England County Boundaries at December 2016 in Five Generalization Levels

Ultra generalised (500m) clipped boundaries for English counties as of 31 December 2016. The dataset contains five versions of vector boundaries, from full resolution to ultra generalised, with file sizes ranging from 73 KB to 10 MB. It is provided by the UK Office for National Statistics and contains Ordnance Survey and ONS intellectual property.

Use Cases

• Create thematic maps of England based on county-level administrative units.
• Perform spatial joins with other UK datasets using the provided coastline-clipped boundaries.
• Optimize web map performance by selecting an appropriate generalization level (e.g., 20m, 200m, or 500m).

Strengths

• Provides five distinct boundary versions with specific tolerances (20m, 200m, 500m) for different use cases.
• File sizes are explicitly listed, with the ultra generalised version being 73 KB for efficient use.
• Boundaries are temporally specific, representing the administrative state as of 31 December 2016.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Freshness should be verified as the data snapshot is from 2016, though metadata was updated in 2026.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics (UK), containing Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

Collection Method

Digital vector boundaries derived from official administrative sources.

Time Range

2016-12-31

Freshness

Data snapshot is from 2016-12-31; platform metadata last updated 2026-07 08.

Geography

Counties in England, clipped to the Mean High Water mark coastline.