England County Boundaries at Five Resolutions, December 2016

Ultra generalised (500m) vector boundaries for English counties are available alongside four other resolution options. This dataset contains Ordnance Survey and Office for National Statistics intellectual property rights and is current as of 31 December 2016. Multiple download formats and resolutions are provided, with file sizes ranging from 73 KB to 10 MB.

Use Cases

• Create small-scale thematic maps based on ultra generalised (500m) boundaries.
• Perform spatial analysis using coastline-clipped boundaries referenced to Mean High Water mark.
• Develop web mapping applications with lightweight, super generalised (200m) boundary files.
• Integrate county boundaries into geographic information systems using the provided ArcGIS REST services.

Strengths

• Offers five distinct boundary resolutions, from full realm extent to ultra generalised (500m).
• File sizes are explicitly listed, with the ultra generalised version being only 73 KB.
• Boundaries are clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark) for four of the five versions.
• Contains intellectual property from both 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, being specific to England only.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Time Range

As at 31 December 2016

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:33:27.093967; freshness should be verified.

Geography

England