England County Boundaries at December 2015 in Five Generalization Levels

Digital vector boundaries for 'shire' counties in England as of 31 December 2015. The dataset contains five boundary versions, from full resolution (7-10 MB) to ultra generalised (72 KB), clipped to the coastline. Contains both Ordnance Survey and Office for National Statistics intellectual property rights.

Use Cases

• Create thematic maps of England based on county-level administrative units.
• Perform spatial joins with other UK datasets using the provided county boundaries.
• Optimize map rendering performance by selecting an appropriate generalized boundary version (20m, 200m, or 500m).
• Analyze coastal administrative extents using the clipped vs. full-realm boundary options.

Strengths

• Provides five distinct boundary versions with specific file sizes (e.g., 72 KB for ultra generalised).
• Snapshots a specific administrative geography valid as of 31 December 2015.
• Includes direct REST service URLs for programmatic access and download.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Freshness should be verified; the data reflects boundaries from 2015, though metadata was updated in 2026.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Collection Method

Official administrative boundary definition.

Time Range

As of 31 December 2015

Freshness

Data reflects boundaries from 2015; metadata last updated 2026-07-08 13:33:12.054666.

Geography

England (shire counties)