County and Unitary Authority Boundaries for England and Wales, December 2016

December 2016 digital vector boundaries for Counties and Unitary Authorities in England and Wales. The dataset contains five boundary resolutions, from full resolution to ultra generalised, and includes both Ordnance Survey and Office for National Statistics intellectual property rights. File sizes range from 168 KB for the ultra generalised version to 22 MB for the full resolution version clipped to the coastline.

Use Cases

• Create regional maps based on the full resolution boundaries clipped to the coastline.
• Perform spatial analysis using the generalised (20m) boundaries for faster processing.
• Visualize administrative units in web applications using the ultra generalised (500m) boundaries.
• Analyze coastal and offshore administrative extents based on the full resolution boundaries of the realm.

Strengths

• Provides five distinct boundary resolutions, with file sizes explicitly listed from 168 KB to 22 MB.
• Contains boundaries for both the extent of the realm and versions clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).
• Intellectual property rights are clearly stated as belonging to Ordnance Survey and the Office for National Statistics.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale statistical analysis.
• Data is specific to December 2016; administrative boundaries may have changed since then.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Collection Method

Likely digitized from official cartographic sources.

Time Range

December 2016

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:33:07.884867; freshness should be verified.

Geography

England and Wales