England Shire County Boundaries for December 2015

Office for National Statistics data provides digital vector boundaries for 'shire' counties in England as of 31 December 2015. The dataset includes five boundary versions at different resolutions, from full to ultra-generalized, each clipped to the coastline. It contains intellectual property rights from both Ordnance Survey and the ONS.

Use Cases

• Cartographic mapping using the ultra-generalized (500m) boundaries for small-scale national maps.
• Precision spatial analysis with full-resolution boundaries clipped to the Mean High Water mark.
• Web mapping and visualization using the generalised (20m) boundaries for a balance of detail and performance.
• Historical boundary reference for administrative studies of England in 2015.

Strengths

• Provides five distinct geometric resolutions, with file sizes ranging from 72 KB to 10 MB, catering to different use cases.
• Contains intellectual property from two authoritative UK sources: Ordnance Survey and the Office for National Statistics.
• Includes both 'extent of the realm' and 'coastline-clipped' versions for full-resolution boundaries.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as column names, row counts, and specific feature attributes are not provided in the available sources.
• The dataset is a historical snapshot from a single date (31 December 2015) and may not reflect current boundaries.
• The 'last updated' metadata field (2026) appears to be a platform artifact and conflicts with the dataset's 2015 reference date.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics, incorporating Ordnance Survey data.

Collection Method

Official digital vector boundaries produced for administrative geography.

Time Range

31 December 2015

Freshness

2026-07-08 13:33:29.573365 (platform metadata, but the data itself references 31 December 2015).

Geography

Shire counties in England.