England County Boundaries from 2016 with Multiple Generalization Levels

Digital vector boundaries for Counties in England, as of 31 December 2016. The dataset contains five boundary versions, including full resolution and four levels of generalization 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.
• Perform spatial analysis using generalized boundaries for faster processing, as described by the 20m, 200m, and 500m resolution options.
• Integrate county boundaries with other geospatial datasets for regional planning or demographic studies.
• Visualize the extent of county jurisdictions, including offshore islands as mentioned in the 'extent of the realm' boundary description.

Strengths

• Provides boundaries as of a specific date: 31 December 2016.
• Offers five distinct boundary versions, including file size details such as a 73 KB ultra-generalized version.
• Contains intellectual property from two authoritative sources: 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.
• Data is from 2016; administrative boundaries may have changed since the snapshot date.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics (UK)

Collection Method

Likely digitized and maintained by national mapping and statistical agencies.

Time Range

Snapshot as of 31 December 2016.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:32:48.053925; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Counties in England.