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

The 1885 UK parliamentary constituencies for Ireland were re-created in 2017 as part of a conference paper delivered at the Southern Irish Loyalism in Context conference at Maynooth University. The intial map only included the territory of the Irish Free State and was created by Martin Charlton and Jack Kavanagh. The remaining six counties of Ulster were completed by Eoin McLaughlin in 2018-19, the combined result is a GIS map of all the parliamentary constituecies across the island of Ireland for the period 1885-1918. The map is available in both ESRI Shapefile format and as a GeoPackage (GPKG). The methodology for creating the constituencies is outlined in detail below.

Methodology

A map showing the outlines of the 1855 – 1918 Constituency boundaries can be found on page 401 of Parliamentary Elections in Ireland, 1801-1922 (Dublin, 1978) by Brian Walker. This forms the basis for the creation of a set of digital boundaries which can then be used in a GIS. The general workflow involves allocating an 1885 Constituency identifier to each of the 309 Electoral Divisions present in the boundaries made available for the 2011 Census of Population data release by CSO. The ED boundaries are available in ‘shapefile’ format (a de facto standard for spatial data transfer). Once a Constituency identifier has been given to each ED, the GIS operation known as ‘dissolve’ is used to remove the boundaries between EDs in the same Constituency. To begin with Walker’s map was scanned at 1200 dots per inch in JPEG form. A scanned map cannot be linked to other spatial data without undergoing a process known as georeferencing. The CSO boundaries are available with spatial coordinates in the Irish National Grid system. The goal of georeferencing is to produce a rectified version of the map together with a world file. Rectification refers to the process of recomputing the pixel positions in the scanned map so that they are oriented with the ING coordinate system; the world file contains the extent in both the east-west and north-south directions of each pixel (in metres) and the coordinates of the most north-westerly pixel in the rectified image.

Georeferencing involves the identification of Ground Control Points – these are locations on the scanned map for which the spatial coordinates in ING are known. The Georeferencing option in ArcGIS 10.4 makes this a reasonably pain free task. For this map 36 GCPs were required for a local spline transformation. The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 provides the legal basis for the constituencies to be used for future elections in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Part III of the Seventh Schedule of the Act defines the Constituencies in terms of Baronies, Parishes (and part Parishes) and Townlands for Ireland. Part III of the Sixth Schedule provides definitions for the Boroughs of Belfast and Dublin.

The CSO boundary collection also includes a shapefile of Barony boundaries. This makes it possible code a barony in two ways: (i) allocated completely to a Division or (ii) split between two Divisions. For the first type, the code is just the division name, and for the second the code includes both (or more) division names. Allocation of these names to the data in the ED shapefile is accomplished by a spatial join operation. Recoding the areas in the split Baronies is done interactively using the GIS software’s editing option. EDs or groups of EDs can be selected on the screen, and the correct Division code updated in the attribute table. There are a handful of cases where an ED is split between divisions, so a simple ‘majority’ rule was used for the allocation. As the maps are to be used at mainly for displaying data at the national level, a misallocation is unlikely to be noticed. The final set of boundaries was created using the dissolve operation mentioned earlier. There were a dozen ED that had initially escaped being allocated a code, but these were quickly updated. Similarly, a few of the EDs in the split divisions had been overlooked; again updating was painless. This meant that the dissolve had to be run a few more times before all the errors have been corrected.

For the Northern Ireland districts, a slightly different methodology was deployed which involved linking parishes and townlands along side baronies, using open data sources from the OSM Townlands.ie project and OpenData NI.

As of April 2025, the political party that 18 to 24 year-old's in Great Britain would be most likely to vote for was the Labour Party, at 39 percent, with Labour also the most popular party among those aged 25 to 49. Reform UK was the most popular party for the 50 to 64 age group, with 26 percent of voters saying they would vote for them. For the oldest age group, the Conservative Party was the most popular, with 35 percent of over 65s intending to vote for them. Reform surge in the polls Since winning the last UK general election in July 2024, the ruling Labour Party have steadily become more unpopular among voters. After winning 33.7 percent of the vote in that election, the party was polling at 24 percent in April 2025, only slightly ahead of Reform UK on 23 percent. A right-wing populist party, Reform benefited from the collapse in support for the center-right Conservative Party in the last election, winning several seats at their expense. While the next UK general election is not due to be held until 2029, the government will be keen to address their collapsing approval ratings, in the face of Reform's rising support. Economic headaches for Labour in 2025 Although Labour inherited a growing economy, with falling inflation, and low unemployment from the Conservatives, the overall economic outlook for the UK is still quite gloomy. The country's government debt is around 100 percent of GDP, and without large tax rises and spending cuts, the government hopes to create a stronger, more resilient economy to reduce the deficit. While this is still a possibility, the UK's economic prospects for 2025 were recently slashed, with growth of one percent forecast, down from an earlier prediction of two percent. Although mainly due to external factors such as the threat of increasing tariffs, and general geopolitical instability, the UK's faltering economy will add further problems to the embattled government.

At present, NATO has 29 members. In 1949, there were 12 founding members of the Alliance: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. The other member countries are: Greece and Turkey (1952), Germany (1955), Spain (1982), the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999), Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (2004), Albania and Croatia (2009), and Montenegro (2017).

Historical Map of South / Central America from the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

National Geographic's classic political map of Europe features country boundaries, thousands of place names, waterbodies, airports, major highways and roads, national parks, and much more. Includes the countries and major cities of Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.>> Order print map <<

In the century between Napoleon's defeat and the outbreak of the First World War (known as the "Pax Britannica"), the British Empire grew to become the largest and most powerful empire in the world. At its peak in the 1910s and 1920s, it encompassed almost one quarter of both the world's population and its land surface, and was known as "the empire on which the sun never sets". The empire's influence could be felt across the globe, as Britain could use its position to affect trade and economies in all areas of the world, including many regions that were not part of the formal empire (for example, Britain was able to affect trading policy in China for over a century, due to its control of Hong Kong and the neighboring colonies of India and Burma). Some historians argue that because of its economic, military, political and cultural influence, nineteenth century Britain was the closest thing to a hegemonic superpower that the world ever had, and possibly ever will have. "Rule Britannia" Due to the technological and logistical restrictions of the past, we will never know the exact borders of the British Empire each year, nor the full extent of its power. However, by using historical sources in conjunction with modern political borders, we can gain new perspectives and insights on just how large and influential the British Empire actually was. If we transpose a map of all former British colonies, dominions, mandates, protectorates and territories, as well as secure territories of the East India Trading Company (EIC) (who acted as the precursor to the British Empire) onto a current map of the world, we can see that Britain had a significant presence in at least 94 present-day countries (approximately 48 percent). This included large territories such as Australia, the Indian subcontinent, most of North America and roughly one third of the African continent, as well as a strategic network of small enclaves (such as Gibraltar and Hong Kong) and islands around the globe that helped Britain to maintain and protect its trade routes. The sun sets... Although the data in this graph does not show the annual population or size of the British Empire, it does give some context to how Britain has impacted and controlled the development of the world over the past four centuries. From 1600 until 1920, Britain's Empire expanded from a small colony in Newfoundland, a failing conquest in Ireland, and early ventures by the EIC in India, to Britain having some level of formal control in almost half of all present-day countries. The English language is an official language in all inhabited continents, its political and bureaucratic systems are used all over the globe, and empirical expansion helped Christianity to become the most practiced major religion worldwide. In the second half of the twentieth century, imperial and colonial empires were eventually replaced by global enterprises. The United States and Soviet Union emerged from the Second World War as the new global superpowers, and the independence movements in longstanding colonies, particularly Britain, France and Portugal, gradually succeeded. The British Empire finally ended in 1997 when it seceded control of Hong Kong to China, after more than 150 years in charge. Today, the United Kingdom consists of four constituent countries, and it is responsible for three crown dependencies and fourteen overseas territories, although the legacy of the British Empire can still be seen, and it's impact will be felt for centuries to come.

This layer is intended for researchers, students, and policy makers for reference and mapping purposes, and may be used for basic applications such as viewing, querying, and map output production, or to provide a basemap to support graphical overlays and analysis with other spatial data.

The principal objective of the research was to survey and map elite political attitudes to globalisation, European integration and the relationship between the two. Explicitly designed as a pilot study for a broader multi-country and multi-language European comparative analysis, the focus of the project was restricted to the United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland, two countries that are particularly well suited to a comparative analysis of this kind due to their common language, their common institutional origins and the structural similarities in their political economies.

The research was informed by the following key questions:

• how policy-makers perceive globalisation and European integration (including the relationship between them)
• whether distinctive discourses of globalisation, European integration and the relationship between the two can be identified, how pervasive the concepts are, and to what extent they are conserved between cases and, within cases, between political parties, civil servants and politicians, and front- and back-benchers
• whether such discourses are national in character or are party-political factors the principal determinants of attitudes towards globalisation and European integration
• whether there are disparities between policy-makers' attitudes towards globalisation and European integration, as revealed in survey-based research and the official/public appeal to such discourses

The research was conducted via a postal questionnaire, which was sent to all Members of Parliament (MPs) in the UK, all Members of the Dail (parliament) in Ireland, and 1,000 UK and Irish civil servants. This consisted of closed questions with identical scalar answer formats that reflected a range of perspectives regarding globalisation and European integration. The postal survey was backed by detailed discourse analysis of policy documents and a small number of semi-structured interviews with senior policy-makers from both countries (only the postal survey responses are included in the dataset).

This digitally compiled map includes geology, geologic provinces, and oil and gas fields of Europe including Turkey. The maps are part of a worldwide series of maps on CD-ROM released by the U.S. Geological Survey's World Energy Project. The goal of the project is to assess the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources of the world. For data management purposes the world was divided into eight energy regions corresponding approximately to the economic regions of of the world as defined by the U.S. Department of State. Europe (Region 4) includes Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Vatican. The depicted portion of Region 2 includes Turkey. Each region is divided into geologic provinces. Each province has a set of geologic characteristics that distinguish it from surrounding provinces. These characteristics may include the predominant lithologies, the age of the strata, and the structural style. Some provinces include multiple genetically-related basins. Geologic province boundaries are delineated using data from a number of geologic maps and other tectonic and geographic data (see References). Offshore province boundaries are defined by the 2000 meter bathymetric contour. Each province is assigned a unique number. Because geologic trends are independent of political boundaries, some provinces overlap two regions. The code of those provinces that lie entirely within Europe begin with the number 4 and those provinces that lie entirely within Turkey begin with the number 2. The code of those provinces that lie partly within another region may start with a 1, for the Former Soviet Union (Persits and others 1998) or a 2, for Middle East and North Africa (Pollastro , 1998; Persits and others, 1997). The centerpoint locations of oil and gas fields are plotted based on the locations in the Petroconsultants International Data Corp. (1996) database with permission. Selected provinces are currently being investigated, by Total Petroleum System analysis, and assessments are being made of the undiscovered oil and gas resource potential of these provinces. Klett and others (1997) discuss the worldwide geologic provinces and their relative ranking in terms of total known petroleum volume. Specific details of the data sources and map compilation are given in the metadata files on this CD-ROM. Some stratigraphic units are combined to simplify the map and to ensure consistency across the region. All rocks are colored by age. Igneous and metamorphic rocks are identified with fill patterns and colors. These maps are compiled using Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc. (ESRI) ARC/INFO software. Political boundaries and cartographic representations on this map are taken, with permission from ESRI's ArcWorld 1:3M digital coverage; they have no political significance and are displayed as general reference only. Portions of this database covering the coastline and country boundaries contain intellectual property of ESRI. (© 1992 and 1996, Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc. All rights reserved.)

The average for 2023 based on 193 countries was -0.07 points. The highest value was in Liechtenstein: 1.61 points and the lowest value was in Syria: -2.75 points. The indicator is available from 1996 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

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This layer is intended for researchers, students, and policy makers for reference and mapping purposes, and may be used for basic applications such as viewing, querying, and map output production, or to provide a basemap to support graphical overlays and analysis with other spatial data.

Islands have developed some of the most innovative forms of sovereignty in the world. Being typically small and insular, islands such as Åland, Prince Edward Island (PEI) and Sardinia have repeatedly rejected outright independence in favour of developing unique status arrangements with larger state or supranational bodies. Yet rather than representing an oddity in the world political order, islands are in fact illustrative of the creative governance arrangements that many states have adopted to accommodate diversity. The experience of small islands offers important lessons for states such as the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain, which are undergoing processes of 'asymmetrical' spatial rescaling. This pilot project will map the politics of island regions in Åland, PEI and Sardinia, in order to lay the empirical and theoretical foundations for a large-scale research project on island politics. The main research question is:

How do island regions negotiate their autonomy within larger political structures? The project focuses on five independent variables that determine the degree of island 'autonomy'. Hepburn will undertake field research in each case, including the collection of empirical data and interviews with party and government officials, in order to develop and test several hypotheses on island-state relations.

This project collected survey and interview data to study Eurochildren, their families and their experience and responses to Brexit. The project aims to portray the emergence of a new politics of belonging, which reconfigures discursively and legally who belongs to a post-EU Britain. It also aims to establish a baseline for future research on migration and settlement decision making in families with EU27 nationals following the formal exit of the European Union.

The UK has been a member of the European Union for 40 years. Throughout that time there has been intermingling of people and institutions which can be most clearly seen in the growing number of bi- and mixed-nationality EU families in the UK and their children, many of whom born in the UK and holding a British passport. This is a growing, and yet understudied and underreported, segment of the British society. In a post-EU referendum context, where the rhetoric about curbing EU immigration has permeated political, media, and popular discourses, producing a stark 'us and them' narrative, the question left unasked and unanswered is what are the human and emotional costs of this abrupt geopolitical shift if 'us and them' are the same? Through the study of Eurochildren and their families and their experience and responses to Brexit, the project aims to portrait the emergence of a new politics of belonging which reconfigures discursively and legally who belong to a post-EU Britain and establish a baseline for future research on migration and settlement decision making in families with EU27 nationals following the formal exit of the European Union. In order to do so, it will: 1) Profile and map the population of UK- and EU-born children of EU nationals in the UK and examine, at the aggregate level, different types of EU families and measure their socio-economic inclusion into British society. 2) Investigate how families with at least one EU27 member experience and respond to the process of exiting from the European Union and identify factors that shape such responses. 3) Examine the impact of the EU referendum and its aftermath on different age cohorts of UK-born Eurochildren, examining in particular how they articulate their sense of belonging and attitudes vis-a-vis the UK and the EU. With a team comprising academic experts in the fields of migration and integration, third sector collaborators and legal experts, and using a mixed methods approach, this project provide an empirically-rich and in-depth account of how EU families, often including both UK and EU passport holders and members with dual citizenship, experience and plan to respond to Brexit, a baseline from which to further analyse the process family migration decision making following the formal exit from the EU. The project involves three interconnected work packages (WP). WP1, which is of a quantitative nature, will analyse historical Census and Live Birth data in order to profile and geographically map EU families and their children. Different configurations of EU families, based on their demographic, geographical, and inclusion circumstances, will be established via this data and will inform the qualitative work in WP2 and 3 and our analysis of legal and policy implications of Brexit on this population. In WP2 focus groups and in-depth interviews will be conducted with EU families, as well as reflexive research, in order to explore questions of belonging within the context of the exit from the EU. In WP3, interview with UK-born adult Eurochildren and EU-born parents of Eurochildren will be conducted in order to bring to the fore the ways in which children experience migration decision-making and belonging. This mixed methods study will generate ground-breaking new data on EU families and their EU and UK-born children in the UK, contributing to the strategic, political and policy responses of UK and EU policy makers and to a more informed public debate on the consequences of Brexit on UK and EU citizens alike. The project includes a strategy set to maximise dissemination and impact. This will be done via: producing robust, composite and promptly accessible evidence (journal articles, blogs, briefings, media and online materials); engaging from the outset with a wide network of researchers, policy makers and practitioners; and using tailored dissemination channels to reach out to relevant audiences.