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

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).

Polygon dataset showing each current English County as definied by the Lord Lieutenancies Act 1997. Boundaries are mostly based on OS Boundaryline. This data is released under Ordnance Survey Open Data Licence http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/licensing/using-creating-data-with-os-products/os-opendata.html

The Vice County system for Great Britain was devised by an English botanist, Hewett Cottrell Watson, for the purposes of illustrating plant distributions These digitised boundaries are available free-of-charge as a download to recorders, mapping scheme organisers, local record centres and others. This download will contain 3 datasets, an outline of GB, a zip containing individual Vice Counties and a zip containing all Vice Counties as 1 shapefile. 3 and 12 mile offshore limits are included in each zip. Data sourced from http://www.nbn.org.uk/SpecialPages/WVCB-Download.aspx and released under an Open Government Licence. GIS vector data. This dataset was first accessioned in the EDINA ShareGeo Open repository on 2013-10-31 and migrated to Edinburgh DataShare on 2017-02-22.

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Counties and Unitary Authorities, in the United Kingdom, as at December 2024.The boundaries available are: (BGC) Generalised (20m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BGC/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BGC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BGC/MapServer

1:1,000,000 raster map series showing the counties of Northern Ireland. This raster is the smallest scale OSNI raster product giving an overview of Northern Ireland.

The OSNI Large-scale boundaries is a polygon dataset consisting of County Boundaries.The data has been extracted from OSNI Largescale database and has been topologically cleansed and attributed to create a seamless dataset.This service is published for OpenData. By download or use of this dataset you agree to abide by the LPS Open Government Data Licence.

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for County and Unitary Authorities including Metropolitan Counties, in the United Kingdom, as at December 2022.The boundaries available are: (BGC) Generalised (20m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BGC/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_inc_Metropolitan_Counties_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BGC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_inc_Metropolitan_Counties_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BGC/MapServer

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.

The division into counties based on the model used in the English system, was introduced gradually by English settlers from the late 12th century onwards. These land divisions were formed following the Norman invasion of Ireland in imitation of the counties then in use as units of local government in the Kingdom of England. The older term "shire" was historically equivalent to "county". The principal function of the county was to impose royal control in the areas of taxation, security and the administration of justice at local level. Following a survey under the 1825 Boundary Survey Act, an extensive series of maps of Ireland was created by the Irish division of the Tailte Éireann for taxation purposes. These maps both documented and standardised the boundaries of the thirty two counties of Ireland.Coordinate Reference System: Irish Transverse Mercator.This dataset is provided by Tailte Éireann

Data identifying Cambridgeshire's county boundary. For more information, please see the ONS Geoportal website. If data is used, please acknowledge the copyright and the source of the data by including the following attribution statements: Contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right (2016) Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right (2016) For more details about licencing go to: https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/licences Source: ONS Geoportal All data is correct as of download date: 17/10/2016

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for the historical administrative counties with county boroughs in England and Wales as at Census Day 1921.The boundaries available are: (BGC) Generalised resolution - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of WFS Server – https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/ADCTYCB_JUN_1921_EW_BGC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilities

REST URL of Map Server – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/ADCTYCB_JUN_1921_EW_BGC/MapServer

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/ADCTYCB_JUN_1921_EW_BGC/FeatureServer

Polygon dataset showing the 6 counties of Northern Ireland e.g. County Armagh, County Tyrone etc which were the primary local government geography of Northern Ireland before the introduction of unitary authorities in 1972. A PNG map showing the Northern Ireland county boundaries was downloaded from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Northern_Ireland_-_Counties.png The PNG was georeferenced in QGIS using control points with reference to an OGL dataset downloaded from the UK Data Service showing the Northern Ireland coastline. Internal county boundaries were digitised from the georeferenced PNG as a set of polylines. These polylines were then snapped to the coastline features and polygons were generated. A county name was then assigned to each polygon in the attribute table. GIS vector data. This dataset was first accessioned in the EDINA ShareGeo Open repository on 2014-02-24 and migrated to Edinburgh DataShare on 2017-02-22.

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Metropolitan Counties in England as at December 2018. The BUC boundaries are ultra generalised (500m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark). Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.REST URL of ArcGIS for INSPIRE View Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/MCTY_(Dec_2018)_UGCB_in_England/MapServerREST URL of ArcGIS for INSPIRE Feature DownloadService – https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/MCTY_Dec_2018_Ultra_Generalised_Clipped_Boundaries_in_England/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/MCTY_Dec_2018_UGCB_in_England_2022/FeatureServer

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Counties in England, as at Census 1961. The boundaries available are: (BFC) Full resolution - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).These boundaries have released alongside our 1961 Census Small Area Statistics which are being treated as a beta product in order that we can obtain feedback from users on all aspects of the data, including the boundary work, as this is the first historic Census digitisation product that we’ve released.Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights. These boundaries were created by Justin Hayes' team at Salford University.REST URL of ArcGIS for INSPIRE View Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_(Dec_1961)_in_England_and_Wales_BFC_Boundaries/MapServerREST URL of ArcGIS for INSPIRE Feature DownloadService – https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Counties_Dec_1961_in_England_and_Wales_BFC_Boundaries/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_Dec_1961_in_England_and_Wales_BFC_Boundaries_2022/FeatureServer

Data identifying Cambridgeshire's county boundary and Peterborough's Unitary Authority boundary. For more information, please see the ONS Geoportal website. If data is used, please acknowledge the copyright and the source of the data by including the following attribution statements: Contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right (2016) Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right (2016) For more details about licencing go to: https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/licences Source: ONS Geoportal All data is correct as of download date: 17/10/2016

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for County and Unitary Authorities including Metropolitan Counties, in the United Kingdom, as at December 2022.The boundaries available are: (BFE) Full resolution - 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).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BFE/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_inc_Metropolitan_Counties_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BFE/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_inc_Metropolitan_Counties_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BFE/MapServer

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for County Electoral Division, in England, as at May 2025.The boundaries available are: (BFE) Full resolution - 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). Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights. REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/CED_MAY_2025_EN_BFE/FeatureServer REST URL of WFS Server – https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/CED_MAY_2025_EN_BFE/WFSServer?request=getcapabilities&service=wfs REST URL of MapServer – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/County_Electoral_Division_(May_2025)_Boundaries_EN_BFE/MapServer