Galloway Dark Sky Park: Geospatial and Management Boundaries

November 2009 saw the International Dark-sky Association designate Galloway Forest Park as the world's fourth and the UK's first Dark Sky Park. The 300-square-mile park holds a Gold Tier designation for exceptionally dark night skies, a status maintained through light pollution controls by Forestry Commission Scotland. This dataset likely contains geospatial boundaries and management information for the protected area.

Use Cases

• Mapping protected area boundaries based on the park's 300 square mile extent.
• Analyzing land use and forest management practices for dark sky preservation.
• Planning astronomical observation sites using the Gold Tier dark sky quality metric.
• Studying light pollution control policies in designated Dark Sky Parks.

Strengths

• Represents a globally significant site, being the fourth Dark Sky Park designated worldwide.
• Describes a specific, high-quality environmental attribute with a Gold Tier dark sky rating.
• Has a clear spatial scale, covering 300 square miles of forest and hills.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing or conflicting across sources, including column names, row counts, and license information.
• The dataset's structure and specific attributes are unknown, limiting immediate usability.
• Update timestamps are inconsistent, with one source showing a future date (2026-07-08).

Provenance

Source

Scottish Government SpatialData.gov.scot

Time Range

From November 2009 onward

Freshness

2026-07-08 13:31:44.497198

Geography

Galloway Forest Park, Scotland, United Kingdom