Stanley is represented by five of the eight elected members of the Legislative Assembly of the Falkland Islands: Stacy Bragger, Barry Elsby, Mark Pollard, Roger Spink, and Leona Vidal Roberts.

Stanley is the main shopping centre on the islands and the hub of East Falkland's road network.

Stanley has four pubs, 11 hotels and guesthouses, three restaurants, a fish and chip shop and the main tourist office.

[2] The original capital of the islands was at Port Louis to the north of the present site of Stanley, on Berkeley Sound.

Captains Francis Crozier and James Clark Ross were recruited by Governor Richard Moody in his quest to find a new capital for The Falklands.

Not all the inhabitants were happy with the change; a JW Whitington is recorded as saying, "Of all the miserable bog holes, I believe that Mr Moody has selected one of the worst for the site of his town.

[4] During the Second World War, a hulk in Stanley Harbour was used for interning the British Fascist and Mosleyite Jeffrey Hamm.

[5] A minor figure in the British Union of Fascists (BUF) at the time, Hamm moved to the Falkland Islands in 1939 to work as a teacher.

He was arrested there (under Defence Regulation 18B) in 1940 for encouraging fascist views among his pupils and his BUF membership and later transferred to a prison camp in South Africa.

Scheduled passenger flights between the Mount Pleasant airfield and the UK are also operated twice a week by a civilian airline contractor on behalf of the Royal Air Force.

The Argentinians renamed the town Puerto Argentino, and although Spanish names for places in the Falklands were historically accepted as alternatives, this one is considered to be extremely offensive by many islanders.

[6] Stanley suffered considerable damage during the war, from both the Argentine occupation and the British naval shelling of the town, which killed three civilians.

Stanley itself has developed greatly in that time, with the building of a large amount of residential housing, particularly to the east of the town centre.

In 2022, as part of Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee Civic Honours, Stanley was one of the successful bids for city status, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the invasion and liberation of the port.

Stanley Harbour was originally known as "Port Jackson", and this name would have applied to the area before the town was built.

However, "Stanley" without the "Port" prefix was established long before the war, and on 2 August 1956, the Officer Administering the Government of the Falkland Islands reported to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in London as follows: There is some difficulty over the correct name of the capital.

Local opinion differs on the matter, but there is no doubt that Stanley is now common usage and has been for some considerable time.

Stanley, unlike Port Louis, the former capital of the islands, was a new settlement founded by the British, and therefore did not have a Spanish name of its own.

The nearest larger city of Río Gallegos (the provincial capital of Santa Cruz) in Argentina has a slightly milder climate (annual mean temperature being 1.7 °C (3.1 °F) higher) due to its position on the South American mainland, although summers everywhere on this latitude in the southern hemisphere are very cool due to important marine effects.

On days when two or more large cruise ships dock in the town, tourists frequently outnumber the local residents.

Gypsy Cove, known for its Magellanic penguins, and Cape Pembroke, the easternmost point of the Falklands, lie nearby.