The London Borough of Hackney is a north east London Borough inside 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 locations 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 program assigns Hackney to the 'East' sub-region, though 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 towards the north-east, Newham to the east, Tower Hamlets towards the south-east plus the City of London towards the south-west. It covers a total area of 7.36 square miles. As outlined by population estimates from 2014, the borough has a permanent population of around 263150 people. Much of Hackney retains an inner-city character, but in such areas as Dalston big housing estates have been joined by newly created 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 also the districts of Hackney Wick and Homerton. Light industries in the space around the River Lea employ more than 3000 people. Some of the area was employed for the 2012 Summer Olympics.