Great Britain Country Boundaries at December 2016 with Multiple Resolutions

December 2016 digital vector boundaries for countries in Great Britain, provided by the Office for National Statistics. The dataset contains five boundary versions, including full-resolution extent and coastline-clipped versions at 20m, 200m, and 500m generalisation levels. It contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

Use Cases

• Create detailed national maps based on full-resolution boundaries extending to the Mean Low Water mark.
• Perform spatial analysis using coastline-clipped boundaries aligned to the Mean High Water mark.
• Develop web mapping applications using generalised (20m, 200m, 500m) boundaries for faster rendering.
• Integrate administrative boundaries into geographic information systems for regional planning or demographic studies.

Strengths

• Provides five distinct boundary versions, including full resolution and four generalised/clipped options.
• File sizes are specified, ranging from 150 KB for ultra generalised to 29 MB for full resolution clipped.
• Contains intellectual property from authoritative sources: Ordnance Survey and the Office for National Statistics.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last updated 2026-07-08 13:32:57.722442; freshness should be verified as the data reflects a 2016 snapshot.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to uk_data, focusing solely on Great Britain.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics (UK), Ordnance Survey

Collection Method

Likely digitized from official cartographic sources.

Time Range

December 2016

Freshness

Data reflects boundaries as of December 2016. Metadata was last updated on 2026-07-08.

Geography

Great Britain