Which London boroughs touch the fewest number of other London boroughs?
And which touch the most?
This is a question you could answer using a map, but precisely what touches what gets a bit complicated in places. So I've used a series of pages on the Ordnance Survey website which list precisely which boroughs a particular borough is adjacent to.
The four boroughs which touch the fewest London boroughs are Hillingdon, Enfield, Havering and Sutton. Each touches only three other London boroughs.
The four boroughs which touch the most London boroughs are Brent, Wandsworth, Lambeth and the City of London. Each touches seven other London boroughs.
If you're the kind of pedant who believes the City of London isn't a London borough then you have to remove the City and Lambeth from the latter list and add Islington to the former.
Of course boroughs around the edge of London have less opportunity to be next to another London borough, indeed that's where all the 3s are.
But other boroughs exist outside London, like Dartford and Mole Valley and Broxbourne, so what if we include those too?
Which London boroughs touch the fewest number of other boroughs?
And which touch the most?
Here's the map.
The three London boroughs which touch the fewest boroughs are Kensington & Chelsea, Islington and Lewisham. Each touches only four other boroughs.
The London borough which touches the most boroughs is Bromley. It touches eight other boroughs. The extras outside London are Sevenoaks and Tandridge.
It's probably not a coincidence that London's largest borough touches the most boroughs. It may be surprising that the smallest borough, the City of London, is in joint second place.
The average number of boroughs London boroughs touch is six. This may be a feature of maps in general.
