England and Wales County and Unitary Authority Boundaries, December 2015

Office for National Statistics provides digital vector boundaries for counties, metropolitan districts, London boroughs, and unitary authorities in England and Wales as of December 2015. The dataset includes five boundary versions at different resolutions, from full extent to ultra-generalized 500m clips. File sizes range from 160 KB to 22 MB, and the data contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

Use Cases

• Create regional choropleth maps based on the provided administrative boundaries.
• Perform spatial joins with other UK datasets using the county and unitary authority geometries.
• Develop lightweight web mapping applications using the super-generalized (200m) or ultra-generalized (500m) boundary files.
• Analyze coastal administrative extents using the full-resolution boundaries clipped to the Mean High Water mark.

Strengths

• Provides five distinct boundary resolutions, with file sizes specified from 160 KB to 22 MB.
• Contains boundaries for four specific administrative unit types: counties, metropolitan districts, London boroughs, and unitary authorities.
• Includes both full-extent and coastline-clipped versions, with clipping defined to the Mean High Water mark.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is from December 2015; freshness should be verified for current applications.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Collection Method

Digital vector boundaries derived from Ordnance Survey and ONS data.

Time Range

December 2015

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:32:26.903196; the underlying data reflects boundaries as of December 2015.

Geography

England and Wales