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Life in London, then and now.

Do you ever wonder what life in London used to be like 2 ,000 years ago?

It's probably hard to imagine, but one thing is for sure.

It used to be completely different from life in present -day London.

Let's take a look and see what London used to be like.

First of all, all those centuries ago, only about 45 ,000 people used to live in London.

That seems a very small number, but even back then, London was the biggest town in Britain.

Nowadays, the population is much bigger.

In fact, more than 8 million people live in this huge capital city.

So, how old is London?

Well, the Romans invaded Britain in 43 CE and built a wooden bridge across the river Thames.

Then, they decided it was an excellent place for a town, so they built one there and called it Londonium.

London was born.

Of course, the city's appearance now is very different from what it used to be.

For example, there didn't used to be many tall buildings.

In the centre of Roman London, there was one large square with public buildings around it.

The most important of these was the town hall.

This was 150 metres long and 20 metres high.