Local Administrative Unit Boundaries for England and Wales, December 2015

December 2015 digital vector boundaries for Local Administrative Units Level 1 (LAU1) in England and Wales. The dataset contains multiple boundary versions, including full-resolution extents and coastline-clipped versions at 20m, 200m, and 500m generalisation levels. It is provided by the Office for National Statistics and contains Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

Use Cases

• Map local administrative unit extents based on the full-resolution boundaries.
• Perform spatial analysis using coastline-clipped boundaries for land-based studies.
• Create simplified visualizations using the 20m, 200m, or 500m generalised boundaries.
• Integrate administrative boundaries with other geospatial data based on the December 2015 snapshot.

Strengths

• Provides five distinct boundary versions, including full-resolution and four generalised/clipped options.
• File sizes are specified, ranging from 225 KB for ultra generalised to 30 MB for full-resolution clipped.
• Contains boundaries as of a specific date (December 2015), providing a consistent temporal snapshot.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is from December 2015; freshness should be verified for current applications.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Time Range

December 2015

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:31:22.040398; freshness should be verified

Geography

England and Wales