More than two million people are expected to pour into London for the Queen’s funeral.
The crowds are expected to be double those seen at Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997.
Worldwide, more than four billion are expected to watch on TV.
It is expected to be the highest-attended event in UK history and television’s most watched.
More than 500 foreign dignitaries will pay their respects – kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers from almost every nation.
President Joe Biden and his wife have been given a dispensation to travel in his armoured Cadillac, known as the Beast.
Other guests will include Olena Zelenska, wife of President Zelensky of Ukraine, President Macron of France, Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako of Japan, and King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain.
The Killing Eve actress Sandra Oh will attend as part of a Canadian delegation led by Justin Trudeau, the prime minister, who last week described the Queen as “one of my favourite people in the world” .
Also among the 2,000 congregation will be nearly 200 everyday heroes – volunteers, charity work-ers, NHS staff and service veterans.
It will be the UK’s biggest security operation with more than 15,000 police on duty. Undercover SAS soldiers will be there and an air exclusion zone will be established.
More than 4,000 military personnel will will be involved in the procession although the chief of the defence staff told BBC ’s Sunday with Laura Kuensberg the overall total will be much higher.
Sir Tony Radakin said more than 10,000 military staff are due to perform their “last duty” to the Queen.
Four horses chosen to lead the coffin procession from the abbey, George, Elizabeth, Darby and Sir John, were given to the monarch by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Yesterday, as people began camp-ing in London and Windsor for today’s ceremony, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said: “The world has not seen a funeral like this.”
He added: “I’ve seen civil servants and others working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, making sure that everything is ready.”
The Dean of Westminster, Dr David Hoyle, who will lead the ceremony, said: “It’s on a scale that even Westminster Abbey doesn’t often do.”
“It’s meant to be visual. It’s meant to be grand. We’re supposed to be reminding ourselves of this extraordinary woman”
After the funeral the coffin will be taken to Windsor for a televised committal service in St George’s Chapel before a private burial in the King George VI Memorial Chapel.
The committal will be attended by 800 mourners and conducted by Dean of Windsor David Conner with a blessing from the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.
Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Barber says the crowd will be bigger than the 150,000 at the wedding of Harry and Meghan 2018.
Last night thousands queued along the Great Walk in Windsor to lay flowers. The line snaked out of the town centre for around a mile then back into Windsor Great Park.
A sea of flowers lay outside Cam-bridge Gate at the end of the Long Walk. Many had been left by children.
A little boy called Oliver – aged nine – had drawn a Paddington Bear with the message: “Thank you for being our Queen.”
Across Britain, supermarkets, stores and cinemas will be closed today as a mark of respect.
Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Lidl and Aldi will be shut. Sainsbury’s convenience stores and petrol stations will open from 5pm. Asda will close for the funeral but open from 5pm with staff receiving double pay.
Marks & Spencer and Primark will also shut for the day together with cinema chains Cineworld and Odeon.
Today has been declared a one-off bank holiday to coincide with the funeral. But an online petition to make September 8 – the date the Queen died – a permanent Queen Elizabeth bank holiday has attracted over 140,000 signatures.
Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith has already backed the “brilliant idea” and yesterday fellow Tory Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, added his weight to it.
He said: “It would be a fitting way to immortalise what she has done for the nation.”
