OSNI Open Data: Northern Ireland Electoral Ward Boundaries from 1993

OSNI Open Data provides a polygon dataset of Standard Electoral Wards set in 1993 for Northern Ireland. The data was extracted from the OSNI Largescale database, topologically cleansed, and attributed to create a seamless dataset. The Government Digital Service publishes this service under the Open Government Licence.

Use Cases

• Mapping historical electoral districts based on the 1993 ward boundaries.
• Conducting spatial analysis of demographic or socio-economic data aggregated to the 1993 ward level.
• Creating historical basemaps for regional planning or policy research.
• Validating or comparing changes in administrative boundaries over time.

Strengths

• Data has been topologically cleansed to create a seamless polygon dataset.
• Derived from the authoritative OSNI Largescale database.
• Available in multiple geospatial formats including ESRI SHAPE, GEOJSON, and KML.

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.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland (OSNI) Largescale database.

Collection Method

Extracted, topologically cleansed, and attributed from the source database.

Time Range

1993

Freshness

The dataset represents a historical snapshot from 1993; its currency for contemporary applications is limited.

Geography

Northern Ireland