England County Boundaries for December 2015 with Multiple Resolutions

Digital vector boundaries for 'shire' counties in England as of 31 December 2015. The dataset contains five boundary versions, including full-resolution and generalised (20m to 500m) files 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 thematic maps of England based on county-level administrative boundaries mentioned in the description.
• Perform spatial joins and analysis using the full-resolution or generalised vector boundaries.
• Integrate county boundaries into web mapping applications using the provided GeoJSON or KML formats.
• Analyze coastal administrative extents using the boundaries clipped to the Mean High Water mark.

Strengths

• Provides five specific boundary versions, including full-resolution and four generalised (20m, 200m, 500m) options.
• File sizes are explicitly listed, ranging from 72 KB for ultra generalised to 10 MB for full-resolution clipped.
• Contains boundaries for a specific snapshot date: 31 December 2015.

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 may reflect temporal bias inherent to the 2015 snapshot.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics (UK), Ordnance Survey

Collection Method

Likely digitized from official administrative records.

Time Range

Snapshot as of 31 December 2015.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:33:06.549504; freshness should be verified.

Geography

England, specifically 'shire' counties.