The People and Nature Survey for England is one of the main sources of data and statistics on how people experience and think about the environment. It began collecting data in April 2020 and has been collecting data since.

The survey builds on the Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment (MENE) survey which ran from 2009 to 2019. Data from the People and Nature Survey for England enables users to:

• understand how people use, enjoy, and are motivated to protect the natural environment
• monitor changes in use of the natural environment over time, at a range of different spatial scales and for key groups within the population
• understand how being in the natural environment can influence wellbeing
• understand environmental attitudes and the actions people take at home, in the garden and in the wider community to protect the environment

This data contributes to Natural England’s delivery of statutory duties, informs Defra policy and natural capital accounting, and contributes to the outcome indicator framework for the 25 Year Environment Plan.

Different versions of the People and Nature Survey for England are available from the UK Data Archive under Open Access (SN 9092) conditions, End User Licence (SN 9093), and Secure Access (SN 9094).

The Secure Access version includes the same data as the End User Licence version, but includes more detailed variables including:

• age as a continuous variable
• sex
  
• whether gender is the same as at birth
• sexual orientation
• more detailed ethnicity
• where journey to recent visit to green and natural space started from
• visit date
• detailed home geography, including local authority districts, local nature recovery strategies areas, national character areas; urban/rural area, and Index of Multiple Deprivation
• a number of variables that have not been top-coded, including number of children and number of children in household, food and drink expenditure, and income

The Open Access version includes the same data as the End User Licence version, but does not include the following variables:

• age band
• gender identity
  
• marital status
• number of children living in household
• number of children
• work status
• student working status
• income
• qualification
• ethnicity and consent to answer ethnicity question
• number of vehicles
• presence of dog in household
• physical activity
• various health data

Researchers are advised to review the Open Access and/or the End User Licence versions to determine if these are adequate prior to ordering the Secure Access version.

Natural England's statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in January 2023. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics’.

Users are welcome to contact Natural England directly at people_and_nature@naturalengland.org.uk with any comments about how they meet these standards. Alternatively, users can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Since the latest review by the Office for Statistics Regulation, Natural England have continued to comply with the Code of Practice for Statistics, and have made the following improvements:

1. Published a development plan with timetables for future work, which will be updated annually
2. Ensured that users have opportunities to contribute to development planning through their biannual Research User Group
3. Enabled wider access to the data by publishing raw data sets through the UK Data Service
4. Provided users with guidance on how statistics from their products can be compared with those produced in the devolved nations
5. Published guidance on the differences between PaNS and MENE
6. Improved estimates of the percentage of people visiting nature in the previous 14 days by reducing the amount of respondents answering ‘don’t know’.

These data are available in Excel, SPSS, as well as Open Document Spreadsheet (ODS) formats.

Latest edition information

For the seventh edition (March 2025), data for April to June 2024 (Quarter 17) have been added.

There were over 4.7 million people aged between 30 and 34 in the United Kingdom in 2023, making it the most populous age group in that year. Those aged between 35 and 39 years comprised the next most numerous age group in 2023, at over 4.64 million people. Millennials overtake Boomers as biggest generation Post-war demographic trends, particularly the 'baby boom' phenomenon, have significantly influenced the current age distribution in the UK. The postwar peak of live births in 1947 resulted in the dominance of the Baby Boomer generation for several decades, until 2020 when Millennials became the largest generational cohort, surpassing the Boomers for the first time. The following year, the UK Boomer population was then overtaken by Generation X, the generation born between Boomers and Millennials. Generation Z, however, remains smaller than the three generations that preceded it, at 12.9 million individuals in 2022. Aging UK population poses challenges The median age of the UK population is projected to reach 44.5 years by 2050, compared to 34.9 years in 1950. This aging trend is indicative of broader global demographic shifts, with the median age of people worldwide forecasted to increase from 23.6 years in 1950 to 41.9 years by 2100. How countries like the UK manage their aging populations will be one of the key challenges of the next few decades. It is likely the UK's struggling National Health Service (NHS) will come under even more pressure in the coming years. There are also tough economic questions, in particular as more people enter retirement age and the UK's working population gets smaller in relation to it.

The Access Network Map of England is a national composite dataset of Access layers, showing analysis of extent of Access provision for each Lower Super Output Area (LSOA), as a percentage or area coverage of access in England. The ‘Access Network Map’ was developed by Natural England to inform its work to improve opportunities for people to enjoy the natural environment. This map shows, across England, the relative abundance of accessible land in relation to where people live. Due to issues explained below, the map does not, and cannot, provide a definitive statement of where intervention is necessary. Rather, it should be used to identify areas of interest which require further exploration. Natural England believes that places where people can enjoy the natural environment should be improved and created where they are most wanted. Access Network Maps help support this work by providing means to assess the amount of accessible land available in relation to where people live. They combine all the available good quality data on access provision into a single dataset and relate this to population. This provides a common foundation for regional and national teams to use when targeting resources to improve public access to greenspace, or projects that rely on this resource. The Access Network Maps are compiled from the datasets available to Natural England which contain robust, nationally consistent data on land and routes that are normally available to the public and are free of charge. Datasets contained in the aggregated data:•
Agri-environment scheme permissive access (routes and open access)•
CROW access land (including registered common land and Section 16)•
Country Parks•
Cycleways (Sustrans Routes) including Local/Regional/National and Link Routes•
Doorstep Greens•
Local Nature Reserves•
Millennium Greens•
National Nature Reserves (accessible sites only)•
National Trails•
Public Rights of Way•
Forestry Commission ‘Woods for People’ data•
Village Greens – point data only Due to the quantity and complexity of data used, it is not possible to display clearly on a single map the precise boundary of accessible land for all areas. We therefore selected a unit which would be clearly visible at a variety of scales and calculated the total area (in hectares) of accessible land in each. The units we selected are ‘Lower Super Output Areas’ (LSOAs), which represent where approximately 1,500 people live based on postcode. To calculate the total area of accessible land for each we gave the linear routes a notional width of 3 metres so they could be measured in hectares. We then combined together all the datasets and calculated the total hectares of accessible land in each LSOA. For further information about this data see the following links:Access Network Mapping GuidanceAccess Network Mapping Metadata Full metadata can be viewed on data.gov.uk.

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 Brain Health Data Pilot (BHDP) project aims to be a shared database (like a library) of information for scientists studying brain health, especially for diseases like dementia, which affects about 900,000 people in the UK. Its main feature is a huge collection of brain images linked to routinely collected health records, both from NHS Scotland, which will help scientists learn more about dementia and other brain diseases. What is special about this database is that it will get better over time – as scientists use it and add their discoveries, it becomes more valuable.

This is a subset of the General Acute Inpatient and Day Case - Scottish Morbidity Record (SMR01) dataset for use in the Brain Health Data Pilot (BHDP) project.

The dataset contains patient identifiers such as name, date of birth, Community Health Index number, NHS number, postcode and ethnicity and episode management data. Of particular interest to researchers would be variables such as where the episode took place, admission type (includes patient injury classifications such as self-inflicted or home accident), waiting times, patients condition (as classified under ICD-10), operations, and discharge location. A wide variety of geographical data is also included in the dataset including Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation and Carstairs measures, census output area, NHS Board, Electoral Ward and Parliamentary constituency.

Based on a comparison of coronavirus deaths in 210 countries relative to their population, Peru had the most losses to COVID-19 up until July 13, 2022. As of the same date, the virus had infected over 557.8 million people worldwide, and the number of deaths had totaled more than 6.3 million. Note, however, that COVID-19 test rates can vary per country. Additionally, big differences show up between countries when combining the number of deaths against confirmed COVID-19 cases. The source seemingly does not differentiate between "the Wuhan strain" (2019-nCOV) of COVID-19, "the Kent mutation" (B.1.1.7) that appeared in the UK in late 2020, the 2021 Delta variant (B.1.617.2) from India or the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) from South Africa.

The difficulties of death figures

This table aims to provide a complete picture on the topic, but it very much relies on data that has become more difficult to compare. As the coronavirus pandemic developed across the world, countries already used different methods to count fatalities, and they sometimes changed them during the course of the pandemic. On April 16, for example, the Chinese city of Wuhan added a 50 percent increase in their death figures to account for community deaths. These deaths occurred outside of hospitals and went unaccounted for so far. The state of New York did something similar two days before, revising their figures with 3,700 new deaths as they started to include “assumed” coronavirus victims. The United Kingdom started counting deaths in care homes and private households on April 29, adjusting their number with about 5,000 new deaths (which were corrected lowered again by the same amount on August 18). This makes an already difficult comparison even more difficult. Belgium, for example, counts suspected coronavirus deaths in their figures, whereas other countries have not done that (yet). This means two things. First, it could have a big impact on both current as well as future figures. On April 16 already, UK health experts stated that if their numbers were corrected for community deaths like in Wuhan, the UK number would change from 205 to “above 300”. This is exactly what happened two weeks later. Second, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly which countries already have “revised” numbers (like Belgium, Wuhan or New York) and which ones do not. One work-around could be to look at (freely accessible) timelines that track the reported daily increase of deaths in certain countries. Several of these are available on our platform, such as for Belgium, Italy and Sweden. A sudden large increase might be an indicator that the domestic sources changed their methodology.

Where are these numbers coming from?

The numbers shown here were collected by Johns Hopkins University, a source that manually checks the data with domestic health authorities. For the majority of countries, this is from national authorities. In some cases, like China, the United States, Canada or Australia, city reports or other various state authorities were consulted. In this statistic, these separately reported numbers were put together. For more information or other freely accessible content, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

As of February 2024, the Tesco Clubcard app had 16.3 million users, out of which 12.7 million resided in the United Kingdom (UK), 2.6 million in Central Europe, and one million in the Republic of Ireland. In the United Kingdom, 22 million households were active members of the loyalty program.

How much time do people spend on social media? As of 2024, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 143 minutes per day, down from 151 minutes in the previous year. Currently, the country with the most time spent on social media per day is Brazil, with online users spending an average of three hours and 49 minutes on social media each day. In comparison, the daily time spent with social media in the U.S. was just two hours and 16 minutes. Global social media usageCurrently, the global social network penetration rate is 62.3 percent. Northern Europe had an 81.7 percent social media penetration rate, topping the ranking of global social media usage by region. Eastern and Middle Africa closed the ranking with 10.1 and 9.6 percent usage reach, respectively. People access social media for a variety of reasons. Users like to find funny or entertaining content and enjoy sharing photos and videos with friends, but mainly use social media to stay in touch with current events friends. Global impact of social mediaSocial media has a wide-reaching and significant impact on not only online activities but also offline behavior and life in general. During a global online user survey in February 2019, a significant share of respondents stated that social media had increased their access to information, ease of communication, and freedom of expression. On the flip side, respondents also felt that social media had worsened their personal privacy, increased a polarization in politics and heightened everyday distractions.