
Parliament Square is a square at the northwest end of the Palace of Westminster in Westminster, London, England. It was laid out in 1868 to open up the space around the Houses of Parliament and to improve traffic flow, and, starting in 1874, twelve statues of British, Commonwealth, and foreign political figures were erected in the square: George Canning, Edward Smith-Stanley, Lord Palmerston, Robert Peel, Benjamin Disraeli, Abraham Lincoln, Jan Smuts, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, David Lloyd George, Mahatma Gandhi, and Millicent Fawcett. It is one of London's main tourist attractions, as well as a popular protest site.