Canary Wharf

About Canary Wharf

Privately-owned district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets

Canary Wharf is a privately owned central business district on the Isle of Dogs in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in east London, which with the City of London and the West End forms one of the main financial centres of the United Kingdom and the world, home to the headquarters of more than 150 major businesses, most of them in finance and banking. It was developed from the late 1980s on the site of the former West India Docks, once part of London's river port; a "wharf" is a ship's quay, and the surrounding area is known as Docklands. Together with Heron Quays and Wood Wharf it forms the Canary Wharf Estate, covering around 39 hectares. The district is dominated by skyscrapers, most famously the pyramid-topped One Canada Square, Britain's second-tallest skyscraper, beneath which spreads a vast network of covered shopping malls, restaurants, cafes, gardens and squares along the old dock basins, with public art and waterside decks. Wikivoyage notes the spectacular main exit of the Jubilee line Underground station, with its curved glass canopy by Norman Foster. Once quiet at weekends, the district has become increasingly lively then with its restaurants and events, though it remains most impressive on weekdays when it bustles with office workers. Nearby are the Museum of London Docklands and the Canary Wharf prayer room and mosque serving the area's many Muslim workers.

Where:

London, United Kingdom