Counties were formerly administrative units across the whole of the UK. Due to various administrative restructurings, however, the only administrative areas still referred to as 'counties' are the Non-Metropolitan Districts of England. The English Metropolitan Districts, although no longer administrative units, are also used for statistical purposes.

The Counties area list contains 35 areas of the following constituent English geographies:

• 27 Shire counties
• 6 Metropolitan counties
• Inner London and Outer London

Please visit ONS Beginner's Guide to UK Geography for more info.

The boundaries are available as either extent of the realm (usually this is the Mean Low Water mark but in some cases boundaries extend beyond this to include off shore islands) or

clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).

The China Post provides postal service-related information, primarily offering Excel files for counties and towns in Chinese and English (Hanyu Pinyin, csv format).

This is the ONS Postcode Directory (ONSPD) for the United Kingdom as at February 2023 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 and Wales. 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 - 234 MB)NOTE: The 2022 ONSPDs included an incorrect update of the ITL field with two LA changes in Northamptonshire. This error has been corrected from the February 2023 ONSPD.NOTE: There was an issue with the originally published file where some change orders yet to be included in OS Boundary-LineÔ (including The Cumbria (Structural Changes) Order 2022, The North Yorkshire (Structural Changes) Order 2022 and The Somerset (Structural Changes) Order 2022) were mistakenly implemented for terminated postcodes. Version 2 corrects this, so that ward codes E05014171–E05014393 are not yet included. Please note that this product contains Royal Mail, Gridlink, LPS (Northern Ireland), Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

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).

Police recorded crime figures by Police Force Area and Community Safety Partnership areas (which equate in the majority of instances, to local authorities).

This is the Index of Place Names (IPN) in Great Britain as at December 2022 (published March 2023). The IPN was first produced after the 1831 Census; this new version has been greatly expanded in content and extent. Featuring over 100,000 entries, it lists the names of localities and geography areas throughout England, Scotland and Wales. The IPN is published annually and with an updated and informative user guide giving a full rundown and explanation of the contents (File Size - 7 MB).(Note: Updated version 1.1 (published May 2023) reflects the change in registration districts from Northamptonshire to North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire.)

This file contains the National Statistics Postcode Lookup (NSPL) for the United Kingdom as at May 2022 in Comma Separated Variable (CSV) and ASCII text (TXT) formats. To download the zip file click the Download button. The NSPL relates both current and terminated postcodes to a range of current statutory geographies via ‘best-fit’ allocation from the 2011 Census Output Areas (national parks and Workplace Zones are exempt from ‘best-fit’ and use ‘exact-fit’ allocations). It supports the production of area based statistics from postcoded data. The NSPL is produced by ONS Geography, who provide geographic support to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and geographic services used by other organisations. The NSPL is issued quarterly. (File size - 196 MB).

All cities with a population > 1000 or seats of adm div (ca 80.000)Sources and ContributionsSources : GeoNames is aggregating over hundred different data sources. Ambassadors : GeoNames Ambassadors help in many countries. Wiki : A wiki allows to view the data and quickly fix error and add missing places. Donations and Sponsoring : Costs for running GeoNames are covered by donations and sponsoring.Enrichment:add country name

This is the ONS Postcode Directory (ONSPD) for the United Kingdom as at August 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 also contains 2021 Census OAs and SOAs for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and 2021 Census OAs for Scotland. 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 - 236 MB) Please note that this product contains Royal Mail, Gridlink, LPS (Northern Ireland), Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

A best-fit lookup between postcodes, frozen 2011 Census Output Areas (OA), Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOA), Middle Layer Super Output Areas (MSOA) and current local authority districts (LAD) as at May 2022 in the UK. Postcodes are best-fitted by plotting the location of the postcode's mean address into the areas of the output geographies. (File size 24 MB).Field Names - PCD7, PCD8, PCDS, DOINTR, DOTERM, USERTYPE, OA11CD, LSOA11CD, MSOA11CD, LADCD, LSOA11NM, MSOA11NM, LADNM, LADNMWField Types - All TextField Lengths - 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 1, 9, 9, 9, 9, 55, 65, 45, 45