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 and generalised versions clipped to the coastline, with file sizes ranging from 150 KB to 29 MB. It contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

Use Cases

• Create national-level maps of Great Britain based on super generalised (200m) boundaries for web visualization.
• Perform spatial analysis on country-level administrative units using full resolution boundaries.
• Integrate administrative boundaries into a larger geospatial dataset for regional planning based on the December 2016 snapshot.

Strengths

• Provides five distinct boundary resolutions, from full (24-29 MB) to ultra generalised (150 KB), catering to different use cases.
• Contains specific file size information for each boundary version, aiding in download planning.
• Includes direct REST service URLs for programmatic access and download.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last updated 2026-07-08 13:33:23.827150; freshness should be verified as the data itself is from 2016.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics and Ordnance Survey.

Collection Method

Likely digitized from official administrative records.

Time Range

December 2016

Freshness

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

Geography

Great Britain