Canning is an area of Liverpool 8 located near the city centre. It can roughly be described as the area between Myrtle Street, Hope Street, Crown Street and Upper Parliament Street. It was named after George Canning (As was Canning Dock and the adjacent Canning Place) and mostly comprises of Georgian properties that were built speculatively. The area is so called becuase Canning Street runs its entire length.

The area orginally housed much of Liverpool's gentry. However, increased overcrowding and improvements in transportation around the turn of the 19th Century saw them move further out of the city, and the Canning houses became home to the very diverse community that it is today, both ethnically, socially and culturally. Canning houses everyone from wealthy architects and business people, to large families, students, artists and people dependent on welfare amongst many others. It's also home to a recovering alcoholics centre and a halfway house for troublesome teens. Liverpool's relative poverty has prevented the area from becoming gentrified in the way that similar properities have in other parts of the UK.

Some properties in the area are more modern, and have replaced older properties where they have been demolished due to deleriction, re-development or destruction. These properties are of varying quality.

The area is noted for its numerous public houses which vary greatly. These include: Peter Kavangah's, The Blackburne Arms, The Belvedere (The Belve) and The Caledonia (The Cali). The neighbouring pubs The Cambridge and Ye Cracke are located outside of Canning, but are generally regarded as being part of 'The Canning Crawl'.

It is also noted for its churches. The Neo-Classical St Brides is the Parish Church, and noted for its liberal views and twin use as a community/arts centre. There is also an ornate Catholic church and Liverpool's only German Church, the 'Deutsche Kirche', which is a Brutalist post-war structure. There was another church on the corner of Catharine Street and Canning Street, however this burned down at some point in the 1980's and was replaced by flats. The stone window frame of the church can still be seen in the grounds of the flats. Just outisde Canning, on Princess Road/Avenue, there are further exotic religious buildings including a very ornate Synagouge and a Greek Orthadox church.

The area's bohemian quaility has always attracted creative people. Well known current and former residents include Mersey Poets Roger McGough and Adrien Henri, both of whom dedicated poems to the area, the sculptor Tom Murphy, rock singer and 80s icon Julian Cope, rock singer and rock widow Courtney Love (who lived with the former) the writer Niall Griffiths and Liverpool icon, Stan the harpist.

The area is bounded by some dramatic scenery. At the Myrtle Street end, Liverpool University has its main site, while at the Hope Street end is Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral on a rocky outcrop, which is the largest Anglican Cathedral in the world. At the other end of Canning Street in Falkner Square. This is the title of one of Adrien Henri's poems. It was also notorious for many years as a key part of Liverpool's red light district, however, this died off in the 1990's with the prostitutes gravitating down the quieter Crown Street area.