The City of London (also known simply as "the City") constitutes 25 wards. The City is the historic core of the much wider metropolis of Greater London, with an ancient and sui generis form of local government, which avoided the many reforms enacted to local government elsewhere in the country in the 19th and 20th centuries. Unlike other modern-day English local authorities, the City of London Corporation has two council bodies: the now largely ceremonial Court of Aldermen and the Court of Common Council.