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Contrary to popular misconception, Milton Keynes was not named after the poet John Milton (or the economist Milton Friedman) and the economist John Maynard Keynes, but after a village that already existed on the site of the proposed new town. The village was renamed Middleton in 1991, to distinguish it from the town.

Milton Keynes is in the Guinness Book of Records 2001 for having the longest shopping mall, at 720 m long. It also has EuropeFor the band of the same name, see Europe (band . Europe is a continent forming the westermost part of the Eurasian supercontinent. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Se's largest indoor ski slopeIndoor ski slopes are found in several countries, proving a climate controlled environment can be maintained in which snow can be manufactured using a snow cannon, enabling skiing to take place year-round. The World's first indoor slope was Mt Thebarton i, with real snowColorado's, ( USA) high forests. Snow is precipitation in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes. Since it is composed of small rough particles it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unl. Milton Keynes is the home of the Open UniversityThe Open University (OU is a distance learning university which has students all over the UK. The administration is based at Walton Hall, Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire although it has offices in each region of the UK. It also has over 25,000 students s, the National BadmintonThis article is about the racquet sport badminton . For other uses of the name, see Badminton (disambiguation). Badminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players (singles) or two opposing pairs (doubles). The game of badminton is superfic Centre and the National HockeyField hockey is a popular sport for men and women in many countries around the world. It is simply known as hockey in most countries, especially those in which ice hockey is not very prominent. Field hockey has several regular, prestigious international t Stadium, which is now home ground to Milton Keynes Dons F.C.Milton Keynes Dons F. is a football club that will play the 2004-05 season in the English Football League One, having just been relegated from the First Division. Known until 21 June 2004 as Wimbledon F. their new name reflects their controversial move to

The town's layout was planned on the basis of a prediction of a high level of car ownership by its inhabitants. The road scheme is based on a wide grid of "horizontal" (H) and "vertical" (V) roads, intersecting in many roundaboutsA roundabout rotary or gyratory circus is a type of road junction (or traffic calming device) at which traffic streams circularly around a central island after first yielding to the circulating traffic. In the United States it is usually called a modern r of similar design. The density of roundabouts is far higher than is typical in British towns: for example, within the city limits, the A421 route passes through 13 roundabouts in a 10.7 km stretch (the westernmost of which is called Bottledump Roundabout), and the A509 route passes through 12 roundabouts in a 6.4 km stretch. The famous concrete cows (now under threat), life-sized painted statues which are intended to convey a pastoral impression to onlookers — and which may be interpreted as a satirical commentary on the modernist ideals of the new town developments — are, like everything else in the town, located close to one of these roundabouts.

The road that goes through the centre of the town, Midsummer Boulevard, is so named because it is aligned so that the sun shines directly along it on midsummer each year.

Within the spaces between these major "H" and "V" roads, there is a variety of styles of development, ranging from normal urban development and industrial parks, to "village" developments.

Visitors to Milton Keynes often complain about the roundabouts and lack of landmarks along the roads, but the locals have learned to love the efficient grid-road network and are bemused when these complaining visitors are happy to go back to their towns and cities with all the traffic jams, one-way systems, narrow roads, traffic lights, pedestrians, cyclists and other things that make urban driving such a chore.

The Redways in Milton Keynes are a 200km network of paths for pedestrians and cyclists, generally surfaced with red tarmac, which criss-cross the whole town. The majority of these Redways run next to the town's grid roads and estate roads with underpasses or bridges where they intersect grid roads. One of the aims of the Redways is to make travel for pedestrians and cyclists convenient, safe, pleasant and accident free. However, the secluded nature of many of these redways has made some of them no-go areas after dark.