London has several police forces so let’s explain.

The largest police force in London (and the UK as a whole) is the Metropolitan Police. They are responsible for policing the Greater London area and its 8.6 million residents (with some exceptions – more on that in a moment).

The Met, currently led by Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, was founded by Sir Robert Peel in 1829 and across the almost 200 years since has grown to a service of more than 33,000 police officers, 11,000 staff, almost 1500 police community support officers and more than 1,100 special officers.

They are headquartered at New Scotland Yard on Victoria Embankment in Westminster.

The Met’s jurisdiction comprises some 620 square miles – the 32 boroughs of Greater London.

An exception within Greater London is within the Square Mile of the City of London, home to some 8,000 residents but host to an additional 500,000 workers, tourists and others each day. This falls under the jurisdiction of the much smaller City of London Police.

The London City Police officially formed in 1832 but became the City of London Police with the passing of the City of London Police Act 1839.

Led by Commissioner Peter O’Doherty, the 17th City of London police commissioner, the service consists of more than 1,000 officers and staff and as well as providing policing services locally, the City of London Police also leads policing efforts nationally on fraud and cyber-crime.

They are currently temporarily headquartered at Guildhall.

A number of other police services also operate in London. They include the British Transport Police, responsible for policing the railway network including track and stations as well as the London Underground and Docklands Light Railway.

The Ministry of Defence Police, meanwhile, are responsible for policing Ministry of Defence property in London including the ministry itself in Whitehall while the tiny Kew Constabulary is responsible for policing Kew Gardens (the former Royal Parks Constabulary merged with the Met in 2004 – the parks are now policed through a specialist unit in the Met).