Big Ben is the London landmark whose clock is traditionally heard striking midnight during the city's New Year's Eve broadcast.
Big Ben is the nickname commonly used for the Great Bell of the Palace of Westminster, although the name is often applied informally to the entire clock tower. The tower was completed in 1859 as part of Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin's rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster.
The clock's four faces and the bell's chimes have become familiar symbols of London. At New Year's, television and radio coverage often uses the sound of the midnight strikes as an audible marker of the new year.
The tower was officially renamed the Elizabeth Tower in 2012 in honor of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee. Big Ben itself refers specifically to the great bell, not the clock mechanism or the tower, a distinction frequently missed in casual descriptions.