It borders Walthamstow to the north, Leytonstone to the east, and Stratford to the south, with Clapton, Hackney Wick and Homerton, across the River Lea, to the west.

The area includes New Spitalfields Market, Leyton Orient Football Club, as well as part of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

The town expanded rapidly in the late 19th century, forming part of the conurbation of London and becoming a suburb, similar to much of south-west Essex.

[citation needed] Paleolithic implements and fossil bones show that early man hunted in Leyton.

at which time the population was 43.The ancient parish church of St Mary the Virgin was largely rebuilt in the 17th century.

The pub was named in honour of the almshouses on Lea Bridge Road built in 1857 by the London Master Bakers' Benevolent Institution.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, Leyton was a "pretty retiring place from London" for wealthy merchants and bankers; in 1766 there were said to be 50 or 60 gentlemen with houses in the parish.

[6] Finally Leyton Midland Road opened in 1894, after an elevated line had been built on brick arches across the already developed streets.

During the Blitz of World War II, Leyton suffered as a target because of its proximity to the London Docks and Temple Mills rail yard.

[9] But, like much of east London, Leyton, which also borders the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, has benefited from significant regeneration projects over the past decade.

The millennium was marked with a clock tower in the Lea Bridge Rd area and a major piece of street art at Baker's Arms.

The area rises from low-lying marshland along the river Lea to over 90 feet at Whipps Cross on the southern edge of Epping Forest.

Leyton is partially bisected by the A12 (M11 link road, built in the 1990s), with most of the district lying on the north-west side of this busy traffic artery through east London.

The High Road Leyton bridge crossing the A12 offers some of the best views in London of the Olympic Park, which also borders the district, as well as of skyscrapers further west.

Restaurants reflect the diversity of Leyton's population, with cuisines on offer including Turkish, Portuguese, Polish, Indian, Mauritian, Somali and Cypriot.

Leyton lies on the eastern side of the Hackney Marshes, one of the largest areas of open land in London.

A bridge to the marshes crosses the Orient Way road and railway tracks from Leyton Jubilee Park, which was created as a merger of two previously separate playing fields to mark the 60th anniversary of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.

A recent regeneration of Ive Farm Fields in 2018 has brought a host of new facilities to the area, with floodlit sports pitches, a running track, volleyball courts and a series of walking routes.

The majority of homes in the area consists of Victorian and Edwardian terraces built between 1870 and 1910 during Leyton's phase of rapid development from what had been a small village at the beginning of the 1800s.

Large-scale redevelopment and inner city regeneration has been underway in Leyton for many years, as is also the case in the neighbouring areas of Hackney, Bow, Clapton and Stratford.

The Oliver Close and Cathall Road estates were the first to be completely redeveloped by demolition and rebuilding with the help of the multimillion-pound Waltham Forest Housing Action Trust scheme during the early 2000s.

There is now further development taking place opposite Coronation Gardens and the Stadium with 750 new homes set to be built by 2027, known as The Score Centre.

The London Legacy Development Corporation said this North Park area, the first section of the Olympic Park to reopen to the public after the 2012 Games, will "be a valuable area of open green space for the neighbouring communities" and "a place for jogging, kickabouts, children’s play and family picnics".

[27] Leyton is on the Central line of London Underground, with the station located at the southern end of the High Road.