Local Administrative Units Level 1 Boundaries for England and Wales, December 2015

England and Wales digital vector boundaries for local administrative units (LAU1) as of December 2015. The dataset contains five boundary versions at different resolutions, from full to ultra-generalized, and includes Ordnance Survey and ONS intellectual property. It was last updated on the platform on 2026-07-08.

Use Cases

• Create thematic maps based on the generalised (20m) or super generalised (200m) boundaries for web visualization.
• Perform spatial joins and analysis using the full-resolution boundaries clipped to the coastline.
• Integrate administrative unit geometries into location-based services or demographic studies.
• Compare boundary extents using the full-resolution 'extent of the realm' version versus the coastline-clipped versions.

Strengths

• Provides five distinct boundary versions with specific resolutions (20m, 200m, 500m) and file sizes (from 225 KB to 30 MB).
• Contains boundaries for a specific, documented snapshot in time (December 2015).
• Includes intellectual property rights information from both Ordnance Survey and the Office for National Statistics.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Collection Method

Digital vector boundaries produced for Eurostat reporting.

Time Range

December 2015

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:32:41.429266; freshness should be verified

Geography

England and Wales