County Borough of Leeds

Leeds, commonly known as the City of Leeds, is a metropolitan borough with city status in West Yorkshire, England. The metropolitan borough includes the administrative centre of Leeds and the towns of Farsley, Garforth, Guiseley, Horsforth, Morley, Otley, Pudsey, Rothwell, Wetherby and Yeadon. It has a population of 811,956 (2021), making it technically the second largest city in England by population behind Birmingham, since London is not a single local government entity. Local governance sits with Leeds City Council and the city's 32 Parish Councils. The current city boundaries were set on 1 April 1974 by the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972, as part a reform of local government in England. The city is a merger of eleven former local government districts; the unitary City and County Borough of Leeds combined with the municipal boroughs of Morley and Pudsey, the urban districts of Aireborough, Garforth, Horsforth, Otley and Rothwell, and parts of the rural districts of Tadcaster, Wharfedale and Wetherby from the West Riding of Yorkshire. For its first 12 years the city had a two-tier system of local government; Leeds City Council shared power with West Yorkshire County Council. Since the Local Government Act 1985 Leeds City Council has effectively been a unitary authority, serving as the sole (aside from the 32 Parish Councils) executive, deliberative and legislative body responsible for local policy, setting council tax, and allocating budget in the city, and is a member of the Leeds City Region Partnership. Although the city's area includes 32 civil parishes, most of Leeds' population currently live in unparished areas. In these areas the Localism Act 2011 makes provision for groups of people from the community, called neighbourhood forums, to formulate Neighbourhood Development Plans and Orders intended to guide and shape development in their own locality.

The Leeds City Region, or informally Greater Leeds, is a local enterprise partnership city region located in West Yorkshire, England. Prior to the West Yorkshire devolution deal, the partnership covered parts of South and North Yorkshire. According to the Office for National Statistics, as of 2017 the city region ranked 2nd behind Greater London for both population and GVA in the United Kingdom. It has a population of 2,320,214 million and a GVA of £69.62 billion.A renewed focus on city regions in the UK led to Leeds City Region's foundation in 2004. It was the third major city region to be established in the United Kingdom, after Greater London in 1965 and Greater Manchester in 1974. The city region encompasses numerous cities and towns throughout Yorkshire. It includes Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Halifax and Huddersfield. A multi-area agreement was established in 2008 and since 2011 economic development has been supported by the Leeds City Region LEP, which forms a business-led local enterprise partnership. The activities of the city region are coordinated by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority since 2012, previously the Leeds City Region Partnership, and Leeds City Region Leaders Board, since April 2007 strategic local governance decisions have been made by the joint committee.As part of a 2012 'city deal' the Combined Authority was established in order receive devolved powers for transport, economic development and regeneration. The secretariat for the city region is based within Leeds City Council. The Leeds City Region Enterprise Zone promotes development in four sites along the A63 East Leeds Link Road.

The Forest of Leeds was originally the Forest of Loidis in which today's city of Leeds arose. It now refers to patches of woodland throughout the metropolitan district, managed by Leeds City Council amounting to 1200 hectares. These are in 55 units of various kinds of woodlands, including those of Belle Isle, Gledhow, Golden Acre Park, Lotherton Hall, Meanwood Valley, Middleton Park, Moortown, Roundhay Park, Temple Newsam and Woodhouse Ridge, formed as a forest in 1993.

Leeds Town Hall is a 19th-century municipal building on The Headrow (formerly Park Lane), Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Planned to include law courts, a council chamber, offices, a public hall, and a suite of ceremonial rooms, it was built between 1853 and 1858 to a design by the architect Cuthbert Brodrick. With the building of the Civic Hall in 1933, some of these functions were relocated, and after the construction of the Leeds Combined Court Centre in 1993, the Town Hall now serves mainly as a concert, conference and wedding venue, its offices still used by some council departments. It was designated a Grade I listed building in 1951. Imagined as a municipal palace to demonstrate the power and success of Victorian Leeds, and opened by Queen Victoria in a lavish ceremony in 1858, it is one of the largest town halls in the United Kingdom. With a height of 225 feet (68.6 m) it was the tallest building in Leeds for 108 years from 1858 until 1966, when it lost the title to the Park Plaza Hotel, which stands 26 feet (8 m) taller at 253 feet (77 m). The distinctive baroque clock tower, which serves as a landmark and a symbol of Leeds, was not part of the initial design but was added by Brodrick in 1856 as the civic leaders sought to make an even grander statement. The project to build the Town Hall came about as Leeds underwent rapid growth and industrialisation during the 19th century, helped by a desire to compete with Bradford and symbolise Leeds's dominance within the region. Proceedings began in July 1850, carried through by a dedicated committee of the Town Council, which held a competition selecting the relatively unknown Brodrick to prepare a design, with construction underway by July 1853. The building cost much more than the original estimates due to rising prices and constant additions to its design throughout construction. The form of Leeds Town Hall has been used as a model for civic buildings across Britain and the British Empire, being one of the largest and earliest. As a key heritage asset for the city, its history as a court and prison is demonstrated in guided tours for the public. Several recurring cultural events use the Town Hall as a performance space, such as the Leeds International Piano Competition.

Leeds city centre is the central business district of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is roughly bounded by the Inner Ring Road to the north and the River Aire to the south and can be divided into several quarters.

Leeds Central Library is a public library in Leeds. Situated in the city centre, on Calverley Street, it houses the city library service's single largest general lending and reference collection and hosts the Leeds Art Gallery. Services available from the building include an Art Library, a Central Children's Library, a Central Lending Library, a Business and IP Centre, Information and Research Library, a Local and Family History Library and a Music Library.

Leeds Art Gallery in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, is a gallery, part of the Leeds Museums & Galleries group, whose collection of 20th-century British Art was designated by the British government in 1997 as a collection "of national importance". Its collection also includes 19th-century and earlier art works. It is a grade II listed building owned and administered by Leeds City Council, linked on the West to Leeds Central Library and on the East via a bridge to the Henry Moore Institute with which it shares some sculptures. A Henry Moore sculpture, Reclining Woman: Elbow (1981), stands in front of the entrance. The entrance hall contains Leeds' oldest civic sculpture, a 1712 marble statue of Queen Anne.In front of the gallery is Victoria Square, at the eastern end of which is the city's war memorial. This square is often used for rallies and demonstrations because of the speakers' dais provided by the raised entrance to the gallery.

Leeds War Memorial stands on Victoria Square on the Headrow, to the east of Town Hall and to the south of Leeds City Art Gallery in Leeds, England. It was erected as a memorial to those who had fallen in the First World War. The memorial was designed by Henry Charles Fehr (1867–1940) and unveiled on 14 October 1922 by Viscount Lascelles.

Nesyamun, also known as Natsef-Amun or The Leeds Mummy, was an Ancient Egyptian priest who lived during the Twentieth Dynasty c. 1100 BC. He was a senior member of the temple administration in the Karnak temple complex and held various titles including "god's father of Montu" and "scribe of Montu", and was responsible for presenting the daily food offerings to the gods and tallying the cattle of the Karnak temple estates. Nothing is known about his family. His body was discovered in the early 1820s during excavations of the Deir el-Bahari causeway by Giuseppe Passalacqua. He was shipped to Europe and sold several times before being purchased for the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society's museum in Leeds, England. In 1824 his coffin and mummy was the subject of one of the earliest scientific investigations of an Egyptian mummy. His remains are now held in the collection of the Leeds City Museum. Study of his coffin and mummy cover found them to be of high quality. Nesyamun was the only one of the museum's mummies to remain intact following the 1941 Leeds Blitz, although his mummy cover sustained major damage. From the 1930s onward he has undergone various forms of testing which has revealed his general state of health and that he died aged between 50 and 60 years. In 2020, his mummified vocal tract was modelled using CT scan data, allowing it to produce a single sound; the study attracted criticism for its ethics and research value.

The Northern Film School is part of the Leeds Beckett University Leeds School of Arts. It is one of the largest full-time film schools in the UK, with both bachelor's and master's degrees, and is situated in the city centre of Leeds. School was established in 1970 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England

The Light is a leisure and retail centre in central Leeds in West Yorkshire, England. It occupies the rectangular space between The Headrow on the south, St Anne's Street on the north, Cookridge Street on the west, and Albion Street. Two former streets divide it: Upper Fountaine Street (east-west) and Cross Fountaine Street (north-south) now covered with a glass roof. It incorporates two listed buildings Permanent House and the Headrow Buildings.

18 Park Row, Leeds, once known as Abtech House and more recently as Kenneth Hodgson House, is a Grade II listed building in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The building on the east side of Park Row, Leeds was built as offices for the West Riding Union Bank.