Boundary-Line^™

May 2009 Update

The 9 new Unitary Authorities and ED/wards that came into effect from the1st April 2009 have been included in the May 2009 release of Boundary-Line.

 Customers will still be provided  with the 'future dated' (effective) England and Wales Westminster (Parliamentary) Constituency boundaries, which accompany the scheduled Boundary-Line release.

• Boundary-Line customers will receive this new data in with their scheduled releases. 
• Supplied in ESRI^® Shapefile and MapInfo^® MID/MIF & TAB formats.
• Information regarding this enhancement will  be found on the (effective) product CD and format information in the Boundary-Line user guide/ technical specification;  located at: User Guide

Once a General Election has been called these 'future dated'(effective) boundaries will become 'operative' (current) and will then be incorporated into the Boundary-Line product, at the next appropriate release.

About the product

Boundary-Line is a specialist 1:10 000 scale boundaries dataset. It contains all levels of electoral and administrative boundaries, from district, wards and civil parishes (or communities) up to parliamentary, assembly and European constituencies.

The information is represented as vector digital data.   

The boundary information is updated twice a year, in May and October. The May release contains the boundaries that become live in the first week of May, in the year of release. The October release contains the May boundaries plus additional information. Customers can choose either May or October releases.

Features and boundaries incorporated in Boundary-Line

• County - The named  county, district, district ward, civil parish, county electoral division (ED).
• European constituencies - The named European region.
• Greater London Authority  - The Greater London Authority, Greater London Authority Assembly constituency, London borough, London borough ward. 
• Metropolitan districts - The named metropolitan district, metropolitan district ward, civil parish where appropriate. 
• Scottish parliamentary electoral region - The named Scottish Parliamentary electoral region, Scottish parliamentary consitiuency.
• Unitary authorities- The named unitary authority, unitary authority ward or unitary authority ED as appropriate, civil parish where appropriate, together with community in Wales.
• Welsh Assembly Electoral Region - The named Welsh Assembly electoral region, Welsh assembly constituency.
• Westminster constituencies - The named Westminster constituency. 
• Extent of the realm -  Low water mark or seaward boundary extension.
• High water mark
• Unique identifiers -   For administrative areas, polygons and links.
• Area measurements
• Definitive names
• Census codes

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Features and benefits

• A detailed and definitive boundary dataset for Great Britain suited to multiple applications using a GIS, CAD and digital mapping systems.
• Structured vector format, offering maximum functionality.
• Digitised against and displayed at 1:10 000 scale mapping.
• Area values for every polygon.
• Census Agency codes (where available) allow you to link Boundary-Line polygons with census statistics.

Suggested applications

• Development and land use planning
• Environmental impact analysis
• Vehicle routing
• Asset management
• Marketing analysis

View the product interactively

Take a look at how Boundary-Line data might appear in a GIS by launching our product viewer.

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Census Output Areas

Census Output Areas are the definitive polygon geography for the 2001 Census results. Created by the ONS for England and Wales and the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS), their purpose is to link census data to geographical areas.

The data for England and Wales are available by direct request from ONS by email to census.customerservices@ons.gov.uk, and the data for Scotland are available from GROS, email customer@gro-scotland.gov.uk