London boroughs map

The admin­is­trative boundaries of the 32 boroughs of Greater London and the City of London

H&F is Hammersmith and Fulham. K&C is Kensington and Chelsea.
If you move your pointer over the map, the labelling disappears.

 
The present boroughs of London were constituted in 1965. Since then there have been many minor boundary changes but nothing radical, unless you count Barnet’s loss of the hamlet of Kitt’s End to the Hertfordshire borough of Hertsmere.

Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames and Greenwich are royal boroughs, the latter since 2012, when it was honoured to mark the diamond jubilee of Elizabeth II in recog­nition of its many centuries of close association with the Crown. From the Middle Ages until the 19th century Havering was a royal liberty. For a long period this covered most of the area of the modern borough (see also Havering-​​atte-​​Bower).

Westminster is a city in its own right, as of course is the City of London. The former is also a conven­tional borough, the latter is a special case – a ‘unique authority’, as it calls itself. Croydon has applied for city status on four occasions, most recently in 2012, when it was yet again unsuc­cessful, as was Tower Hamlets.

On the map above, the boroughs of Inner London are tinted darker than those of Outer London. When the Greater London Council was estab­lished in 1965, twelve boroughs and the City of London were designated as consti­tuting Inner London. After the demise of the GLC, compilers of official statistics introduced a revised definition that excluded Greenwich and included Haringey and Newham.

To see precise borough boundaries in an online street atlas, Hidden London recommends Streetmap​.co​.uk. The boundaries are shown as thick purple lines in the 1:2500 and 1:5000 views. Streetmap is also good for postal district boundaries, which are shown as thin red lines at the same levels of zoom. For example, the detail on the right shows the boundary between the boroughs of Camden and Islington (running along the middle of Brecknock Road and York Way), as well as the meeting point of the NW1, NW5 and N7 postal districts.