The two seminal studies on westward intensification, carried out by Stommel and Munk over 70 years ago, are revisited to elucidate the role of the domain aspect ratio (i.e.~meridional to zonal extents of the basin) in determining the width and speed of a western boundary current (WBC). We examine the general mathematical properties of the two models by transforming them to differential problems that contain only two parameters — the domain aspect ratio and the non-dimensional damping (viscous) coefficient. Simple proxies of width and speed (and hence the transport that equals their product) of the WBC are derived from analytical solutions of the non-dimensional vorticity equations in the relevant region of the (damping, aspect ratio) parameter space. These analytically determined proxies are then benchmarked against numerical simulations of the corresponding time-dependent equations. In both models, the three proxies vary as a power law in the domain aspect ratio and in particular, the non-dimensional transport varies linearly with the domain aspect ratio.