The London Borough of Hackney is a north east London Borough within Inner London in the UK. Southern and eastern parts of the borough are popularly, but unofficially, regarded as being part of east London, with northern and western areas regarded to belong to north London. The London Plan, issued by the Greater London Authority, assigns whole boroughs to sub-regions for statutory monitoring, engagement and resource allocation purposes. The latest 2011 iteration of this strategy assigns Hackney to the 'East' sub-region, whilst the 2008 and 2004 versions assigned the borough to 'North' and 'East' sub-regions respectively.
Hackney is bounded by Islington to the west, Haringey to the north, Waltham Forest to the north-east, Newham to the east, Tower Hamlets to the south-east as well as the City of London to the south-west. It covers a total area of 7.36 square miles. Based on population estimates from 2014, the borough includes a permanent population of around 263150 people. A lot of Hackney retains an inner-city character, but in such areas as Dalston big housing estates have been joined by newly developed gated communities. In South Hackney, near Victoria Park, terraced Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian housing still survives.
To the east is the large open space of Hackney Marshes as well as the districts of Hackney Wick and Homerton. Light industries within the area around the River Lea employ more than 3000 personnel. Some of the area was employed for the 2012 Summer Olympics.