NUTS Level 3 Boundaries for England and Wales, January 2015

Office for National Statistics provides digital vector boundaries for Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics level 3 (NUTS3) areas in England and Wales as of 1st January 2015. The dataset includes five versions of the boundaries at different resolutions and clipping extents, with file sizes ranging from 138 KB to 23 MB. It contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

Use Cases

• Create regional choropleth maps based on the provided generalised (20m) clipped boundaries.
• Perform spatial joins for statistical analysis using the full-resolution extent-of-the-realm boundaries.
• Develop lightweight web mapping applications using the ultra generalised (500m) boundary files.
• Conform to INSPIRE data standards for geographic information using the linked ArcGIS services.

Strengths

• Provides five distinct boundary versions for different use cases, from full resolution to ultra generalised (500m).
• Specific file sizes are listed for each version, with the smallest being 138 KB.
• Boundaries are temporally fixed to a specific reference date (1st January 2015).
• Includes direct REST API URLs for an ArcGIS Feature Service and INSPIRE-compliant download services.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is specific to England and Wales only and reflects a snapshot from 2015, which may limit current analyses.
• Row count and total dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Office for National Statistics

Collection Method

Likely derived from Ordnance Survey base mapping and official statistical geography definitions.

Time Range

Snapshot as of 1st January 2015.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:33:16.686948; freshness should be verified as the underlying data is from 2015.

Geography

England and Wales, at the NUTS Level 3 statistical region scale.