MiniScale is a free digital map of Great Britain in a single data file that clearly shows towns and cities, motorways, major roads, railways and airports.

Benefits and key features

Show customers your locations around the country on maps in printed brochures and your website. Print an annotated wall map for the office wall to show your sales territories. Avoid endless panning in GIS software by zooming out from detail to MiniScale's quick-loading national overview, choosing your next city to focus on and zooming in again to street level.

🇬🇧 영국 English 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.

Towns and Cities boundaries built from Built-up Areas.

London was by far the largest urban agglomeration in the United Kingdom in 2025, with an estimated population of *** 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 Istanbul having a population of around **** million and the Russian capital Moscow having a population of over **** 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 **** million people. Paris was followed by London in terms of population size, and then by the Spanish cities of Madrid and Barcelona, at *** million and *** million people, respectively. The Italian capital, Rome, was the next largest city at *** million, followed by Berlin at *** million. London’s population growth Throughout the 1980s, the population of London fluctuated from a high of **** million people in 1981 to a low of **** million inhabitants in 1988. During the 1990s, the population of London increased once again, growing from ****million at the start of the decade to **** million by 1999. London's population has continued to grow since the turn of the century, and despite declining between 2019 and 2021, it reached *** million people in 2023 and is forecast to reach almost *** million by 2047.

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

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for the Major Towns and Cities in England and Wales, as at December 2015. Version 2 includes centroid data in the attributes table.The boundaries available are: (BGG) Generalised Grid (50m) - 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/Major_Towns_and_Cities_(Dec_2015)_Boundaries_V2/MapServerREST URL of ArcGIS for INSPIRE Feature DownloadService – https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Major_Towns_and_Cities_Dec_2015_Boundaries_V2/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Major_Towns_and_Cities_Dec_2015_Boundaries_V2_2022/FeatureServer

INDEX VILLARIS: or, An Alphabetical Table of all the cities, market-towns, parishes, villages, and private seats in England and Wales was first published by John Adams in 1680. This dataset consists of a transcription of all 24,000 place-names listed in Index Villaris, together with the the symbols representing Adams's categorisation of each place and modern versions of the place-names and the counties and administrative hundred in which they lie or lay. It also comprises a transcription of the latitude and longitude recorded by Adams, and another set of coordinates generated by the application of a thin plate spline transformation calculated by matching some 2,000 place-names to the accurately-georeferenced CAMPOP Towns dataset.

The dataset is being checked, corrected, and refined to include linkage to other geospatial references such as OpenStreetMap and Wikidata, and will in due course be made available in the Linked Places Format.

1:1,000,000 raster map of Northern Ireland with place names. A raster map is a static image displayed on screen which is suitable as background mapping. 1:1 000,000 Raster is smallest scale OSNI raster product giving an excellent overview of Northern Ireland. Published here for OpenData. By download or use of this dataset you agree to abide by the Open Government Data Licence.Please Note for Open Data NI Users: Esri Rest API is not Broken, it will not open on its own in a Web Browser but can be copied and used in Desktop and Webmaps

The Monmouth Rebellion of 1685 prompted the government in London to undertake a survey the following year to establish the number of guest beds and quantity of stabling available across England and Wales for billeting soldiers. This dataset represents an attempt to identify and geolocate all of the place-names noted in that survey.

Transcription was undertaken for CAMPOP by Jacob Field, with funding provided by Leigh Shaw-Taylor and Dan Bogart. Stephen Gadd is responsible for place-name identification and geolocation, matching place-names as far as possible to the Index Villaris, 1680 dataset, GB1900 labels, and OpenStreetMap nodes.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS PRE-RELEASE DOES NOT CONTAIN ANY DATA

Urban population (% of total population) in United Kingdom was reported at 84.88 % in 2024, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. United Kingdom - Urban population (% of total) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on July of 2025.

A PDF map that shows the local authority districts, counties and unitary authorities in the United Kingdom as at April 2023. The map has been created to show the United Kingdom from country level down to local authority district level. (File Size - 1,909 KB)

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.

This is a restricted dataset and this download is available to NIMA users only.

OSNI 250k contains a tabulated list of 330 main cities, towns and villages of Northern Ireland appearing on the 1:250,000 map. Irish grid references are incorporated in the table to allow the spatial location of the settlements to be plotted. The data has been captured by extracting all textual levels for the main cities, towns and villages of Northern Ireland appearing on the 1:250,000 map. OSNI 50k Gazetteer contains a list of all main text appearing on OSNI 1:50 000 scale Discoverer Map Series. Includes names of cities, towns, villages, water features, mountains, hills and forests of Northern Ireland. Irish Grid references are incorporated.

Users outside of the Spatial NI Portal please use Resource Locator 2.

A tabulated list of 330 main cities, towns and villages of Northern Ireland appearing on the 1:250,000 map. Irish grid references are incorporated in the table to allow the spatial location of the settlements to be plotted.

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.

OSNI Street Maps show detailed information, including road names and one-way systems, railway lines, car parking, public buildings, churches and schools, for Northern Ireland’s main cities and towns.

This archive contains aerial photography of UK boroughs (towns/cities) and counties. The scale of the photographs depends to some extent on the borough/county, but is predominantly 1:5000 for towns/cities and 1:10000 for complete counties.

These vertical aerial photographs are taken with a large camera mounted in the floor of an aeroplane flying in a series of pre-planned flight lines. The images overlap by 60% along the flight line to allow for stereoscopic (3D) viewing. There is a 25% overlap between flight lines.

In addition to their prime application in photogrammetric mapping (from updating and contouring existing maps to preparing large scale engineering plans), air photos are used for environmental studies, general planning, land use and land capability, soils, pollution, forestry, mining and quarrying, housing and leisure development, agriculture, geology, water, transport and civil engineering, boundary disputes, public enquiries, etc.

The data is stored mainly as colour photographic negatives and can be supplied as both digital and photographic products (positive or negative). To find out what imagery is available for a specific area, a cover search can be performed free of charge. Price lists and further information about cover searches are available, on request, from the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC).

Note: All photography is flown to RICS Specification for Aerial Photography Issue III, see references.

A list of all main text appearing on OSNI 1:50 000 scale Discoverer Map Series. Includes names of cities, towns, villages, water features, mountains, hills and forests of Northern Ireland. Irish Grid references are incorporated.

Survey name: Mogerhanger A1(M) Improvements (Map 4) Post 1988 Agricultural Land Classification (ALC) site survey data – scanned original paper maps and survey reports for individual sites surveyed in detail between 1989 and 1999 by the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food. Where Grade 3 is mapped this includes the subdivision of Grade 3 into subgrades 3a and 3b. Surveys use the current grading methodology as described in "Agricultural Land Classification of England and Wales," a link for which is provided with the data. Individual sites have been mapped at varying scales and level of detail from 1:5,000 to 1:50,000 (typically 1:10,000). Unedited sample point soils data and soil pit descriptions are also available for some surveys. Attribution statement: © Natural England copyright. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right [year]. Attribution statement: Attribution statement: © Natural England copyright. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right [year].

Keywords: Cities, Towns, Rivers, Buildings The most detailed street-level open data vector mapping product available, OS Open Map â Local is a great backdrop over which to display and analyse your data.