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).

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 counties and unitary authorities in the United Kingdom as at 1 April 2023. (File Size - 583 KB)

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).

Counties were formerly administrative units across the whole UK. Due to various administrative restructurings however, the only administrative areas still referred to as counties are the nonmetropolitan (shire) counties of England. The English metropolitan counties, although no longer administrative units, are also used for statistical purposes.

​

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

​

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/

The China Post provides postal service-related information, primarily offering Excel files for counties and towns in Chinese and English (Hanyu Pinyin, csv format).

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.

As of 2023, the population density in London was by far the highest number of people per square km in the UK, at *****. Of the other regions and countries which constitute the United Kingdom, North West England was the next most densely populated area at *** people per square kilometer. Scotland, by contrast, is the most sparsely populated country or region in the United Kingdom, with only ** people per square kilometer. Countries, regions, and cities According to the official mid-year population estimate, the population of the United Kingdom was just almost **** million in 2022. Most of the population lived in England, where an estimated **** million people resided, followed by Scotland at **** million, Wales at **** million and finally Northern Ireland at just over *** million. Within England, the South East was the region with the highest population at almost **** million, followed by the London region at around *** million. In terms of urban areas, Greater London is the largest city in the United Kingdom, followed by Greater Manchester and Birmingham in the North West and West Midlands regions of England. London calling London's huge size in relation to other UK cities is also reflected by its economic performance. In 2021, London's GDP was approximately *** billion British pounds, almost a quarter of UK GDP overall. In terms of GDP per capita, Londoners had a GDP per head of ****** pounds, compared with an average of ****** for the country as a whole. Productivity, expressed as by output per hour worked, was also far higher in London than the rest of the country. In 2021, London was around **** percent more productive than the rest of the country, with South East England the only other region where productivity was higher than the national average.

1) County, Unitary Authority Area, Metropolitan and District ploygons from OS Opendata 2) merged into Counties and Districts polygons 3) in order to merge UK data keyed by County. OS_Counties_meta.pdf contains Ordnance Survey Data (c) Crown copyright and database right 2010. This dataset was first accessioned in the EDINA ShareGeo Open repository on 2013-04-01 and migrated to Edinburgh DataShare on 2017-02-22.

(File Size - 5 KB). The 2011 rural-urban classification (RUC) of counties in England is based on the 2011 RUC of Output Areas (OA) published in August 2013, and allows users to create a rural/urban view of county level products. The classification was produced by the University of Sheffield and was sponsored by a cross-Government working group comprising Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Department of the Communities and Local Government and Office for National Statistics.

Rankings of the percentage of workless households for upper tier local authorities in Great Britain, annual.

This dataset as reported to the Rural Payments Agency contains information on Cattle born in or imported into Great Britain. Attribution statement:

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Counties and Unitary Authorities in the United Kingdom, as at December 2019. The boundaries available are: (BUC) Ultra Generalised (500m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark). Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights. Download File SizesUltra Generalised (500m) - clipped to the coastline (200 KB)Units for the following fields:St_length = metresSt_area = metres2REST URL of ArcGIS for INSPIRE View Service https://ons-inspire.esriuk.com/arcgis/rest/services/Administrative_Boundaries/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2019_Boundaries_UK_BUC2/MapServer/exts/InspireView REST URL of ArcGIS for INSPIRE Feature Download Service https://ons-inspire.esriuk.com/arcgis/rest/services/Administrative_Boundaries/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2019_Boundaries_UK_BUC2/MapServer/exts/InspireFeatureDownload REST URL of Feature Access Service https://ons-inspire.esriuk.com/arcgis/rest/services/Administrative_Boundaries/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2019_Boundaries_UK_BUC2/FeatureServer

The median age of the population in London was 35.9 years in 2023, the lowest median age among regions of the United Kingdom. By contrast, South West England had a median age of 43.9, the highest in the UK.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

To collect social, demographic, electoral and linguistic data for each of 118 British and Irish counties in the period 1851 - 1966, in order to study national development in the UK and Ireland.
Main Topics:

Variables
County. Population: growth, proportion aged 65 and over, sex ratio, density, marriage rate, per capita income, proportion in agriculture/manufacturing/middle class/civil service, proportion who were female domestics. Proportion urban, city size, index of ethnic diversity*, vote residual and income residual. Proportion voting Conservative, Labour, Liberal, Nationalist Party. Proportion Celtic speakers. Religiosity, literacy. Proportion of Church of England, non-conformists, Roman Catholics. Proportion English born, Welsh born, Scottish, Irish and French. Voting turnout, birth rate, infant mortality rate.
*See Hechter (AJS 79 2 Sept 1973).

Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

A lookup table listing each local authority in England and Wales, the region it is located within, its local authority code and region code.