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The Swiss Centre was a popular tourist attraction on the edge of Coventry Street, London, at its junction with Leicester Square. The 14 storey building was both a showcase for Switzerland and its products, and a trade and commercial centre that featured a Swiss bank, tourist office, a chocolate and souvenir shop, a Swissair ticket office, a cafe and several Swiss themed restaurants which were located in the basement.It was designed by David Aberdeen and built by John Laing & Son and Token Construction Company Limited between 1963 and 1966, to include a podium above the shops located at street level, and an 11 storey tower block with office floors, residential spaces, a penthouse, a viewing gallery and a plant room.Over the years the connection with Switzerland faded out: several shops remained vacant, and British souvenir stalls took over the commercial spaces from the late nineties. The building did not fit its purpose anymore nor with the new intended design for an improved pedestrian square. The chimes were last played on 21 September 2007, and the Centre was finally demolished in 2008. Two totem columns, one displaying the Helvetic cantons insignia, and the other a large carillon clock composed of 23 bells, were preserved in the western section of the square that was finally renamed Swiss Court, in order to retain an element of Swiss heritage.The glockenspiel, redesigned and restored by the clockmakers Smith of Derby was returned in November 2011, three years after the building's demolition.At the time of the building's demolition, it was intended that a hotel would be constructed on the site. The site (bordered by Lisle Street, Leicester Street, Swiss Court and Wardour Street) was redeveloped and now contains M&M's World in the location on Leicester Square and was opened in June 2011. The W Hotel, with its entrance on Wardour Street, takes up the north part of the site and upper levels.

Leicester House was a large aristocratic townhouse in Westminster, London, to the north of where Leicester Square now is. Built by the Earl of Leicester and completed in 1635, it was later occupied by Elizabeth Stuart, a former Queen of Bohemia, and by the Hanoverian Princess of Wales. From 1775 to 1788, the Leverian collection was on display in Leicester House. The house was sold and demolished in 1791.

Kinky Gerlinky was an influential British clubnight that began in 1989 in London, England. It was hosted by fashion impresarios Michael and Gerlinde Kostiff and co-hosted by Winn Austin. The club night ended in 1994 following the sudden death of one of the organisers Gerlinde Kostiff.

The Empire, Leicester Square is a cinema currently operated by Cineworld on the north side of Leicester Square, London. The Empire was originally built in 1884 as a variety theatre and was rebuilt for films in the 1920s. It is one of several cinemas in and adjoining Leicester Square which are regularly used for film premieres and first runs. Today, it has nine auditoria, including an IMAX (IMAX with Laser projection), a Superscreen (Premium Large Format (PLF), 4K projection and Dolby Atmos sound), and a 4DX screen.

Chinatown is an ethnic enclave in the City of Westminster, London, bordering Soho to its north and west, Theatreland to the south and east. The enclave currently occupies the area in and around Gerrard Street. It contains a number of Chinese restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, souvenir shops, and other Chinese-run businesses. The first Chinatown was located in Limehouse in the East End.

The Sans Souci Theatre was a 500-seat theatre located on Leicester Place, just off Leicester Square in the City of Westminster. It was built in 1796 by Charles Dibdin, and replaced eponymous former music rooms he had leased for performances, off the Strand.

The Leicester Square Theatre is a 400-seat theatre near Leicester Square, in the City of Westminster, London. It was previously known as Notre Dame Hall, Cavern in the Town and The Venue. The theatre hosts stand-up comedy, cabaret, music, plays and comedies.

The Leverian collection was a natural history and ethnographic collection assembled by Ashton Lever. It was noted in particular for the content it acquired from the voyages of Captain James Cook. For three decades it was on display in London, being broken up by auction in 1806. The first public location of the collection was the Holophusikon, also known as the Leverian Museum, at Leicester House, on Leicester Square, from 1775 to 1786. After it passed from Lever's ownership, it was displayed for nearly twenty years more at the purpose-built Blackfriars Rotunda just across the Thames, sometimes called Parkinson's Museum for its subsequent owner, James Parkinson (c. 1730-1813).

The Alhambra was a popular theatre and music hall located on the east side of Leicester Square, in the West End of London. It was built originally as the Royal Panopticon of Science and Arts opening on 18 March 1854. It was closed after two years and reopened as the Alhambra. The building was demolished in 1936. The name was also adopted by many other British music hall theatres located elsewhere; in Bradford, in Hull and in Glasgow etc. The name comes from association with the Moorish splendour of the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain.

Wyld's Great Globe (also known as Wyld's Globe or Wyld's Monster Globe) was an attraction situated in London's Leicester Square between 1851 and 1862, constructed by James Wyld (1812–1887), a distinguished mapmaker and former Member of Parliament for Bodmin. At the centre of a purpose-built hall was a giant globe, 60 feet 4 inches (18.39 m) in diameter. The globe was hollow and contained a staircase and elevated platforms which members of the public could climb in order to view the surface of the earth on its concave interior, modelled in plaster of Paris, complete with mountain ranges and rivers all to scale. Punch described the attraction as "a geographical globule which the mind can take in at one swallow." In the surrounding galleries were displays of Wyld's maps, globes and surveying equipment. Wyld originally proposed that the globe should be constructed at the Great Exhibition, but its size and Wyld's desire to run it as a promotional venture precluded it from being featured inside the Crystal Palace, so Wyld negotiated with the owners of the gardens of Leicester Square, and after much wrangling secured an agreement to site it there for ten years. The exhibition hall and model of the Earth were hastily constructed to coincide with the Great Exhibition. In its first year the Great Globe was a resounding success, with visitor numbers second only to those of the Great Exhibition, but from 1852 onward public interest in the attraction slowly waned. Though the novelty of a concave globe continued to win accolades for Wyld, he was faced with competition from other educational attractions, and had to adapt the entertainments on offer in order to maintain visitor numbers. Wyld held topical exhibitions and gave lectures on current events, and attempted to transfer ownership of the attraction to the "Cosmos Institute" to establish a national geographic and ethnological museum. In 1862, when Wyld's agreement for the use of the land expired, the exhibition hall was removed and the globe broken up and sold for scrap. The complicated ownership of Leicester Square gardens, combined with Wyld's failure to honour his agreement to restore the gardens after the removal of the exhibition building, led to extensive legal wrangling and questions in Parliament. Wyld finally sold his interests in the gardens, and in 1874 they were donated to the City of London. Although there were other proposals for giant globes, and a few were constructed, it was not until 1935 that a large concave globe was recreated in the form of Chester Lindsay Churchill's Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston, Massachusetts.

The statue of William Shakespeare, sculpted by Giovanni Fontana, an Italian sculptor, after an original by Peter Scheemakers, has formed the centrepiece of Leicester Square Gardens in London since 1874.

Leicester Square ( (listen) LES-tər) is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leicester House, itself named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester. The square was originally a gentrified residential area, with tenants including Frederick, Prince of Wales and the artists William Hogarth and Joshua Reynolds. It became more down-market in the late 18th century as Leicester House was demolished and retail developments took place, becoming a centre for entertainment. Several major theatres were built in the 19th century, which were converted to cinemas towards the middle of the next. Leicester Square is the location of nationally significant cinemas such as the Odeon Leicester Square, Empire, Leicester Square, which are often used for film premieres (and the now closed Odeon West End). The nearby Prince Charles Cinema is known for its screenings of cult films and marathon film runs. The square remains a tourist attraction which hosts events, including for the Chinese New Year. The square has always had a park in its centre, which was originally Common land. The park's fortunes have varied over the centuries, reaching near dilapidation in the mid-19th century after changing ownership several times. It was restored under the direction of Albert Grant, which included the construction of four new statues and a fountain of William Shakespeare. The square was extensively refurbished and remodelled for the 2012 London Olympics, at a cost of more than £15 million taking over 17 months to complete.