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.

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).

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.

In 2020, the population of the United Kingdom was estimated to have grown by approximately 0.4 percent, with the population growing fastest in the South West and East Midlands, which reported growth rates of 0.6 percent in this year. By contrast, growth in Northern Ireland and Scotland was below the UK average, at just 0.1 percent and zero percent, respectively. Four countries of the UK Within the UK, South East England had the highest population of the regions that comprise the United Kingdom, at more than 9.37 million people. In terms of the four countries of the UK, England had by far the highest population at over 57.7 million people, compared with Scotland (5.5 million) Wales (3.13 million) and Northern Ireland (1.9 million people) which have comparatively smaller populations. Largest cities in the UK With 8.9 million people living there, London is one of the most heavily population regions of the UK, and by far the largest city. Other large cities in the UK include West Midlands urban area, centered around the city of Birmingham at 2.95 million people, along with Greater Manchester at 2.91 million, with these two cities generally considered as the main contenders for being the country's second-city.

This data is experimental, see the ‘Access Constraints or User Limitations’ section for more details. This dataset has been generalised to 10 metre resolution where it is still but the space needed for downloads will be improved.A set of UK wide estimated travel area geometries (isochrones), from Output Area (across England, Scotland, and Wales) and Small Area (across Northern Ireland) population-weighted centroids. The modes used in the isochrone calculations are limited to public transport and walking. Generated using Open Trip Planner routing software in combination with Open Street Maps and open public transport schedule data (UK and Ireland).The geometries provide an estimate of reachable areas by public transport and on foot between 7:15am and 9:15am for a range of maximum travel durations (15, 30, 45 and 60 minutes). For England, Scotland and Wales, these estimates were generated using public transport schedule data for Tuesday 15th November 2022. For Northern Ireland, the date used is Tuesday 6th December 2022.The data is made available as a set of ESRI shape files, in .zip format. This corresponds to a total of 18 files; one for Northern Ireland, one for Wales, twelve for England (one per English region, where London, South East and North West have been split into two files each) and four for Scotland (one per NUTS2 region, where the ‘North-East’ and ‘Highlands and Islands’ have been combined into one shape file, and South West Scotland has been split into two files).The shape files contain the following attributes. For further details, see the ‘Access Constraints or User Limitations’ section:AttributeDescriptionOA21CD or SA2011 or OA11CDEngland and Wales: The 2021 Output Area code.Northern Ireland: The 2011 Small Area code.Scotland: The 2011 Output Area code.centre_latThe population-weighted centroid latitude.centre_lonThe population-weighted centroid longitude.node_latThe latitude of the nearest Open Street Map “highway” node to the population-weighted centroid.node_lonThe longitude of the nearest Open Street Map “highway” node to the population-weighted centroid.node_distThe distance, in meters, between the population-weighted centroid and the nearest Open Street Map “highway” node.stop_latThe latitude of the nearest public transport stop to the population-weighted centroid.stop_lonThe longitude of the nearest public transport stop to the population-weighted centroid.stop_distThe distance, in metres, between the population-weighted centroid and the nearest public transport stop.centre_inBinary value (0 or 1), where 1 signifies the population-weighted centroid lies within the Output Area/Small Area boundary. 0 indicates the population-weighted centroid lies outside the boundary.node_inBinary value (0 or 1), where 1 signifies the nearest Open Street Map “highway” node lies within the Output Area/Small Area boundary. 0 indicates the nearest Open Street Map node lies outside the boundary.stop_inBinary value (0 or 1), where 1 signifies the nearest public transport stop lies within the Output Area/Small Area boundary. 0 indicates the nearest transport stop lies outside the boundary.iso_cutoffThe maximum travel time, in seconds, to construct the reachable area/isochrone. Values are either 900, 1800, 2700, or 3600 which correspond to 15, 30, 45, and 60 minute limits respectively.iso_dateThe date for which the isochrones were estimated, in YYYY-MM-DD format.iso_typeThe start point from which the estimated isochrone was calculated. Valid values are:from_centroid: calculated using population weighted centroid.from_node: calculated using the nearest Open Street Map “highway” node.from_stop: calculated using the nearest public transport stop.no_trip_found: no isochrone was calculated.geometryThe isochrone geometry.iso_hectarThe area of the isochrone, in hectares.Access constraints or user limitations.These data are experimental and will potentially have a wider degree of uncertainty. They remain subject to testing of quality, volatility, and ability to meet user needs. The methodologies used to generate them are still subject to modification and further evaluation.These experimental data have been published with specific caveats outlined in this section. The data are shared with the analytical community with the purpose of benefitting from the community's scrutiny and in improving the quality and demand of potential future releases. There may be potential modification following user feedback on both its quality and suitability.For England and Wales, where possible, the latest census 2021 Output Area population weighted centroids were used as the starting point from which isochrones were calculated.For Northern Ireland, 2011 Small Area population weighted centroids were used as the starting point from which isochrones were calculated. Small Areas and Output Areas contain a similar number of households within their boundaries. 2011 data was used because this was the most up-to-date data available at the time of generating this dataset. Population weighted centroids for Northern Ireland were calculated internally but may be subject to change - in the future we aim to update these data to be consistent with Census 2021 across the UK.For Scotland, 2011 Output Area population-weighted centroids were used as the starting point from which isochrones were calculated. 2011 data was used because this was the most up-to-date data available at the time of work.The data for England, Scotland and Wales are released with the projection EPSG:27700 (British National Grid).The data for Northern Ireland are released with the projection EPSG:29902 (Irish Grid).The modes used in the isochrone calculations are limited to public transport and walking. Other modes were not considered when generating this data.A maximum value of 1.5 kilometres walking distance was used when generating isochrones. This approximately represents typical walking distances during a commute (based on Department for Transport/Labour Force Survey data and Travel Survey for Northern Ireland technical reports).When generating Northern Ireland data, public transport schedule data for both Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland were used.Isochrone geometries and calculated areas are subject to public transport schedule data accuracy, Open Trip Planner routing methods and Open Street Map accuracy. The location of the population-weighted centroid can also influence the validity of the isochrones, when this falls on land which is not possible or is difficult to traverse (e.g., private land and very remote locations).The Northern Ireland public transport data were collated from several files, and as such required additional pre-processing. Location data are missing for two bus stops. Some services run by local public transport providers may also be missing. However, the missing data should have limited impact on the isochrone output. Due to the availability of Northern Ireland public transport data, the isochrones for Northern Ireland were calculated on a comparable but slight later date of 6th December 2022. Any potential future releases are likely to contained aligned dates between all four regions of the UK.In cases where isochrones are not calculable from the population-weighted centroid, or when the calculated isochrones are unrealistically small, the nearest Open Street Map ‘highway’ node is used as an alternative starting point. If this then fails to yield a result, the nearest public transport stop is used as the isochrone origin. If this also fails to yield a result, the geometry will be ‘None’ and the ‘iso_hectar’ will be set to zero. The following information shows a further breakdown of the isochrone types for the UK as a whole:from_centroid: 99.8844%from_node: 0.0332%from_stop: 0.0734%no_trip_found: 0.0090%The term ‘unrealistically small’ in the point above refers to outlier isochrones with a significantly smaller area when compared with both their neighbouring Output/Small Areas and the entire regional distribution. These reflect a very small fraction of circumstances whereby the isochrone extent was impacted by the centroid location and/or how Open Trip Planner handled them (e.g. remote location, private roads and/or no means of traversing the land). Analysis showed these outliers were consistently below 100 hectares for 60-minute isochrones. Therefore, In these cases, the isochrone point of origin was adjusted to the nearest node or stop, as outlined above.During the quality assurance checks, the extent of the isochrones was observed to be in good agreement with other routing software and within the limitations stated within this section. Additionally, the use of nearest node, nearest stop, and correction of ‘unrealistically small areas’ was implemented in a small fraction of cases only. This culminates in no data being available for 8 out of 239,768 Output/Small Areas.Data is only available in ESRI shape file format (.zip) at this release.https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Great Britain Historical Database has been assembled as part of the ongoing Great Britain Historical GIS Project. The project aims to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain at sub-county scales. Further information about the project is available on A Vision of Britain webpages, where users can browse the database's documentation system online.

These digital boundaries were created by the Great Britain Historical GIS Project and form part of the Great Britain Historical Database, which contains a wide range of geographically-located statistics, selected to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain, generally at sub-county scales.

These digital boundaries can be used to map economic, social and demographic statistics from the Censuses of Population, 1911 to 1971, the Registrar-General's reports from the same period, and other relevant statistical sources. They can also be used as reference maps for these administrative units.

These units were aggregations of Local Government Districts and differed significantly from both Ancient Counties and the Registration Counties covered by earlier censuses. Difference include that the three Ridings of Yorkshire and the three Parts of Lincolnshire were separate Administrative Counties, as were East and West Suffolk, and East and West Sussex. The Isle of Ely and the Soke of Peterborough were also separate Administrative Counties until 1965, when Middlesex was also abolished as the County of London was expanded to become Greater London. The Isle of Wight was a separate Administrative County from Hampshire throughout the period.

The boundary data contain the same numerical identifiers as are included in the GBHD transcriptions of census and vital registration statistics for Administrative Counties, making statistical mapping straightforward.

In 2023, approximately 91.2 percent of the population of London identified as being Heterosexual or Straight, which was the lowest among regions of the United Kingdom. As of this year, approximately 3.5 percent of Londoners identified as being Gay or Lesbian, 1.7 percent as Bisexual, 0.9 percent as Other and 2.8 percent who did not know, or refused to answer.

The average household size in London was 2.57 people per household in 2023, compared with the UK average of 2.36 people per household.

This statistic shows the rate of registrations of newly diagnosed cases of pancreatic cancer per 100,000 population in England in 2020, by region and gender. In this year, the rate of newly diagnosed cases of pancreatic cancer among women was highest in South East region of England at 16.1 cases per 100,000 population, whereas the highest rate among men was in North East region at 21 per 100,000 population.

South East England was the region that had the highest share of people volunteering in England in 2021/22, at 59 percent, compared with just 51 percent in Yorkshire and the North East, the regions with the lowest share.

This statistic shows the rate of registrations of newly diagnosed cases of skin melanoma per 100,000 population in England in 2020, by region and gender. In this year, the rate of newly diagnosed cases of skin cancer among women was highest in the West Midlands region of England at 28.3 cases per 100,000 population, whereas the highest rate among men was in North West at 31.7 per 100,000 population

In 2021/22, 60 percent of households in North East England and Wales were receiving a type of state benefit, the highest among regions in the United Kingdom in that reporting year. By comparison, 40 percent of households in London were receiving benefits, the lowest in the UK.