Editing Westminster (section)

===Physical geography===
The [[City and Liberty of Westminster]] and other historical Westminster administrative units (except the broader modern [[City of Westminster]], a London Borough created in 1965) extended from the [[River Thames]] to the [[Devil's Highway (Roman Britain)|old Roman road]] from the [[City of London|City]] to western England, which is now locally called [[Oxford Street]].
{{Annotated image|image=LondonBeforeHouses.jpg|image-width=1000|image-left=-240|image-top=-355|width =195|height=175|float=left|caption=Westminster before urbanisation. The Roman road (modern [[Oxford Street]]) is shown at top running west.}}

[[Thorney Island (Westminster)|Thorney Island]] lay between the arms of the former [[River Tyburn]] at its confluence with the Thames, while the western boundary with Chelsea was formed by the similarly lost [[River Westbourne]].<ref>Boundary of Westminster and Chelsea 'The parish of Chelsea: Introduction', in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 12, Chelsea, ed. Patricia E C Croot (London, 2004), pp. 1–2. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol12/pp1-2 [accessed 19 December 2020].</ref> The line of the river still forms (with very slight revisions) the boundaries of the modern borough with the [[Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea]].
[[File:Westminster Civil Parish Map 1870.png|thumb|Parishes and Places of the City and Liberty of Westminster. The lower [[River Westbourne|Westbourne]] formed part of the western boundary, and [[Oxford Street]] the north.]]

Further north, away from the river mouth, Westminster included land on both sides of the Westbourne, notably [[Knightsbridge]] (including the parts of Hyde Park west of the [[Serpentine (lake)|Serpentine]] lake (originally formed by damming the river) and most of Kensington Gardens).