England and Wales County Boundaries at December 2015, Ultra Generalised

Digital vector boundaries for counties, metropolitan districts, London boroughs and unitary authorities in England and Wales as at December 2015. The dataset contains five boundary resolutions, from full resolution to ultra generalised (500m), with file sizes ranging from 160 KB to 22 MB. Contains both Ordnance Survey and Office for National Statistics Intellectual Property Rights.

Use Cases

• Create thematic maps of socio-economic indicators based on the described county and unitary authority boundaries.
• Perform spatial joins with other UK datasets based on the provided administrative geography.
• Develop lightweight web mapping applications using the ultra generalised (500m) boundaries for faster rendering.
• Analyze coastal administrative extents using the boundaries clipped to the Mean High Water mark.

Strengths

• Provides five distinct boundary resolutions, including ultra generalised (500m) at 160 KB for lightweight use.
• Specific file sizes are listed for each resolution, from 17 MB for full realm extent to 160 KB for ultra generalised.
• Contains intellectual property from two authoritative UK sources: Ordnance Survey and the Office for National Statistics.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is specific to a single snapshot in time (December 2015) and may not reflect subsequent boundary changes.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Time Range

December 2015

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:31:29.182613; freshness should be verified.

Geography

England and Wales