page_title: South Kensington
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: South Kensington / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Geological Museum building, Exhibition Road, London SW7. This is now part of the Natural History Museum, and houses the Earth Galleries. Looking across Exhibition Road in the direction of Cromwell Road.
context_page_description: South Kensington is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the railways in the late 19th century and the opening and naming of local tube stations. The area is known as a popular tourist destination owing to the density of museums and cultural landmarks. Adjacent affluent centres such as Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Kensington, have been considered as some of the most exclusive real estate in the world. Since World War I it has become a cosmopolitan area attracting Belgian and French refugees, but also Poles during World War II and after, and latterly Spanish, Italian, American, and Middle-Eastern expatriates. The French presence is emphasised by the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle, the French Institute, hosting the Ciné Lumière a window on French cinema and the Alliance française and the French consulate, among other diplomatic residences. With a French bookshop and many international cafés in the area, it has been called Paris’s 21st arrondissement.
context_section_description: As is often the case in other areas of London, the boundaries for South Kensington are arbitrary and have altered with time. This is due in part to usage arising from the tube stops and other landmarks which developed across Brompton. A contemporary definition is the commercial area around the South Kensington tube station and the adjacent garden squares and streets (such as Onslow Square and Thurloe Square, opposite the Victoria and Albert Museum). To the north is the Kensington Gore, to the south the winding Fulham Road and streets leading to Sloane Square and to the west, the residential and hotel area of Gloucester Road. South Kensington station lies on the junction of several thoroughfares: principally the Old Brompton Road, Harrington Road and Pelham Street and a stone's throw from the arterial Cromwell Road. It is furthermore criss-crossed by the Exhibition Road and the stately Queen's Gate and Prince Consort Road. Until road lay-out improvements in 2012, the area was afflicted with traffic congestion and likened to a series of traffic islands.
  Modern development of the area is the result of the creation of the temporary Albertopolis reached by Exhibition Road, whose terrain now includes the Natural History Museum, the Geological Museum, the Science Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London Oratory and since 1915, the Lycée Français. Other local institutions include the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, Polish Hearth Club, London Goethe-Institut, the Royal Albert Hall, Imperial College London, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal College of Art, the Royal College of Music and between 1903 and 1991, the Royal College of Organists, West London Air Terminal, the Ismaili Centre, London and the late comer 1960s Baden-Powell House some of which are administratively within the City of Westminster, but considered to be "within range of South Kensington". Although the SW7 postcode mainly covers South Kensington, it goes into Knightsbridge. The only Royal Mail Post Office in South Kensington closed in 2019.
caption: The Geological Museum (1843) at its new location, Exhibition Road from 1935, now integrated with the Science Museum
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