City of Milton Keynes

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The City of Milton Keynes is a borough in Buckinghamshire, England. It was created in 1974 and named after its main town, Milton Keynes, which was designated a new town in 1967. In 2022 it was granted city status, and its council is now called Milton Keynes City Council. Since 1997 the area has been a unitary authority, meaning it runs its own local services.

Geography and people
- Location: South East England, bordering Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire.
- The Milton Keynes urban area is the dominant built-up part of the borough, making up about 20% of the land but 90% of the people. The rest is rural, with villages such as Olney.
- Area: about 309 square kilometers (119 square miles).
- Population: around 306,000 in 2024 (about 287,000 in 2021). The council projects the population could reach about 410,000 by 2050.
- Density: roughly 991 people per square kilometer.

Governance
- The city is run by Milton Keynes City Council. After the 2024 elections, the Labour Party held the majority, with Liberal Democrats as the main opposition.
- The borough is fully parished, with more than 50 parishes.

Education and learning
- Further education is provided by Milton Keynes College.
- The Open University has its headquarters in Milton Keynes, but it is a distance-learning institution, so most students don’t live on campus.
- A campus of the University of Bedfordshire in Central Milton Keynes offers undergraduate courses.
- Cranfield University works with the council on MK:U, a project to create a new university in the city center. As of early 2022, the project was awaiting funding.

Economy, housing and growth
- The borough plans to build at least 26,500 new homes between 2016 and 2031, focusing on city estates, expansion areas, and three key towns outside the main design area: Newport Pagnell, Woburn Sands, and Olney.
- Housing: about 60.8% owner-occupied, 21% privately rented, and 18% socially rented.
- The area has strong economic performance and, in 2017, the wider region was among the best in the UK for gross value added per person outside inner London.

People, culture and heritage
- Demographics (2021): around 71.8% white, 12.3% Asian, 9.7% Black, 4% mixed, 2% other.
- The borough has many heritage assets. The National Heritage List for England includes about 1,166 entries in the City of Milton Keynes (as of 2025), including more than 1,100 listed buildings of various grades, a number of parks, scheduled monuments, and other sites.

Towns and rural areas
- Towns within the borough include Bletchley, Central Milton Keynes, Fenny Stratford, Newport Pagnell, Stony Stratford, Woburn Sands, and Wolverton.
- The rural area makes up about 80% of the borough’s land but contains roughly 10% of its people.

Contact and identifiers
- Postcode area: MK
- Dialing code: 01908

The City of Milton Keynes blends a busy urban center with large areas of countryside, and it continues to grow as both a place to live and a center for education and innovation.