England County Boundaries as of December 2015 at Multiple Resolutions

December 2015 digital vector boundaries for 'shire' counties in England, provided by the Office for National Statistics. The dataset includes boundaries at five resolutions, from full resolution to ultra generalised, with file sizes ranging from 72 KB to 10 MB. It contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

Use Cases

• Create thematic maps of England based on the super generalised (200m) clipped boundaries mentioned in the description.
• Perform spatial joins with other UK datasets using the full resolution extent of the realm boundaries.
• Develop web mapping applications using the lightweight ultra generalised (500m) boundaries for faster rendering.
• Analyze coastal administrative areas using the boundaries clipped to the Mean High Water mark.

Strengths

• Provides boundaries at five specific resolutions: full resolution (extent of the realm), full resolution (clipped), generalised (20m), super generalised (200m), and ultra generalised (500m).
• Includes specific file sizes for each resolution, such as 210 KB for the super generalised version and 10 MB for the full resolution clipped version.
• Contains intellectual property from two authoritative sources: Ordnance Survey and the Office for National Statistics.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to uk_data, focusing solely on England.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Collection Method

Likely digitized and generalized from official Ordnance Survey cartographic data.

Time Range

As of 31 December 2015

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:33:13.624296; freshness should be verified.

Geography

England