England and Wales County and Unitary Authority Boundaries, December 2015

Digital vector boundaries for counties, metropolitan districts, London boroughs, and unitary authorities in England and Wales as of December 2015. The dataset contains five boundary versions, including full-resolution and multiple generalised (20m to 500m) versions clipped to the coastline. It is provided by the Office for National Statistics and contains Ordnance Survey and ONS intellectual property rights.

Use Cases

• Create regional maps for policy analysis based on the provided administrative boundaries.
• Perform spatial joins with demographic data using the generalised boundary files for faster processing.
• Visualize administrative units in web mapping applications using the ultra-generalised (500m) boundaries for low-detail basemaps.
• Analyze coastal versus inland administrative extents using the full-resolution boundaries clipped to the Mean High Water mark.

Strengths

• Provides five distinct boundary versions, including full-resolution and four generalised (20m, 200m, 500m) versions for different use cases.
• File sizes are explicitly listed, ranging from 160 KB for ultra-generalised to 22 MB for full-resolution clipped boundaries.
• Contains boundaries for multiple administrative unit types: counties, metropolitan districts, London boroughs, and unitary authorities.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is specific to December 2015; administrative boundaries may have changed since then.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale statistical analysis.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics (UK), Ordnance Survey

Collection Method

Official digital vector boundaries from UK national mapping and statistics agencies.

Time Range

December 2015

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:30:17.881527; freshness should be verified as the underlying boundaries are from 2015.

Geography

England and Wales