Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, and several additional authorities throughout the United Kingdom. Its name derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had its main public entrance on the Westminster street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became the public entrance, and over time "Scotland Yard" came to be used not only as the common name of the headquarters building, but also as a metonym for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) itself and police officers, especially detectives, who serve in it. The New York Times wrote in 1964 that, just as Wall Street gave its name to New York's financial district, Scotland Yard became the name for police activity in London.

The force moved from Great Scotland Yard in 1890, to a newly completed building on the Victoria Embankment, and the name "New Scotland Yard" was adopted for the new headquarters. An adjacent building was completed in 1906. A third building was added in 1940. In 1967 the MPS consolidated its headquarters from the three-building complex to a tall, newly constructed "New Scotland Yard" building on Broadway in nearby Victoria. In 2013, it was announced that the force would move again to the Victoria Embankment at Westminster's Curtis Green Building, which following tradition was renamed "New Scotland Yard". This move to the latest New Scotland Yard was completed in 2016.

The Metropolitan Police Service is responsible for law enforcement within Greater London, excluding the square mile of the City of London, which is covered by the City of London Police, and also excluding the London Underground and National Rail networks, which are the responsibility of the British Transport Police.

The Metropolitan Police was formed by Robert Peel with the implementation of the Metropolitan Police Act, passed by Parliament in 1829. Peel, with the help of Eugène-François Vidocq, selected the original site on Whitehall Place for the new police headquarters. The first two commissioners, Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne, along with various police officers and staff, occupied the building. Previously a private house, 4 Whitehall Place (51°30′22″N 0°07′34″W / 51.50598°N 0.12609°W / 51.50598; -0.12609 (Original Scotland Yard – 4 Whitehall Place)) backed onto a street called Great Scotland Yard. The building now on the site of 4 Whitehall Place (the 1950s rear extension to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) still has a rear entrance on Great Scotland Yard.

By 1887, the Metropolitan Police headquarters had expanded from 4 Whitehall Place into several neighbouring addresses, including 3, 5, 21 and 22 Whitehall Place and several stables, including one at 7 Great Scotland Yard still in use by the mounted branch. These also included buildings which fronted onto the north side of Great Scotland Yard, with the address of 8 and 9 Great Scotland Yard, sometimes shown on maps as a station or "police office" on A Division but actually used from 1842 as the central headquarters of the new Detective Branch. Those buildings were damaged in an 1884 Fenian bomb attack and are now lost under the former Central London Recruiting Office, which was acquired by hypermarkets operator Lulu Group International in 2015 and reopened as a Hyatt luxury hotel four years later.

In the 1880s the force decided that it had outgrown its original site, and moved to a new headquarters designed by architect Richard Norman Shaw (51°30′08″N 0°07′29″W / 51.50222°N 0.12463°W / 51.50222; -0.12463 (New Scotland Yard – Norman Shaw North Building (second location))) on the Victoria Embankment, overlooking the River Thames, south of what is now the Ministry of Defence's headquarters. In 1888, during the construction of the new building, workers discovered the dismembered torso of a female; the case, known as the 'Whitehall Mystery', was never solved. In 1890, police headquarters moved to the new location, which was named New Scotland Yard. By this time, the Metropolitan Police had grown from its initial 1,000 officers to about 13,000 and needed more administrative staff and a bigger headquarters. Further increases in the size and responsibilities of the force required even more administrators and space. Therefore, new buildings were constructed and completed in 1906 and 1940, so that New Scotland Yard became a three-building complex. (51°30′07″N 0°07′28″W / 51.50183°N 0.12446°W / 51.50183; -0.12446 (Norman Shaw South Building (extension to New Scotland Yard))). The first two buildings are now a Grade I listed structure known as the Norman Shaw Buildings.

The headquarters of the Metropolitan Police were moved to 8–10 Broadway in 1967, in a new building constructed on a site that also bordered onto Victoria Street.

In 2008, the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) bought the freehold of 10 Broadway for around £120 million.