Great Britain Country Boundaries at December 2016 with Multiple Resolutions

Digital vector boundaries for countries in Great Britain, as at December 2016. The dataset contains five boundary versions, including full resolution and generalised versions clipped to the coastline. It is provided by the Office for National Statistics and contains Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

Use Cases

• Create national-level maps of Great Britain based on the provided vector boundaries.
• Perform spatial analysis at different levels of detail using the full resolution and generalised boundary versions.
• Integrate administrative boundaries into GIS applications for regional planning based on the 2016 snapshot.
• Visualize country extents for data dashboards using the ultra generalised (500m) version for faster rendering.

Strengths

• Provides five distinct boundary versions, including full resolution and four generalised/clipped options.
• Specific file sizes are listed for each version, ranging from 150 KB to 29 MB.
• Contains intellectual property rights from both Ordnance Survey and the Office for National Statistics.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data reflects a specific snapshot from December 2016; freshness should be verified for current applications.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Collection Method

Likely digitized from official cartographic sources.

Time Range

December 2016

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:33:06.405268; the underlying data is from December 2016.

Geography

Great Britain