Census Merged Wards: England and Wales Boundaries from December 2011

Digital vector boundaries for Census Merged Wards in England and Wales as at 31 December 2011. The dataset contains three boundary resolutions: full extent, generalised (20m), and super generalised (200m). It is published by the Office for National Statistics and contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

Use Cases

• Create thematic maps of census variables based on the ward-level boundaries.
• Perform spatial joins to aggregate point data to Census Merged Ward geographies.
• Analyze administrative geography changes over time using the December 2011 snapshot.
• Generate simplified, coastline-clipped boundary files for web mapping based on the generalised versions.

Strengths

• Contains three specific boundary resolutions: full (93 MB), generalised 20m (10 MB), and super generalised 200m (3 MB).
• Provides direct REST API access via ArcGIS Feature and INSPIRE services for programmatic use.
• Explicitly states the snapshot date of 31 December 2011.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Time Range

Snapshot as of 31 December 2011

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:33:26.456365; freshness should be verified.

Geography

England and Wales