London boroughs, towns & nearby places

A map of how London is put together — and where it shades into the counties around it. It draws three kinds of place, coloured so you can tell them apart: the inner London boroughs and the outer London boroughs (the 32 boroughs plus the City of London), shown as boundary outlines so you can see each one’s actual shape; the towns, suburbs & villages within them — every place OpenStreetMap records inside each borough, Hayes and Uxbridge through to Wimbledon and Bromley; and the adjacent towns just outside Greater London, from Windsor and Watford round to Epsom and Dartford.

Use the filters to narrow it down: tick the types you want, pick one or more compass regions, or jump to a single borough to see just its districts. Tap any marker or borough outline for what it is, which borough or county it sits in, and a Wikipedia link where one exists. Tap the ◎ button to drop a pin on your own location and see what’s around you.

Loading the map…

How London fits together

Greater London is governed as 32 boroughs plus the City of London. Twelve of the boroughs, with the City, make up statutory Inner London; the other twenty are Outer London, the ring of suburbs that the city absorbed as it grew. Each borough is itself a patchwork of older towns, villages and districts — Hillingdon contains Uxbridge, Hayes and Ruislip; Brent contains Wembley and Harlesden — many of which were independent places long before London reached them. Beyond the boundary, the Home Counties begin, and a string of commuter towns just outside the M25 sit close enough to feel like part of London’s orbit without being inside it.

Inner London boroughs

The historic core and the dense inner ring — twelve boroughs and the City of London.

• City of London the Square Mile — the historic financial core, with St Paul’s and the Bank of England.
• Westminster Inner London — Whitehall, Parliament, the West End and the royal parks; the seat of government.
• Kensington & Chelsea Inner London — London’s smallest, richest borough: museums, garden squares and stucco terraces.
• Camden Inner London — from the British Museum and Bloomsbury up to Camden Market, Hampstead and the Heath.
• Islington Inner London — Georgian terraces, Upper Street’s restaurants and the Emirates Stadium.
• Hackney Inner London — east London’s creative heart: Shoreditch, Dalston and London Fields.
• Tower Hamlets Inner London — the East End and the Docklands skyline of Canary Wharf, by the Thames.
• Hammersmith & Fulham Inner London — riverside west London: Hammersmith, Fulham and Shepherd’s Bush.
• Wandsworth Inner London — south-west London by the river: Clapham, Putney, Balham and Battersea.
• Lambeth Inner London — the South Bank, Waterloo, Brixton and Streatham.
• Southwark Inner London — Borough Market, Tate Modern, the Shard, Peckham and Dulwich.
• Lewisham Inner London — south-east London: Deptford, New Cross and Blackheath.
• Greenwich Inner London — the Royal Observatory, the Cutty Sark, the Meridian and Woolwich.

Outer London boroughs

The twenty suburban boroughs that ring the centre, from Heathrow round to Havering.

• Hillingdon Outer London · West — London’s western gateway: Uxbridge, Hayes, Ruislip and Heathrow Airport.
• Hounslow Outer London · West — west London by the river: Brentford, Chiswick, Feltham and Heathrow’s edge.
• Ealing Outer London · West — the ‘Queen of the Suburbs’: Ealing, Acton, Southall and Greenford.
• Brent Outer London · North-West — Wembley Stadium, Harlesden, Kilburn and Willesden.
• Harrow Outer London · North-West — leafy north-west suburbs: Harrow-on-the-Hill, Pinner and Stanmore.
• Barnet Outer London · North-West — London’s most populous borough: Finchley, Hendon, Edgware and High Barnet.
• Enfield Outer London · North — the northern frontier: Enfield Town, Edmonton, Southgate and the Lee Valley.
• Haringey Outer London · North — Tottenham’s stadium, Wood Green, Crouch End and Muswell Hill.
• Waltham Forest Outer London · North-East — Walthamstow’s market and wetlands, Leyton and Chingford.
• Redbridge Outer London · North-East — Ilford, Wanstead and Woodford by Epping Forest.
• Havering Outer London · East — London’s far east: Romford, Hornchurch and Upminster.
• Barking & Dagenham Outer London · East — east London by the river: Barking and the old Dagenham car works.
• Newham Outer London · East — the Olympic Park, Stratford, East Ham and the Royal Docks.
• Bexley Outer London · South-East — the south-east edge: Bexleyheath, Sidcup, Erith and the marshes.
• Bromley Outer London · South-East — London’s largest borough by area: Bromley, Beckenham, Orpington and green belt.
• Croydon Outer London · South — a high-rise southern hub: Croydon town, Purley and Coulsdon.
• Sutton Outer London · South — quiet southern suburbs: Sutton, Carshalton and Cheam.
• Merton Outer London · South-West — Wimbledon’s tennis and common, plus Mitcham and Morden.
• Kingston upon Thames Outer London · South-West — a riverside market town: Kingston, Surbiton and New Malden.
• Richmond upon Thames Outer London · South-West — the greenest borough: Richmond Park, Kew Gardens, Twickenham and Teddington.

Towns, suburbs & villages within London

Every place OpenStreetMap records as a town, suburb, quarter, neighbourhood or village inside each borough boundary — hundreds of them, far more than any hand-picked list. They’re grouped by borough below, and each is a marker on the map; turn on a single borough above to isolate its districts.

Adjacent places just outside London

The commuter towns of the Home Counties that ring Greater London — just over the boundary, but close enough to share its trains, its motorways and much of its daily life. The county each lies in is given in brackets.

• Windsor Berkshire · West — the royal castle town on the Thames, with Eton and Legoland close by.
• Eton Berkshire · West — a small Thames-side town famous for its historic college.
• Slough Berkshire · West — a big commercial town and trading estate at London’s western edge.
• Maidenhead Berkshire · West — a Thames town on the Elizabeth line, near Cliveden and Bray.
• Ascot Berkshire · South-West — synonymous with its royal racecourse, in the Berkshire heathland.
• Gerrards Cross Buckinghamshire · North-West — an affluent commuter town just beyond London’s north-west edge.
• Beaconsfield Buckinghamshire · North-West — a handsome old town with a model village, in the Chilterns’ foothills.
• Amersham Buckinghamshire · North-West — the end of the Metropolitan line, an old town on the chalk Chilterns.
• Chesham Buckinghamshire · North-West — the Underground’s most distant station, in a Chiltern valley.
• Rickmansworth Hertfordshire · North-West — a Metro-land town of lakes and canals where three rivers meet.
• Watford Hertfordshire · North-West — a big Hertfordshire town north-west of London, with its own football club.
• Borehamwood Hertfordshire · North — home to Elstree Studios, where many films and TV shows are made.
• Potters Bar Hertfordshire · North — a commuter town on London’s northern green-belt edge.
• Hatfield Hertfordshire · North — a new town beside the great Jacobean Hatfield House.
• St Albans Hertfordshire · North-West — a cathedral city on Roman Verulamium, a half-hour north.
• Hemel Hempstead Hertfordshire · North-West — a post-war new town with its famous ‘Magic Roundabout’.
• Hertford Hertfordshire · North — the county town, where the Lea valley meets the hills.
• Cheshunt Hertfordshire · North — a Lea-valley town in the Hertfordshire green belt.
• Epping Essex · North-East — the leafy terminus of the Central line, beside its great forest.
• Loughton Essex · North-East — an Essex commuter town on the edge of Epping Forest.
• Waltham Abbey Essex · North — a historic town around its great abbey church, in the Lea valley.
• Harlow Essex · North-East — a post-war Essex new town of sculpture and green wedges.
• Brentwood Essex · East — a commuter town on the Elizabeth line’s eastern arm.
• Grays Essex · East — a Thurrock riverside town near the vast Lakeside shopping centre.
• Dartford Kent · South-East — a Kent town by the Thames crossing that bears its name.
• Gravesend Kent · East — a Thames-side town where the river meets the estuary.
• Sevenoaks Kent · South-East — a Kent commuter town beside the great deer park of Knole.
• Westerham Kent · South — a pretty Kent town near Churchill’s Chartwell and Quebec House.
• Oxted Surrey · South — a Surrey town at the foot of the North Downs.
• Caterham Surrey · South — a town tucked into a Downs valley on London’s southern edge.
• Redhill Surrey · South — a Victorian railway town in the Surrey Weald.
• Reigate Surrey · South — an old market town below the North Downs, near Reigate Hill.
• Epsom Surrey · South-West — home of the Derby and the Oaks on its famous Downs racecourse.
• Leatherhead Surrey · South-West — a Mole-valley town at the gateway to the Surrey Hills.
• Esher Surrey · South-West — an affluent Surrey town near Sandown Park racecourse.
• Walton-on-Thames Surrey · South-West — a riverside Surrey town on a broad bend of the Thames.
• Weybridge Surrey · South-West — a smart commuter town where the Wey meets the Thames.
• Woking Surrey · South-West — a Surrey railway town with Britain’s first purpose-built mosque.
• Staines-upon-Thames Surrey · South-West — a Thames-side town near Heathrow and Runnymede.
• Egham Surrey · South-West — a Surrey town beside Runnymede, where Magna Carta was sealed.
• Virginia Water Surrey · South-West — an affluent village by the lake of Windsor Great Park.

How it’s built

One self-contained page, all free and open tools, no API key anywhere. Leaflet draws the map and OpenStreetMap serves the tiles. The data ships as a baked snapshot (areas.json) so the map paints instantly and works offline. The 33 boroughs and the adjacent towns are a hand-maintained list, but the boroughs’ boundary outlines and every town, suburb and village inside them are pulled from OpenStreetMap by a small build script (Overpass API): for each borough it takes the official administrative boundary and every place node that falls within it. Re-running the script refreshes the snapshot.

A caveat on the data

The boroughs are exact — there are 32 plus the City of London, and the split into Inner and Outer London follows the statutory definition. The towns, suburbs and villages come straight from OpenStreetMap, so the list is only as complete and as current as OSM’s contributors have made it: a place can be missing, duplicated under two names, or tagged as a ‘suburb’ where you’d say ‘village’ (or the reverse). Each is shown at its OSM point location, not a precise centre, and the borough boundaries are simplified for the web, so the outlines are approximate near the edges. Which places count as ‘adjacent’ is a judgement call, not a boundary query, and the compass regions are a rough guide for filtering rather than an official carving-up of the city.

Some of the figures in the charts and tables on this page were compiled with the help of AI tools and may contain errors or be out of date. They are shared in good faith for general interest only — not as professional, financial, investment or purchasing advice — and should be checked against the cited primary sources before you rely on them.