Overview of Letchworth Garden City

Letchworth, correctly titled Letchworth Garden City, is a town and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England with a population of 33,600. The town's name is taken from one of the three villages it surrounded - all of which featured in the Domesday Book. The land used was purchased by Quakers who had intended to farm the area and build a Quaker community. The current town was laid out by Ebenezer Howard in 1903 using his radical new garden city approach which incorporated elements of the country, alongside city life. Mocked in the press at the time, the design was supported by the Arts and Crafts movement and the Quakers. As one of the world's first new towns and the first 'Garden city' it had great influence on future town planning and the New Towns movement; it influenced Welwyn Garden City, which used a similar approach and inspired other projects around the world including Canberra, the Australian capital, Hellerau, Germany, small village of Tapanila, Finland, and Mežaparks in Latvia), .