Great Britain Country Boundaries with Multiple Resolutions, December 2015

Digital vector boundaries for countries in Great Britain as at 31 December 2015. The dataset contains five boundary versions, including full resolution and four generalized/clipped versions, with file sizes ranging from 168 KB to 29 MB. Contains both Ordnance Survey and Office for National Statistics Intellectual Property Rights.

Use Cases

• Create national-scale maps based on super generalised (200m) boundaries for faster rendering.
• Analyze coastal administrative extents based on boundaries clipped to the Mean High Water mark.
• Perform spatial joins with other UK datasets using the full-resolution extent of the realm boundaries.
• Develop web mapping services using the ultra generalised (500m) boundaries for low-bandwidth applications.

Strengths

• Offers five distinct boundary versions, from full resolution (24-29 MB) to ultra generalised (168 KB).
• Specifies a precise snapshot date of 31 December 2015 for all boundaries.
• Clarifies the coastline clipping standard as the Mean High Water mark for four of the five versions.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is from 2015; administrative boundaries may have changed since the snapshot date.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale analysis.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Collection Method

Likely digitized and generalized from official Ordnance Survey cartographic sources.

Time Range

Snapshot as of 31 December 2015.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:31:30.704814; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales).