As well as the settlement of Chelmsford itself, the district also includes the surrounding rural area and the town of South Woodham Ferrers.

The neighbouring districts are Uttlesford, Braintree, Maldon, Rochford, Basildon, Brentwood and Epping Forest.

Charter trustees were established for the area of the former municipal borough so as to allow the town to continue to have a mayor.

The Great Eastern Main Line runs through the centre, stopping at Chelmsford railway station.

Services via Chelmsford operate between London Liverpool Street and Ipswich, Clacton, Harwich, Braintree or Norwich.

The Amsterdam Express, a rail/sea/rail international service owned by also stops at Chelmsford, on its route between London and the Netherlands, via North Sea ferries.

One of these, the A12, is also a trunk road and runs from London and the M25, centrally in a north-easterly direction through the borough bypassing the city of Chelmsford onwards to Suffolk and Norfolk.

There is, additionally, a large integrated bus network provided primarily by First Essex which connects the city to towns and villages across the county.

[24] Educational establishments in the borough include: Henry VIII's former Palace of Beaulieu is situated in Boreham, now occupied by the New Hall School.

Writtle, where Robert the Bruce is said to have married his second wife Elizabeth de Burgh in 1302, has English Royal connections, with King John building a hunting lodge there in 1211.

A few miles away is the village of Pleshey, where stand the ruins of a once important castle mentioned in William Shakespeare's play Richard II.