Great Britain Country Boundaries at December 2015 with Multiple Resolutions

Great Britain country boundaries as of 31 December 2015, provided by the Office for National Statistics. The dataset contains digital vector boundaries in five resolutions, from full resolution (24-29 MB) to ultra generalised (168 KB). It includes Ordnance Survey and ONS intellectual property and is available via multiple ArcGIS REST services.

Use Cases

• Create thematic maps based on country-level administrative units in Great Britain.
• Perform spatial analysis at a national scale using the super generalised (200m) boundaries for faster processing.
• Integrate country boundaries into web mapping applications using the provided GeoJSON or KML formats.
• Conduct historical or comparative analysis using the specific snapshot date of December 2015.

Strengths

• Provides five specific boundary resolutions with stated file sizes (e.g., 533 KB for super generalised).
• Contains a specific temporal snapshot for boundaries (as at 31 December 2015).
• Includes intellectual property from two authoritative sources: Ordnance Survey and ONS.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Freshness should be verified as the data represents a 2015 snapshot, despite a 2026 metadata update.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Collection Method

Digital vector boundaries derived from Ordnance Survey data.

Time Range

Snapshot as of 31 December 2015.

Freshness

Data represents a 2015 snapshot; metadata last updated 2026-07-08.

Geography

Great Britain