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

The current counties of England are defined by the ceremonial counties, a collective name for the county areas to which are appointed a Lord Lieutenant. The office of Lord Lieutenant was created in the reign of Henry VIII. The Lord Lieutenant is the chief officer of the county and representative of the Crown. Whenever the Queen visits an area she will be accompanied by the Lord Lieutenant of that area. Legally the ceremonial counties are defined by the Lieutenancies Act 1997 as ‘Counties and areas for the purposes of the lieutenancies in Great Britain’ with reference to the areas used for local government.

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https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/products/boundary-line#technical

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Source:

https://osdatahub.os.uk/downloads/open/BoundaryLine

Licence:

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

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This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Counties and Unitary Authorities in the United Kingdom, as at December 2019. The boundaries available are: (BUC) Ultra Generalised (500m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark). Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights. Download File SizesUltra Generalised (500m) - clipped to the coastline (200 KB)Units for the following fields:St_length = metresSt_area = metres2REST URL of ArcGIS for INSPIRE View Service https://ons-inspire.esriuk.com/arcgis/rest/services/Administrative_Boundaries/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2019_Boundaries_UK_BUC2/MapServer/exts/InspireView REST URL of ArcGIS for INSPIRE Feature Download Service https://ons-inspire.esriuk.com/arcgis/rest/services/Administrative_Boundaries/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2019_Boundaries_UK_BUC2/MapServer/exts/InspireFeatureDownload REST URL of Feature Access Service https://ons-inspire.esriuk.com/arcgis/rest/services/Administrative_Boundaries/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2019_Boundaries_UK_BUC2/FeatureServer

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).

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for the historical admin counties without associated county boroughs in England and Wales as at Census Day 1921.The boundaries available are: (BGC) Generalised resolution - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights. REST URL of WFS Server – https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/ADCTY_JUN_1921_EW_BGC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilities REST URL of Map Server – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/ADCTY_JUN_1921_EW_BGC/MapServer REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/ADCTY_JUN_1921_EW_BGC/FeatureServer

The index shows the availability of county series geological maps, 1:10560 scale. The maps themselves were produced on OS County Series sheets between approximately 1860 and 1960. The list indicates whether the map has been revised or re-surveyed and gives details of any later versions that have been produced. It is advisable to discuss your requirements before ordering or travelling to view these maps.

1:1,000,000 raster map series showing the counties of Northern Ireland. This raster is the smallest scale OSNI raster product giving an overview of Northern Ireland.

In 2023, almost nine million people lived in Greater London, making it the most populated ceremonial county in England. The West Midlands Metropolitan County, which contains the large city of Birmingham, was the second-largest county at 2.98 million inhabitants, followed by Greater Manchester and then West Yorkshire with populations of 2.95 million and 2.4 million, respectively. Kent, Essex, and Hampshire were the three next-largest counties in terms of population, each with around 1.89 million people. A patchwork of regions England is just one of the four countries that compose the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with England, Scotland and Wales making up Great Britain. England is therefore not to be confused with Great Britain or the United Kingdom as a whole. Within England, the next subdivisions are the nine regions of England, containing various smaller units such as unitary authorities, metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan districts. The counties in this statistic, however, are based on the ceremonial counties of England as defined by the Lieutenancies Act of 1997. Regions of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland Like England, the other countries of the United Kingdom have their own regional subdivisions, although with some different terminology. Scotland’s subdivisions are council areas, while Wales has unitary authorities, and Northern Ireland has local government districts. As of 2022, the most-populated Scottish council area was Glasgow City, with over 622,000 inhabitants. In Wales, Cardiff had the largest population among its unitary authorities, and in Northern Ireland, Belfast was the local government area with the most people living there.

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for County and Unitary Authorities including Metropolitan Counties, in the United Kingdom, as at December 2022.The boundaries available are: (BFE) Full resolution - 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).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BFE/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_inc_Metropolitan_Counties_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BFE/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_inc_Metropolitan_Counties_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BFE/MapServer

The OSNI Large-scale boundaries is a polygon dataset consisting of County Boundaries.The data has been extracted from OSNI Largescale database and has been topologically cleansed and attributed to create a seamless dataset. This service is published for OpenData. By download or use of this dataset you agree to abide by the LPS 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

For much of the Geological Survey's existence, the County Series of maps were the standard large-scale maps on which geological mapping was undertaken. These maps are based on the Ordnance Survey County (or six-inch to the mile) series of maps. These maps were cut up to be used in the field to record geological observations, and on return to the office, the geology was transferred to a complete County Series map, which after approval was known as a 'standard' (England / Wales) or 'clean copy' (Scotland). This dataset contains the 'standard' or 'clean copy' County Series maps held by BGS. Geological maps represent a geologist's compiled interpretation of the geology of an area. A geologist will consider the data available at the time, including measurements and observations collected during field campaigns, as well as their knowledge of geological processes and the geological context to create a model of the geology of an area. This model is then fitted to a topographic basemap and drawn up at the appropriate scale, with generalization if necessary, to create a geological map, which is a representation of the geological model. Explanatory notes and vertical and horizontal cross sections may be published with the map. Geological maps may be created to show various aspects of the geology, or themes. The most common map themes held by BGS are solid (later referred to as bedrock) and drift (later referred to as superficial). These maps are hard-copy paper records stored in the National Geoscience Data Centre (NGDC) and are delivered as digital scans through the BGS website.

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for County and Unitary Authorities including Metropolitan Counties, in the United Kingdom, as at December 2022.The boundaries available are: (BUC) Ultra Generalised (500m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water Mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BUC/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_inc_Metropolitan_Counties_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BUC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_inc_Metropolitan_Counties_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BUC/MapServer

The Land Cover Map 2024 (UK Land Cover Statistics) dataset summarises the coverage of different land cover types across Great Britain and Northern Ireland, classified into 21 UKCEH land cover classes, based upon Biodiversity Action Plan broad habitats. This data is provided in both .csv and geopackage (vector) formats. Statistics are calculated at country, county, and regional (England only) levels from the Land Cover Map 2024 (10 m classified pixels) datasets for Great Britain and Northern Ireland. A full description of this and all UKCEH LCM2024 products are available from the LCM2024 product documentation. In addition to UKCEH as copyright holders, the Land Cover Map 2024 (UK Land Cover Statistics) products use digital boundary products and reference maps. The source of the data is the Office for National Statistics and they are licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. They contain OS data © Crown copyright and database right [2024].

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.

They represent the boundaries of Registration Districts in England and Wales as in use at the date of each Census of Population between 1851 and 1911, 1911 being the last census to report extensively on these units.

Polygon dataset showing the 6 counties of Northern Ireland e.g. County Armagh, County Tyrone etc which were the primary local government geography of Northern Ireland before the introduction of unitary authorities in 1972. A PNG map showing the Northern Ireland county boundaries was downloaded from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Northern_Ireland_-_Counties.png The PNG was georeferenced in QGIS using control points with reference to an OGL dataset downloaded from the UK Data Service showing the Northern Ireland coastline. Internal county boundaries were digitised from the georeferenced PNG as a set of polylines. These polylines were then snapped to the coastline features and polygons were generated. A county name was then assigned to each polygon in the attribute table. GIS vector data. This dataset was first accessioned in the EDINA ShareGeo Open repository on 2014-02-24 and migrated to Edinburgh DataShare on 2017-02-22.

Local Authority is a generic term used to cover London Boroughs, Metropolitan Districts, Non-Metropolitan Districts, and Unitary Authorities in England; Unitary Authorities in Wales; Council Areas in Scotland; and Local Government Districts in Northern Ireland.

The Local Authorities area list contains 404 areas of the following constituent geographies:

• 36 Metropolitan Districts in England
• 201 Non-Metropolitan Districts in England
• 31 London Boroughs in England
• 54 Unitary Authorities in England
• 26 Local Government Districts in Northern Ireland
• 32 Council Areas in Scotland
• 22 Unitary Authorities in Wales
• 2 Census Merged Districts in England

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 Crop Map of England (CROME) is a polygon vector dataset mainly containing the crop types of England. The dataset contains approximately 32 million hexagonal cells classifying England into over 15 main crop types, grassland, and non-agricultural land covers, such as Woodland, Water Bodies, Fallow Land and other non-agricultural land covers. The classification was created automatically using supervised classification (Random Forest Classification) from the combination of Sentinel-1 Radar and Planet Fusion Optical Satellite images during the period January 2023 – August 2023. The dataset was created to aid the classification of crop types from optical imagery, which can be affected by cloud cover. The results were checked against survey data collected by field inspectors and visually validated. The data has been split into the Ordnance Survey Ceremonial Counties and each county is given a three letter code. Please refer to the CROME specification document to see which county each CODE label represents.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. The aims of the project were : to ascertain how many enclosure, parochial assessment, drainage and sanitary maps survive in England and Wales; to analyse their cartographic characteristics, including scale, date and mapmaker; to analyse the way in which central and local government and their agencies used maps as instruments with which to implement policy relating to the ownership, use and taxation of land; to analyse regional and temporal variations in the coverage of England and Wales by various types of map; to obtain data on historic parish and township boundaries in England and Wales. Main Topics: The dataset covers all the enclosure, parochial assessment, drainage and sanitary maps of England and Wales which were available for public consultation at the time of data collection (1993-1997). For all maps, the date of the map, its scale, its centroid on the National Grid, its dimensions, its maker (where known) and all details as to the types of information (boundaries, communications, settlement, land use, water features, public boundaries, cadastral information) contained on each map are recorded. It is possible to analyse the data by late nineteenth century county, by date and by type of map. Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

Data identifying Cambridgeshire's county boundary. For more information, please see the ONS Geoportal website. If data is used, please acknowledge the copyright and the source of the data by including the following attribution statements:

Contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right (2016)

Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right (2016)

For more details about licencing go to: https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/licences

Source: ONS Geoportal

All data is correct as of download date: 17/10/2016

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Counties and Unitary Authorities, in the United Kingdom, as at December 2022.The boundaries available are: (BFE) Full resolution - 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).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2022_UK_BFE/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2022_UK_BFE/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_(December_2022)_UK_BFE/MapServer