Here's what makes a place a city...
According to the UK Parliament website: "City status in the UK can be associated with having a cathedral or a university, a particular form of local government, or having a large population."
It added: "Although any of these might be used to justify the popular use of the term ‘city’, in formal terms UK city status is granted by the monarch, on the advice of ministers."
Apparently, local government structures, despite their names, do not have a direct connection to whether somewhere has the status of a city, says the website.
It explained: "A city will normally style its local authority as a ‘city council’, but this is not a category of local authority in its own right. In law, a city council could be a unitary authority (e.g. Manchester), a district council (e.g. Cambridge), or a parish council (e.g. Truro)."