Standard Area Measurements for Parishes and Non-Civil Parished Areas in England and Wales

December 2017, 2019, and 2020 releases provide standardized area calculations for administrative boundaries in England and Wales. The dataset contains four 'flat' area measurements per parish or non-civil parished area, given in hectares to two decimal places. These measurements support the Eurostat-recommended method for calculating population density and other geographic statistics.

Use Cases

• Calculating population density figures based on the Eurostat-recommended 'land area' measurement (AREALHECT).
• Comparing total geographic extent (AREAEHECT) across different parishes and non-civil parished areas.
• Analyzing the proportion of inland water (AREAIHECT) within administrative boundaries.
• Assessing coastal area (AREACHECT) for environmental or planning studies.

Strengths

• Provides measurements for multiple years (2017, 2019, 2020), enabling temporal analysis.
• Includes four distinct, standardized area calculations per geographic unit, offering methodological consistency.
• Measurements are provided to a precise resolution of two decimal places in hectares.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, specific column names, and license information are missing from all platform entries.
• The 'flat' measurement method does not account for terrain relief, which may limit accuracy for certain analyses.
• The dataset's availability across multiple platforms suggests it is important, but the lack of detailed schema documentation is a gap.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service

Collection Method

Official government calculation of administrative boundary areas.

Time Range

Snapshots as of 31 December for 2017, 2019, and 2020.

Freshness

The most recent dataset version referenced is for December 2020, with a platform update noted in 2025.

Geography

Parishes and Non-Civil Parished Areas in England and Wales.