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

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.

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.

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 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.

In 2023, London had a gross domestic product of over 569 billion British pounds, by far the most of any region of the United Kingdom. The region of South East England which surrounds London had the second-highest GDP in this year, at over 360 billion pounds. North West England, which includes the major cities of Manchester and Liverpool, had the third-largest GDP among UK regions, at almost 250 billion pounds. Levelling Up the UK London’s economic dominance of the UK can clearly be seen when compared to the other regions of the country. In terms of GDP per capita, the gap between London and the rest of the country is striking, standing at over 63,600 pounds per person in the UK capital, compared with just over 37,100 pounds in the rest of the country. To address the economic imbalance, successive UK governments have tried to implement "levelling-up policies", which aim to boost investment and productivity in neglected areas of the country. The success of these programs going forward may depend on their scale, as it will likely take high levels of investment to reverse economic neglect regions have faced in the recent past. Overall UK GDP The gross domestic product for the whole of the United Kingdom amounted to 2.56 trillion British pounds in 2024. During this year, GDP grew by 0.9 percent, following a growth rate of 0.4 percent in 2023. Due to the overall population of the UK growing faster than the economy, however, GDP per capita in the UK fell in both 2023 and 2024. Nevertheless, the UK remains one of the world’s biggest economies, with just five countries (the United States, China, Japan, Germany, and India) having larger economies. It is it likely that several other countries will overtake the UK economy in the coming years, with Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, and Mexico all expected to have larger economies than Britain by 2050.

World Elevation layers are compiled from many authoritative data providers, and are updated quarterly. This map shows the extent of the various datasets comprising the World Elevation dynamic (Terrain, TopoBathy) and tiled (Terrain 3D, TopoBathy 3D, World Hillshade, World Hillshade (Dark)) services.The tiled services (Terrain 3D, TopoBathy 3D, World Hillshade, World Hillshade (Dark)) also include an additional data source from Maxar's Precision3D covering parts of the globe.Topography sources listed in the table below are part of Terrain, TopoBathy, Terrain 3D, TopoBathy 3D, World Hillshade and World Hillshade (Dark), while bathymetry sources are part of TopoBathy and TopoBathy 3D only. Data Source Native Pixel Size Approximate Pixel Size (meters) Coverage Primary Source Country/Region

Topography

Australia 1m 1 meter 1 Partial areas of Australia Geoscience Australia Australia

Moreton Bay, Australia 1m 1 meter 1 Moreton Bay region, Australia Moreton Bay Regional Council Australia

New South Wales, Australia 5m 5 meters 5 New South Wales State, Australia DFSI Australia

SRTM 1 arc second DEM-S 0.0002777777777779 degrees 31 Australia Geoscience Australia Australia

Burgenland 50cm 0.5 meters 0.5 Burgenland State, Austria Land Burgenland Austria

Upper Austria 50cm 0.5 meters 0.5 Upper Austria State, Austria Land Oberosterreich Austria

Austria 1m 1 meter 1 Austria BEV Austria

Austria 10m 10 meters 10 Austria BEV Austria

Wallonie 50cm 0.5 meters 0.5 Wallonie state, Belgium Service public de Wallonie (SPW) Belgium

Vlaanderen 1m 1 meter 1 Vlaanderen state, Belgium agentschap Digitaal Vlaanderen Belgium

Canada HRDEM 1m 1 meter 1 Partial areas of Canada Natural Resources Canada Canada

Canada HRDEM 2m 2 meter 2 Partial areas of the southern part of Canada Natural Resources Canada Canada

Denmark 40cm 0.4 meters 0.4 Denmark KDS Denmark

Denmark 10m 10 meters 10 Denmark KDS Denmark

England 1m 1 meter 1 England Environment Agency England

Estonia 1m 1 meter 1 Estonia Estonian Land Board Estonia

Estonia 5m 5 meters 5 Estonia Estonian Land Board Estonia

Estonia 10m 10 meters 10 Estonia Estonian Land Board Estonia

Finland 2m 2 meters 2 Finland NLS Finland

Finland 10m 10 meters 10 Finland NLS Finland

France 1m 1 meter 1 France IGN-F France

Bavaria 1m 1 meter 1 Bavaria State, Germany Bayerische Vermessungsverwaltung Germany

Berlin 1m 1 meter 1 Berlin State, Germany Geoportal Berlin Germany

Brandenburg 1m 1 meter 1 Brandenburg State, Germany GeoBasis-DE/LGB Germany

Hamburg 1m 1 meter 1 Hamburg State, Germany LGV Hamburg Germany

Hesse 1m 1 meter 1 Hesse State, Germany HVBG Germany

Nordrhein-Westfalen 1m 1 meter 1 Nordrhein-Westfalen State, Germany Land NRW Germany

Saxony 1m 1 meter 1 Saxony State, Germany Landesamt für Geobasisinformation Sachsen (GeoSN) Germany

Sachsen-Anhalt 2m 2 meters 2 Sachsen-Anhalt State, Germany LVermGeo LSA Germany

Hong Kong 50cm 0.5 meters 0.5 Hong Kong CEDD Hong Kong SAR

Italy TINITALY 10m 10 meters 10 Italy INGV Italy

Japan DEM5A *, DEM5B * 0.000055555555 degrees 5 Partial areas of Japan GSI Japan

Japan DEM10B * 0.00011111111 degrees 10 Japan GSI Japan

Latvia 1m 1 meters 1 Latvia Latvian Geospatial Information Agency Latvia

Latvia 10m 10 meters 10 Latvia Latvian Geospatial Information Agency Latvia

Latvia 20m 20 meters 20 Latvia Latvian Geospatial Information Agency Latvia

Lithuania 1m 1 meters 1 Lithuania NZT Lithuania

Lithuania 10m 10 meters 10 Lithuania NZT Lithuania

Netherlands (AHN3/AHN4) 50cm 0.5 meters 0.5 Netherlands AHN Netherlands

Netherlands (AHN3/AHN4) 10m 10 meters 10 Netherlands AHN Netherlands

New Zealand 1m 1 meters 1 Partial areas of New Zealand Land Information New Zealand (Sourced from LINZ. CC BY 4.0) New Zealand

Northern Ireland 10m 10 meters 10 Northern Ireland OSNI Northern Ireland

Norway 10m 10 meters 10 Norway NMA Norway

Poland 1m 1 meter 1 Partial areas of Poland GUGIK Poland

Poland 5m 5 meters 5 Partial areas of Poland GUGIK Poland

Scotland 1m 1 meter 1 Partial areas of Scotland Scottish Government et.al Scotland

Slovakia 1m 1 meter 1 Slovakia ÚGKK SR Slovakia

Slovakia 10m 10 meters 10 Slovakia GKÚ Slovakia

Slovenia 1m 1 meter 1 Slovenia ARSO Slovenia

Madrid City 1m 1 meter 1 Madrid city, Spain Ayuntamiento de Madrid Spain

Spain 2m (MDT02 2019 CC-BY 4.0 scne.es) 2 meters 2 Partial areas of Spain IGN Spain

Spain 5m 5 meters 5 Spain IGN Spain

Spain 10m 10 meters 10 Spain IGN Spain

Varnamo 50cm 0.5 meters 0.5 Varnamo municipality, Sweden Värnamo Kommun Sweden

Canton of Basel-Landschaft 25cm 0.25 meters 0.25 Canton of Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland Geoinformation Kanton Basel-Landschaft Switzerland

Grand Geneva 50cm 0.5 meters 0.5 Grand Geneva metropolitan, France/Switzerland SITG Switzerland and France

Switzerland swissALTI3D 50cm 0.5 meters 0.5 Switzerland and Liechtenstein swisstopo Switzerland and Liechtenstein

Switzerland swissALTI3D 10m 10 meters 10 Switzerland and Liechtenstein swisstopo Switzerland and Liechtenstein

OS Terrain 50 50 meters 50 United Kingdom Ordnance Survey United Kingdom

Douglas County 1ft 1 foot 0.3048 Douglas County, Nebraska, USA Douglas County NE United States

Lancaster County 1ft 1 foot 0.3048 Lancaster County, Nebraska, USA Lancaster County NE United States

Sarpy County 1ft 1 foot 0.3048 Sarpy County, Nebraska, USA Sarpy County NE United States

Cook County 1.5 ft 1.5 foot 0.46 Cook County, Illinois, USA ISGS United States

3DEP 1m 1 meter 1 Partial areas of the conterminous United States, Puerto Rico USGS United States

NRCS 1m 1 meter 1 Partial areas of the conterminous United States NRCS USDA United States

San Mateo County 1m 1 meter 1 San Mateo County, California, USA San Mateo County CA United States

FEMA LiDAR DTM 3 meters 3 Partial areas of the conterminous United States FEMA United States

NED 1/9 arc second 0.000030864197530866 degrees 3 Partial areas of the conterminous United States USGS United States

3DEP 5m 5 meter 5 Alaska, United States USGS United States

NED 1/3 arc second 0.000092592592593 degrees 10 conterminous United States, Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and Territorial Islands of the United States USGS United States

NED 1 arc second 0.0002777777777779 degrees 31 conterminous United States, Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Territorial Islands of the United States; Canada and Mexico USGS United States

NED 2 arc second 0.000555555555556 degrees 62 Alaska, United States USGS United States

Wales 1m 1 meter 1 Wales Welsh Government Wales

WorldDEM4Ortho 0.00022222222 degrees 24 Global (excluding the countries of Azerbaijan, DR Congo and Ukraine) Airbus Defense and Space GmbH World

SRTM 1 arc second 0.0002777777777779 degrees 31 all land areas between 60 degrees north and 56 degrees south except Australia NASA World

EarthEnv-DEM90 0.00083333333333333 degrees 93 Global N Robinson,NCEAS World

SRTM v4.1 0.00083333333333333 degrees 93 all land areas between 60 degrees north and 56 degrees south except Australia CGIAR-CSI World

GMTED2010 7.5 arc second 0.00208333333333333 degrees 232 Global USGS World

GMTED2010 15 arc second 0.00416666666666666 degrees 464 Global USGS World

GMTED2010 30 arc second 0.0083333333333333 degrees 928 Global USGS World

Bathymetry

Bass Strait 30m 2022 0.0003 degrees 30 area of seabed between the coastlines of Victoria and northern Tasmania, extending approximately 460 km from west of King Island to east of Flinders Island. Geoscience Australia Australia

AusBathyTopo 2024 0.0025 degrees 250 Australian continent and Tasmania, and surrounding Macquarie Island and the Australian Territories of Norfolk Island, Christmas Island, and Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Geoscience Australia Australia

Canada west coast 10 meters 10 Canada west coast Natural Resources Canada Canada

Gulf of Mexico 40 feet 12 Northern Gulf of Mexico BOEM Gulf of Mexico

MH370 150 meters 150 MH370 flight search area (Phase 1) of Indian Ocean Geoscience Australia Indian Ocean

Switzerland swissBATHY3D 1 - 3 meters 1, 2, 3 Lakes of Switzerland swisstopo Switzerland

NCEI 1/9 arc second 0.000030864197530866 degrees 3 Puerto Rico, U.S Virgin Islands and partial areas of eastern and western United States coast NOAA NCEI United States

NCEI 1/3 arc second 0.000092592592593 degrees 10 Partial areas of eastern and western United States

London had the highest unemployment rate among regions of the United Kingdom in the first quarter of 2025 at ****percent, while for the UK as a whole, the unemployment rate was ****percent. Three other regions also had an unemployment rate higher than the national average, while Northern Ireland had the lowest unemployment rate in this time period, at ****percent. Labor market recovery after COVID-19 After reaching historically low levels of unemployment in 2019, there was a noticeable spike in the UK unemployment rate in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. After peaking at ****percent in late 2020, the unemployment rate declined throughout 2021 and 2022. High levels of job vacancies, resignations, and staff shortages in 2022, were all indicative of a very tight labor market that year, but all these measures have started to point in the direction of a slightly looser labor market. UK's regional economic divide While the North of England has some of the country’s largest cities, the sheer size and economic power of London is much larger than the UK's other urban agglomerations. Partly, due to the size of London, the United Kingdom is one of Europe’s most centralized counties, and there is a clear divide between the economic prospects of north and south England. In 2022, for example, the gross domestic product per head in London was ****** British pounds, far higher than the UK average of *******pounds, and significantly larger than North East England, the region with the lowest GDP per head at *******pounds.

This file contains the names and codes for local authority districts (LAD) and unitary authorities (UA) in the United Kingdom as at 31st December 2021. (File Size - 48KB)Field Names - LAD21CD, LAD21NM, LAD21NMW, FIDField Types - Text, Text, Text, NumberField Lengths - 9, 36, 24FID = The FID, or Feature ID is created by the publication process when the names and codes / lookup products are published to the Open Geography portal. File includes the following LAD changes. E06000061 - North Northamptonshire, E06000062 , West Northamptonshire - new unitary authorities created - (Northamptonshire county abolished)E07000150 - Corby, E07000151 - Daventry, E07000152 - East Northamptonshire, E07000153 - Kettering, E07000154 - Northampton, E07000155 - South Northamptonshire, E07000156 - Wellingborough abolished

There were 20,944 incidences of racist hate crime reported by the London Metropolitan Police in the 2023/24 reporting year, by far the most of any police force area in England and Wales. In the same time period, there were 7,466 racist incidents reported in the West Midlands.

In 2023/24 there were 116 homicide offences recorded in London, the most of any region of the United Kingdom during that time period. North West England, which includes the large city of Manchester had 71 homicides, and had the second-highest number of homicides. In the same reporting period, the constituent countries of Northern Ireland and Wales reported the fewest homicides, at 24 each. Homicides in the UK falling despite recent uptick Since 2002/03, all three jurisdictions of the UK; England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, have seen their homicide rates fall, with Scotland seeing the steepest decline. The most significant decline in homicides in this period occurred between 2002/03 and 2014/15, which saw the annual number of homicides in England and Wales half from over 1,000 to 500. This trend was suddenly reversed from 2015/16 onwards, with homicides rising to around 700 per year between 2016/17 and 2019/20. While homicides fell back to 583 in 2023/24, it remains to be seen if this pattern will continue. Knives used in almost half of all murders In 2022/23 a knife or other sharp instrument was used in over 41 percent of all murders in England and Wales, making this, by far, the most common method of killing in that reporting year. The overall number of knife homicides reached 244 in 2022/23, compared with 282 in the previous year, and just above the 281 reported in 2017/18. Firearm homicides were much rarer than knife homicides, with 29 taking place in the same reporting year, and homicides caused by shooting only accounting for 4.9 percent of homicides overall.