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Political, religious and regal power has emanated from WESTMINSTER and WHITEHALL for almost a millennium. It was Edward the Confessor who first established Westminster as London's royal and ecclesiastical power base, some three miles west of the City of London. The embryonic English parliament met in the abbey in the fourteenth century and eventually took over the old royal palace of Westminster. In the nineteenth century, Whitehall became the "heart of the Empire", its ministries ruling over a quarter of the world's population. Even now, though the UK's world status has diminished, the institutions that run the country inhabit roughly the same geographical area: Westminster for the westminster and whitehall politicians, Whitehall for the civil servants. Its monuments and buildings also span the millennium, and include some of London's most famous landmarks - Nelson's Column , Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament , Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace , plus two of the city's finest permanent art collections, the National Gallery and the Tate Britain Gallery . Since it's also one of the easiest parts of London to walk round, this is a well-trodden tourist circuit, with all the major sights within a mere half-mile of each other and linked by two of London's most triumphant avenues, Whitehall and The Mall .
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