Parish and Community Names and Codes for England and Wales, December 2020

December 2020 names and codes for parishes and communities in England and Wales, published by the Government Digital Service. The file includes updates to 6 parishes and an unparished area in Leeds following a late 2018 order. It contains fields for parish codes, names, and corresponding local authority district codes and names.

Use Cases

• Link demographic or economic data to parish-level geography based on the provided parish codes (PAR20CD).
• Create maps or visualizations of parish boundaries in England and Wales based on the named geographic entities.
• Validate or standardize location data against official parish names (PAR20NM, PAR20NMW).
• Analyze changes in local government structure by comparing codes with other time periods.

Strengths

• Includes updates to 6 parishes and an unparished area in Leeds, reflecting late 2018 legislative changes.
• Provides a direct link from parishes to their parent local authority districts via LAD20CD and LAD20NM fields.
• Field lengths are specified (e.g., PAR20NM up to 66 characters), suggesting structured data constraints.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale joins.
• Last updated 2022-10-24 10:32:32.523000; freshness should be verified for current applications.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service, likely via the UK's Open Geography portal.

Collection Method

Official administrative register, published as a lookup product.

Time Range

Snapshot as of 31 December 2020.

Freshness

Snapshot as of 31 December 2020; metadata last updated 24 October 2022.

Geography

England and Wales.