In 2023, almost nine million people lived in Greater London, making it the most populated ceremonial county in England. The West Midlands Metropolitan County, which contains the large city of Birmingham, was the second-largest county at 2.98 million inhabitants, followed by Greater Manchester and then West Yorkshire with populations of 2.95 million and 2.4 million, respectively. Kent, Essex, and Hampshire were the three next-largest counties in terms of population, each with around 1.89 million people. A patchwork of regions England is just one of the four countries that compose the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with England, Scotland and Wales making up Great Britain. England is therefore not to be confused with Great Britain or the United Kingdom as a whole. Within England, the next subdivisions are the nine regions of England, containing various smaller units such as unitary authorities, metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan districts. The counties in this statistic, however, are based on the ceremonial counties of England as defined by the Lieutenancies Act of 1997. Regions of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland Like England, the other countries of the United Kingdom have their own regional subdivisions, although with some different terminology. Scotland’s subdivisions are council areas, while Wales has unitary authorities, and Northern Ireland has local government districts. As of 2022, the most-populated Scottish council area was Glasgow City, with over 622,000 inhabitants. In Wales, Cardiff had the largest population among its unitary authorities, and in Northern Ireland, Belfast was the local government area with the most people living there.

The current counties of England are defined by the ceremonial counties, a collective name for the county areas to which are appointed a Lord Lieutenant. The office of Lord Lieutenant was created in the reign of Henry VIII. The Lord Lieutenant is the chief officer of the county and representative of the Crown. Whenever the Queen visits an area she will be accompanied by the Lord Lieutenant of that area. Legally the ceremonial counties are defined by the Lieutenancies Act 1997 as ‘Counties and areas for the purposes of the lieutenancies in Great Britain’ with reference to the areas used for local government.

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https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/products/boundary-line#technical

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Source:

https://osdatahub.os.uk/downloads/open/BoundaryLine

Licence:

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

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Counties were formerly administrative units across the whole of the UK. Due to various administrative restructurings, however, the only administrative areas still referred to as 'counties' are the Non-Metropolitan Districts of England. The English Metropolitan Districts, although no longer administrative units, are also used for statistical purposes.

The Counties area list contains 35 areas of the following constituent English geographies:

• 27 Shire counties
• 6 Metropolitan counties
• Inner London and Outer London

Please visit ONS Beginner's Guide to UK Geography for more info.

The boundaries are available as either extent of the realm (usually this is the Mean Low Water mark but in some cases boundaries extend beyond this to include off shore islands) or

clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).

How would you define the boundaries of a town or city in England and Wales in 2016?

Maybe your definition would be based on its population size, geographic extent or where the industry and services are located. This was a question the ONS had to consider when creating a new statistical geography called Towns and Cities.

In reality, the ability to delimit the boundaries of a city or town is difficult!

Major Towns and Cities

The new statistical geography, Towns and Cities has been created based on population size and the extent of the built environment. It contains 112 towns and cities in England and Wales, where the residential and/or workday population > 75,000 people at the 2011 Census. It has been constructed using the existing Built-Up Area boundary set produced by Ordnance Survey in 2011.

This swipe map shows where the towns and cities and built-up areas are different. Just swipe the bar from left to right.

The blue polygons are the towns and cities and the purple polygons are the built-up areas.

The population of the United Kingdom in 2023 was estimated to be approximately 68.3 million in 2023, with almost 9.48 million people living in South East England. London had the next highest population, at over 8.9 million people, followed by the North West England at 7.6 million. With the UK's population generally concentrated in England, most English regions have larger populations than the constituent countries of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, which had populations of 5.5 million, 3.16 million, and 1.92 million respectively. English counties and cities The United Kingdom is a patchwork of various regional units, within England the largest of these are the regions shown here, which show how London, along with the rest of South East England had around 18 million people living there in this year. The next significant regional units in England are the 47 metropolitan and ceremonial counties. After London, the metropolitan counties of the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, and West Yorkshire were the biggest of these counties, due to covering the large urban areas of Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds respectively. Regional divisions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland The smaller countries that comprise the United Kingdom each have different local subdivisions. Within Scotland these are called council areas whereas in Wales the main regional units are called unitary authorities. Scotland's largest Council Area by population is that of Glasgow City at over 622,000, while in Wales, it was the Cardiff Unitary Authority at around 372,000. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, has eleven local government districts, the largest of which is Belfast with a population of around 348,000.

A PDF map that shows the local authority districts, counties and unitary authorities in the United Kingdom as at December 2018. The map has been created to show the United Kingdom from country level down to local authority district level. (File Size - 3,159 KB)

This file contains names and codes for Counties in England as at 31st December 2021. (File Size - 16 KB)Field Names - CTY21CD, CTY21NM, FIDField Types - Text, Text, NumberField Lengths - 9, 16FID = The FID, or Feature ID is created by the publication process when the names and codes / lookup products are published to the Open Geography portal. REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_Dec_2021_Names_and_Codes_in_England_2022/FeatureServer

Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates including measures of uncertainty of the number of households by household size, for England, Scotland and Wales, as well as the regions of England.

A PDF map that shows the counties in England and Wales as at 31 December 1961. (File Size - 2.6 MB)

This file contains names and codes for Counties in England as at 31st December 2016. (File Size - 16 KB)

This file contains names and codes for Counties in England as at 31st December 2020. (File Size - 16 KB)Field Names - CTY20CD, CTY20NM, FIDField Types - Text, Text, NumberField Lengths - 9, 16FID = The FID, or Feature ID is created by the publication process when the names and codes / lookup products are published to the Open Geography portal. REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_Dec_2020_Names_and_Codes_in_England_2022/FeatureServer

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Counties, in England, as at December 2024.

A lookup of county electoral divisions to counties in England as at 3rd May 2018. (File Size - 280 KB).

Field Names – CED18CD, CED18NM, CTY18CD, CTY18NM
Field Types – Text, Text, Text, Text
Field Lengths – 9, 55, 9, 16

National and subnational mid-year population estimates for the UK and its constituent countries by administrative area, age and sex (including components of population change, median age and population density).

London was by far the largest urban agglomeration in the United Kingdom in 2023, with an estimated population of 9.65 million people, more than three times as large as Manchester, the UK’s second-biggest urban agglomeration. The agglomerations of Birmingham and Leeds / Bradford had the third and fourth-largest populations respectively, while the biggest city in Scotland, Glasgow, was the fifth largest. Largest cities in Europe Two cities in Europe had larger urban areas than London, with the Russian capital Moscow having a population of almost 12.7 million. The city of Paris, located just over 200 miles away from London, was the second-largest city in Europe, with a population of more than 11.2 million people. Paris was followed by London in terms of population-size, and then by the Spanish cities of Madrid and Barcelona, at 6.75 million and 5.68 million people respectively. Russia's second-biggest city; St. Petersburg had a population of 5.56 million, followed by Rome at 4.3 million, and Berlin at 3.5 million. London’s population growth Throughout the 1980s, the population of London fluctuated from a high of 6.81 million people in 1981 to a low of 6.73 million inhabitants in 1988. During the 1990s, the population of London increased once again, growing from 6.8 million at the start of the decade to 7.15 million by 1999. London's population has continued to grow since the turn of the century, reaching a peak of 8.96 million people in 2019, and is forecast to reach 9.8 million by 2043.

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Counties, in England, as at December 2023.

This dataset is part of the Geographical repository maintained by Opendatasoft. This dataset contains data for counties and unitary authorities in the United Kingdom.In 1974 a two-tier administrative structure of (shire and metropolitan) counties and non-metropolitan districts was set up across England and Wales, except for the Isles of Scilly and Greater London. Council functions were divided according to the level at which they could be practised most efficiently. As a consequence, counties took on functions including education, transport, strategic planning, fire services, consumer protection, refuse disposal, smallholdings, social services and libraries, whereas each LAD had responsibility for local planning, housing, local highways, building, environmental health, refuse collection and cemeteries. Responsibility for recreation and cultural matters was divided between the two tiers. Following the Local Government Reorganisation in the 1990s, major changes were implemented to create administrations most appropriate to the needs of the area concerned. The key feature of this change was the introduction of unitary authorities: single-tier administrations with responsibility for all areas of local government. Between 1995 and 1998 these were established in a number of areas across the country, especially in medium-sized urban areas, whilst other areas retained a two-tier structure. Further local government reorganisation occurred in 2009 and there are currently 57 unitary authorities (UA) in England, and 25 shire counties split into 188 (non-metropolitan) districts. Note that due to the changes in Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly are considered a UA for coding purposes.Processors and tools are using this data.EnhancementsAdd ISO 3166-3 codes.Simplify geometries to provide better performance across the services.Add administrative hierarchy.

This file contains names and codes for Counties in England as at 31st December 2018. (File Size - 16 KB)Field Names - CTY18CD, CTY18NMField Types - text, textField Lengths - 9, 16REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_Dec_2018_Names_and_Codes_in_England_2022/FeatureServer

The gross domestic product of London was approximately 508 billion British pounds in 2022, far bigger than any other major metropolitan area of the United Kingdom in that year. The metropolitan area with the second-largest GDP was Greater Manchester, at around 90.8 billion British pounds,

This file contains the names and codes for counties in England and Wales as at Census day 1991 (21 April). (File Size 2KB).Field Names – CTY91CDC, CTY91CDO, CTY91CD, CTY91NM Field Types – Text, Text, Text, Text Field Lengths – 2, 2, 2, 28 REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_21_April_1991_Names_and_Codes_in_England_and_Wales_2022/FeatureServer