "decoded" as follows: "THE + Nounphrase1 + OF + Nounphrase2" . 

→ The city of Chicago, as opposed to the city of Atlanta

This structure is also at work with other geographical entities, like the "states", because, again, there are many states around the world (=federations).

→ The United States of America  (vs. The United Mexican States, for instance)

Within the USA : The State of Illinois vs. the State of Georgia.  

Another role of this structure (but I will have to stop here, because it can become quite difficult to grasp), can be to introduce an information of the first time. If you type "the state of Georgia" on Google, you will come across the official website of that state. The title reads, "State of Georgia", which is, as you know now, short for "the State of Georgia".  Why did they choose that form, and not simply "Georgia" or "Georgia State"? Well, most certainly in order to make it very clear from the start that the users reading the page are dealing with a government entity, and to avoid any possible confusion regarding the geographical location (the U.S state of Georgia vs. Georgia, the country in Eastern Europe). It is a bit like when you introduce yourself for the first time giving your first name and your last. Ok, somewhat. :)

  • AussieInBg profile picture AussieInBgMay 2021
    For official titles, it is always without the article - whether it is British or American English. So that city we refer to as ”Los Angeles” has the official title ”City of Los Angeles” or ”State of Georgia” when referring to one of the original 13 states of the US.

    You’re correct that in speech and in informal writing, we might hear or see ”the City of Los Angeles” or ”the State of Georgia” - but these are not the official titles for their respective administrative areas.

    There’s actually a rational reason why there is no article when referring to official titles for cities and so on - when you say the title ”City of London”, you are referring both to a physical area (a few square km on the Thames) and also an administrative body that provides services, makes laws and enforces them and so on. So you have both a place and activity associated with it.

    Dropping the definite article - even when we know exactly what we are talking about - occurs quite frequently in English and for similar reasons why we don’t have an article for ”City” or ”State” as above.

    For example, we have expressions such as:

    to go to bed
    to have breakfast
    to study at university
    to be in prison

    and so on.

    There’s a rational reason for it - we are not just talking about the physical place/object ”bed”, ”breakfast”, ”university” or ”prison”. There are also activities associated with each case. For example, ”university” is not just about the buildings on the university campus. There are also lectures that are attended, study, exams and so on.

    If we are referring to the place/object in a specific manner, then we use a definite/indefinite article as appropriate, e.g.

    to study at the 2nd best university in Australia
    to have an early breakfast

    For that matter, when we refer to nations we do not use (but with very rare exceptions) a definite article in the title. For example, ”Australia” or ”France”. A nation is not just about the land region within the borders drawn on a map. It also encompasses elements such as government, traditions and the people who live there. For a specific instance/example of a nation, we could use a definite or indefinite article, e.g.

    ”The Australia which I had grown up in.”

    When we use ”the State of Queensland”, as native speakers of English, we are primarily concerned with the geographical area that is occupied on the map. If we are speaking informally beyond just geography, we would just say ”Queensland”.