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Milton Keynes

For Milton Keynes, the original village, see Middleton, Milton Keynes. For the built-up area, see Milton Keynes urban area. For the local authority area, see City of Milton Keynes.

Milton Keynes
City
Stony Stratford High Street
Milton Keynes is located in Buckinghamshire
Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes
Location within Buckinghamshire
Area89 km2 (34 sq mi) [1]
Founded23 January 1967 [a][1]
OS grid referenceSP841386
• London50 mi (80 km)[b] SSE
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townMILTON KEYNES
Postcode districtMK1–15, MK17, MK19
Dialling code01908
PoliceThames Valley
FireBuckinghamshire
AmbulanceSouth Central
UK Parliament
Websitemilton-keynes.gov.uk
List of places
UK
England
Buckinghamshire

52°02′N 0°46′W / 52.04°N 0.76°W / 52.04; -0.76

Population
District (2022) 292,180
Major urban area (2021) 264,349
Source: [5][6]

Milton Keynes (/kiːnz/ KEENZ) is a city[c] in Buckinghamshire, England, about 50 miles (80 km) north-west of London.[b] At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was 264,349.[7] The River Great Ouse forms the northern boundary of the urban area; a tributary, the River Ouzel, meanders through its linear parks and balancing lakes. Approximately 25% of the urban area is parkland or woodland and includes two Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs).

In the 1960s, the government decided that a further generation of new towns in the south east of England was needed to relieve housing congestion in London. Milton Keynes was to be the biggest yet, with a population of 250,000 and area of 22,000 acres (9,000 ha). At designation, its area incorporated the existing towns of Bletchley, Fenny Stratford, Wolverton and Stony Stratford,[d] along with another fifteen villages and farmland in between. These settlements had an extensive historical record since the Norman conquest; detailed archaeological investigations before development revealed evidence of human occupation from the Neolithic period, including the Milton Keynes Hoard of Bronze Age gold jewellery. The government established Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC) to design and deliver this new city. The Corporation decided on a softer, more human-scaled landscape than in the earlier English new towns but with an emphatically modernist architecture. Recognising how traditional towns and cities had become choked in traffic, they established a grid of distributor roads about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) between edges, leaving the spaces between to develop more organically. An extensive network of shared paths for leisure cyclists and pedestrians criss-crosses through and between them. Rejecting the residential tower block concept that had become unpopular, they set a height limit of three storeys outside Central Milton Keynes.

Facilities include a 1,400-seat theatre, a municipal art gallery, two multiplex cinemas, an ecumenical central church, a 400-seat concert hall, a teaching hospital, a 30,500-seat football stadium, an indoor ski-slope and a 65,000-capacity open-air concert venue. Seven railway stations serve the Milton Keynes urban area (one inter-city). The Open University is based here and there is a small campus of the University of Bedfordshire. Most major sports are represented at amateur level; Red Bull Racing (Formula One), MK Dons (association football), and Milton Keynes Lightning (ice hockey) are its professional teams. The Peace Pagoda overlooking Willen Lake was the first such to be built in Europe. The many works of sculpture in parks and public spaces include the iconic Concrete Cows at Milton Keynes Museum.

Milton Keynes is among the most economically productive localities in the UK, ranking highly against a number of criteria. It has the UK's fifth-highest number of business startups per capita (but equally of business failures). It is home to several major national and international companies. Despite economic success and personal wealth for some, there are pockets of nationally significant poverty. The employment profile is composed of about 90% service industries and 9% manufacturing.

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference longaz was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference milestone was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference chains was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference viaM1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ "UNITED KINGDOM: Countries and Major Urban Areas". Retrieved 8 May 2024.
  6. ^ "Figure 1: Explore population characteristics of individual BUAs". Archived from the original on 5 August 2023. Retrieved 7 August 2021.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference BUA2021 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference BUA2011 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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