Dudley is a large town in the West Midlands, England, with a population of 194,919. Since 1974 it has been the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Dudley; the original County Borough had undergone a lesser expansion in 1966. It is the 19th largest settlement in England measured by Urban Sub-Area, the second largest town in the United Kingdom, behind Reading and the largest settlement in the UK without its own university. It was home to a number of cinemas and theatres, including the Criterion Cinema, the Gaumont Cinema, the Odeon Cinema and the Plaza Cinema. The Hippodrome Theatre was one of the largest and most modern in the West Midlands, built along with the adjacent Plaza Cinema just before the Second World War.