Local Administrative Units Level 2 Boundaries for England and Wales, December 2015

Office for National Statistics provides digital vector boundaries for local administrative units (LAU2) in England and Wales as of December 2015. The dataset includes four boundary versions: full resolution (extent of the realm and coastline-clipped), generalised (20m), and super generalised (200m). It contains Ordnance Survey and ONS intellectual property rights and is available via multiple ArcGIS REST services.

Use Cases

• Map local administrative units based on the provided full-resolution vector boundaries.
• Perform spatial analysis using the coastline-clipped boundary versions for land-based studies.
• Create simplified visualizations using the 20m or 200m generalised boundary files.
• Integrate administrative boundaries with other statistical data for England and Wales.

Strengths

• Provides four distinct boundary versions with specific resolutions: full, 20m generalised, and 200m super generalised.
• Includes specific file sizes for each version, such as 95 MB for the full resolution extent of the realm.
• Contains intellectual property rights from two authoritative sources: Ordnance Survey and ONS.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is specific to December 2015; freshness should be verified for current applications.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Time Range

December 2015

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:33:10.576351; the underlying data snapshot is from December 2015.

Geography

England and Wales