Mapped: London Landmarks Elsewhere In The World

New York (New York) might be so good they named it twice, but London's so good that they're naming the rest of the world after it.

Some of London's most famous landmarks have given their names to — or share their names with — other places around the world. Did you know, for example, that there are at least two other Kew Gardens, there's another Hampton Court, and London's Leicester Square wasn't the original one? Read on and browse our map for other places all over the globe that share their names with London's world-famous landmarks.

Note: we're specifically talking about London landmarks and attractions here, rather than London towns and areas which appear elsewhere — we've covered that here.

Leicester Square, Penshurst, Kent

London's Leicester Square is a world-famous landmark, home to a Shakespeare statue, premiere-grade cinemas, and more M&Ms than anyone needs to see/smell/eat in one lifetime.

However, it's not the first of its kind. The original Leicester Square can be found in the quiet village of Penshurst in Kent, alongside Penshurst Place manor house, which belonged to the Sidney Family, who held the title of Earl of Leicester between 1618 and 1743.

It's this family who gave the name to both Leicester Squares, though it's thought that the Kent one — a smaller, quieter Leicester Square — adopted the moniker up to a century before its London sibling.

Hampton Court Castle, Herefordshire

You'd think that Henry VIII's distinctive, redbricked, multi-chimneyed, sprawling beauty of an abode would be unique enough to be the only Hampton Court... but no.

While many a tourist in London has mistakenly referred to Hampton Court Palace as 'Hampton Court Castle', Hampton Court Castle is indeed a real place. It sits about 10 miles north of Hereford, a few miles from the Welsh border, and is a fairytale-esque 15th century castle, complete with yew maze, faux-Gothic tower and a 160-year-old wisteria arch. It's open to the public on certain days, and can be hired for weddings and the like.

This Hampton Court can be dated back to 1427, whereas construction of the (now) London palace didn't begin until 1514 — meaning the lesser-known one is almost a century older than the London tourist attraction. Their similar names seem to be a complete coincidence. Hereford's estate was originally formed by the merging of the manors of Hampton Richard and Hampton Mappenor, and takes its name from there, whereas Hampton Court Palace in London is named after the nearby village of Hampton.

Villages in Suriname, Guyana and Jamaica also go by the name of Hampton Court.

Kew Gardens, Queens, New York and Toronto, Canada

An independent book shop, a Fairtrade supermarket, and a station called Kew Gardens. Could be south-west London, but it's actually the district of Kew Gardens in the Queens area of New York.

There's no botanical gardens here; the only real green space is Maple Grove Cemetery, a paltry 65 acres to London's Kew Gardens' 500 acres. The rest of the area largely consists of residential roads — some named, some numbered as is the New York way — with detached and semi-detached houses, and a few businesses including a pizzeria, a diner and a Burger King.

While our Kew Gardens in flanked by the River Thames, the New York sibling is hemmed in by the Van Wyck Expressway — one of the main thoroughfares to JFK Airport.

As for that Kew Gardens station, its near end-of-the-line status is a familiar one, and it's served by the E and F lines into Manhattan.

New York's Kew Gardens is surrounded by other areas whose names are familiar to Londoners. Richmond Hill lies directly south of it, with Forest Hill(s) to the north-east, and St Albans a short distance away.

The Kew Gardens name seems to have been given to the area in the early 1900s, by the sons of the Englishman who originally began to develop the area, one Albon P. Man. He'd owned the land since the 1860s and had begun to develop it, but it was his sons Aldrick Man and Albon Man Jr who began to lay out the community that exists today, naming it after the botanical gardens in London. It's not clear whether the family had any personal links to London's Kew, or if the name was just chosen for its arboreal connotations.

There's another Kew Gardens too, located on the shore of Lake Ontario in Toronto, Canada, and this one's more like the London original. It's a public park, home to trees, tennis courts, a play area, a pavilion and an ice rink in the winter. It backs onto Kew Beach, on the lake, and is named after London's Kew Gardens.

Stamford Bridge, Yorkshire

Operating as an athletics stadium since 1877, and Chelsea's footballing home since 1904, Stamford Bridge sees football fans flocking to it in their thousands on match days — a whole different ball game to the sleepy Yorkshire village of the same name.

Just a few miles east of York, Stamford Bridge is home to around 3,500 people, and centres around a stone bridge and ancient ford over the River Derwent. If you have heard of it, it's likely to do with the Battle of Stamford Bridge — not the Chelsea/Spurs duel of 2016, but the English taking on the invading Norwegians all the way back in 1066, though the settlement dates back to Roman times.

Chelsea's Stamford Bridge takes its name from the Old English ‘Samfordesbrigge’, meaning 'the bridge at the sandy ford', while Yorkshire's Stamford Bridge was thought to originally be 'stone ford bridge' — so separate etymological origins for these two.

There's also a hamlet named Stamford Bridge just outside Chester, home to the Stamford Bridge Inn.

St James' Park, Newcastle

In a reverse of the Stamford Bridge situation, a different London landmark shares its names with a football ground elsewhere in the country. St James'(s) Park is the name of both the Royal Park overlooked by Buckingham Palace (and the neighbouring tube station), and Newcastle United's home ground.

The former takes its name from a palace, which took its name from a hospital, and things get a bit murky before that. The latter is named after the neighbouring thoroughfare, St James Street, which predates the stadium. Trace them far enough back and it's likely that the monikers are an homage to James the Great, though it's fair to say that the park and the stadium reached their identical names separately, rather than one being named after the other.

Still, it's nice to know that Newcastle struggle with the same ongoing apostrophe debate as St James's Park tube station here in London.

The Northern line, Liverpool

Board a Northern line service via Waterloo and you could be traversing the capital, or you could be on a Merseyrail service from Liverpool to Southport.

Merseyside's own Northern Line is a three-branch, 39-stop rail network which connects up with the Wirral Line and the City Line in the centre of Liverpool. Interestingly, Waterloo isn't the only stop which might be familiar to a Londoner's ears. Moorfields, though not a stop on the tube, is an area of London close to Old Street, best known for Moorfields Eye Hospital.

Hunterian Museum, Glasgow

The University of Glasgow's Hunterian Museum is a brother to London's Hunterian Museum in the literal sense — it focuses on, and was founded by, Dr William Hunter, sibling of John Hunter of London's own Hunterian Museum. The Glasgow museum is a bit wider in scope than the London one, displaying public art by the likes of Whistler and Mackintosh, Roman artefacts, coins and medals, as well as objects pertaining to zoology and the history of medicine.

The world's full of natural history museums and national art galleries, but how many pairs of museums can claim to have been founded by siblings?

Hyde Park and Hyde Park Corner, Leeds and New York

The world is replete with Hyde Parks, with parks or suburbs of that name found in Perth, Sydney, Queensland, LA, Florida, Chicago, Boston, Guyana, South Africa and New York to name but a few. But with all those exotic twins to our own grassy expanse, one of the most interesting is Hyde Park in Leeds, West Yorkshire.

Though this Hyde Park is decidedly ungreen — it's the name of a residential area with a high student population — it has its own Hyde Park Corner, which is a reasonably busy four-way traffic junction, but nothing like the madness of London's scariest roundabout. In Leeds, it's thought that Hyde Park Corner came first, named after the London landmark, then a local inn was renamed from the Red Lion to Hyde Park Hotel, and then the wider area became known as Hyde Park. Roads nearby including Regent Park Avenue and Regent Park Terrace.

Perhaps the closest in spirit to London's Hyde Park is Hyde Park in Niagara Falls, on the American side. It's a public park home to a lake, tennis courts, football fields, rose gardens and a golf course. It takes its name from local businessman Charles B. Hyde, who bought the land, and left it in his will to be used as a public park.

One final Hyde Park worth mentioning is a town on the Hudson River in upstate New York, which is well-known for being the hometown of former president Franklin D. Roosevelt. Naturally, it's laden with buildings and monuments named after him, with his former home now open to the public as a national historic site. The town gets its name from Edward Hyde, a former governor of New York, so no etymological link to London's Hyde Park.

Another Royal Park whose name appears all over the world is Regents Park — though it's applied more to towns and residential estates rather than green spaces. London's Regents Park is the eponym of Regents Park in Gauteng, South Africa and Regents Park in Sydney, Australia.

Marble Arch Caves, Ireland and Gibraltar

London's Marble Arch isn't where it used to be — it started outside Buckingham Palace before being moved to its current location. The same can't be said of Ireland's Marble Arch Caves, which have been in situ for about 340 million years, consisting of limestone and housing subterranean rivers and pools. These days, the cave system and surrounding area are open to the public, with guided cave tours and boat trips available, and are part of a designated Global Geopark spanning the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Gibraltar also has a Marble Arch Cave among its 200+ caves, though this one's not open to the public.

More similar in form to our own Marble Arch was Libya's Marble Arch (also known as the Arch of the Philaeni), a monument built during the Italian rule of the 1930s, and unveiled by Mussolini. It was made of travertine stone and inscribed in Latin, and was destroyed by Gaddafi in the 1970s, as it was a reminder of the Italian domination of Libya.

Regent Street Station, Sydney, Australia

OK, we're cheating a bit here, as London doesn't technically have a station called Regent Street (doesn't stop tourists asking for directions to it though), and the Australian one is no longer in use — though the beautiful building is still standing.

Regent Street Railway Station in Sydney has a bit of a dark history, and certainly isn't your average commuter stop. It was also known as the Mortuary Railway Station, and had the same role as London's own 'death railway station', transporting mourners and bodies to Rookwood Cemetery, 11 miles outside of Sydney. It was named after its location, Regent Street, though the origins of the road's name are unclear.

Know of any other places around the world which share names with a London landmark? Let us know in the comments.