The London Borough of Hackney is a north east London Borough within Inner London in the United Kingdom. Southern and eastern parts of the borough are popularly, but unofficially, regarded as being a 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 most recent 2011 iteration of this strategy assigns Hackney to the 'East' sub-region, while the 2008 and 2004 versions assigned the borough to 'North' and 'East' sub-regions respectively.
Hackney is bounded by Islington towards the west, Haringey towards the north, Waltham Forest to the north-east, Newham towards the east, Tower Hamlets towards the south-east along with 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 features a permanent population of about 263150 individuals. A lot of Hackney retains an inner-city character, but in such places as Dalston big housing estates have been joined by newly developed gated communities. In South Hackney, close to Victoria Park, terraced Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian housing still survives.
To the east is the large open space of Hackney Marshes and the districts of Hackney Wick and Homerton. Light industries within the area surrounding the River Lea employ more than 3000 people. Some of the area was used for the 2012 Summer Olympics.