Metro London, England

The London Underground, Underground or Tube is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and neighbouring areas of Essex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire in the UK. The first section opened in 1863, and was the first underground railway system in the world,and, starting in 1890, it was also the first to operate electric trains.It is usually referred to as the Underground or the Tube—the latter deriving from the shape of the system's deep-bore tunnels—although about 55% of the network is above ground.
The earlier lines of the present London Underground network were built by various private companies. Apart from the main line railways, they became part of an integrated transport system in 1933 when the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) or "London Transport" was created. The underground network became a single entity in 1985, when the UK government created London Underground Limited (LUL).Since 2003 LUL has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL), the statutory corporation responsible for most aspects of the transport system in Greater London, which is run by a board and a commissioner appointed by the Mayor of London.



The Underground has 270 stationsand about 400 km (250 miles) of track,making it the longest metro system in the world by route length.It also has one of the highest number of stations. In 2007, more than one billion passenger journeys were recorded, making it the third busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow and Paris.
The tube map, with its schematic non-geographical layout and colour-coded lines, is considered a design classic, and many other transport maps worldwide have been influenced by it.