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.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/licenceshttps://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/licences
Towns and Cities boundaries built from Built-up Areas.
Open Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
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
https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/licenceshttps://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/licences
A PDF map that shows the counties and unitary authorities in the United Kingdom as at 1 April 2023. (File Size - 583 KB)
Digital data from VG07-5 Springston, G. and De Simone, D., 2007,�Surficial geologic map of the town of Williston, Vermont: Vermont Geological Survey Open-File Report VG07-5, 1 color plate, scale 1:24,000.� Data may include surficial geologic contacts, isopach contours lines, bedrock outcrop polygons, bedrock geologic contacts, hydrogeologic units and more. The surficial geologic materials data at a scale of 1:24,000 depict types of unconsolidated surficial and glacial materials overlying bedrock in Vermont. Data is created by mapping on the ground using standard geologic pace and compass techniques and/or GPS on a USGS 1:24000 topographic base map. The materials data is selected from the Vermont Geological Survey Open File Report (OFR) publication (https://dec.vermont.gov/geological-survey/publication-gis/ofr). The OFR contains more complete descriptions of map units, cross-sections, isopach maps and other information that may not be included in this digital data set.
Attribution 3.0 (CC BY 3.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
License information was derived automatically
Georeferenced map of 'Old and New Town of Edinburgh and Leith with the proposed docks' By John Ainslie (1804) as part of the Visualising Urban Geographies project- view other versions of the map at http://geo.nls.uk/urbhist/resources_maps.html. Scanned map. This dataset was first accessioned in the EDINA ShareGeo Open repository on 2011-05-31 and migrated to Edinburgh DataShare on 2017-02-21.
This dataset is not the "Planning Register" as described in The Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2010; which is currently provided via Public Access https://planning.bradford.gov.uk/online-applications/
This dataset contains a current set of Planning Application boundaries held since 1974. The Planning Service is constantly adding and amending boundaries as it discovers missing boundaries and updates incorrect boundaries.
This dataset will be updated every 24hrs.
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.
Public Domain Mark 1.0https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
License information was derived automatically
This dataset represents the complete descriptive metadata for John Wood's town plan maps, a digitised collection of town plan maps of Scottish towns by mapmaker John Wood (1780-1747).
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.
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.
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.
Open Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
OSNI Street Maps showing detailed information, including road names and one-way systems, railway lines, car parking, public buildings, churches and schools, for Northern Ireland’s cities and towns. Dataset derived from OSNI large and smallscale data.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
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
I coordinated the Full Catalogue of the Collection of Historical Plans, Maps, Drawings and Photographs of the Architecture and Town Planning Section of Jerez City Council, Spain. The catalogue reached almost 8000 items.
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.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/licenceshttps://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/licences
This is the ONS Postcode Directory (ONSPD) for the United Kingdom as at February 2024 in Comma Separated Variable (CSV) and ASCII text (TXT) formats. This file contains the multi CSVs so that postcode areas can be opened in MS Excel. To download the zip file click the Download button. The ONSPD relates both current and terminated postcodes in the United Kingdom to a range of current statutory administrative, electoral, health and other area geographies. It also links postcodes to pre-2002 health areas, 1991 Census enumeration districts for England and Wales, 2001 Census Output Areas (OA) and Super Output Areas (SOA) for England and Wales, 2001 Census OAs and SOAs for Northern Ireland and 2001 Census OAs and Data Zones (DZ) for Scotland. It now contains 2021 Census OAs and SOAs for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It helps support the production of area-based statistics from postcoded data. The ONSPD is produced by ONS Geography, who provide geographic support to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and geographic services used by other organisations. The ONSPD is issued quarterly. (File size - 231 MB) Please note that this product contains Royal Mail, Gridlink, LPS (Northern Ireland), Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/licenceshttps://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/licences
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)
This is an Historic dataset of the Hastings Local Plan 2004 planning constraints. The Hastings Local Plan 2004 has been superseded in its entirety by the Hastings Local Plan made up of The Hastings Planning Strategy and Development Management Plan. This dataset is a digitised version of the Hastings Local Plan 2004 Policies Map (Polygon Data). The data is a snapshot of the constraints when they were created in 2004 and things have changed since then. It includes Green Constraints that have national and international designations including Ancient Woodland, Sites of Special Scientific Interest, SAC and AONB and these are no longer correct and should not be relied upon, this data should be obtained direct from Natural England. Upon accessing this Licenced Data you will be deemed to have accepted the terms of the Public Sector End User Licence - INSPIRE (http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/public-sector/mapping-agreements/inspire-licence.html)
This map shows the ground floor uses recorded in retail centres as surveyed in May 2024 during an on-foot survey. Floorspace is based on plotting of units on a mapping system and is therefore an approximate ground floor footprint figure (SQM). This data is used to understand the effectiveness of policies in the Local Plans in the Authority Monitoring Report. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of data, it cannot be guaranteed free of errors.
Policy WLP8.18 Town Centre Boundary from the Waveney Local Plan, Adopted March 2019. The Waveney Local Plan applies to the part of East Suffolk formerly covered by the Waveney local planning authority area. This area should only be used as a guide. Please refer to the definitive policies map.
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.