OS Open Built Up Areas Overview
This overview introduces OS Open Built Up Areas, giving context for all users – highlighting key features, providing examples of uses, and listing details such as file sizes, supply formats, etc.
OS Open Built Up Areas is a dataset representing the built-up areas of Great Britain. It was designed primarily to underpin the statistical analysis that contributes to policy enablement across the public sector.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Scottish Government made significant contributions in the design of the dataset to ensure it is fit for purpose and focussed on the needs of the wider public sector.
OS Open Built Up Areas is released and maintained as an OS OpenData product with Open Government Licensing (OGL), enabling anyone to use it for a wide range of purposes.
Designed alongside ONS and the Scottish Government to support statistical analysis and policy development.
Comprised of three feature types that enable a wide range of statistical analysis:
Built Up Areas is the aggregation of Built Up Extents and Non Built Up Extents.
Built Up Extents is the representation of built-up areas within the extent of Built Up Areas.
Non Built Up Extents is the representation of non-built-up areas within the extent of Built Up Areas.
The dataset include only built-up areas of 200 000 m² (20 ha) or more, based on customer requirements.
Area values are provided in square metres (m²) and hectares (ha) to support interoperability with other OS datasets.
Feature types contain (or reference) Government Statistical Service (GSS) codes to facilitate compatibility and interoperability with related public sector datasets referencing GSS codes.
Includes Built Up Area names in alternative languages (Gaelic and Welsh), where available.
Supplied in two widely used formats, GeoPackage and CSV (comma-separated values), that are both easy to load into geographic information systems (GIS) and databases. GeoPackage is an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standard format.
Open Government Licensing (OGL) means the data is available to everyone free at the point of use, with no restrictions on use.
OS Open Built Up Areas enables policy makers and analysts to conduct analysis corresponding to real-world urban extents, for example, towns, cities, and villages. This enables you to understand economic, social, and environmental patterns within the settlements where most people in Great Britain live.
Using OS Open Built Up Areas, you can:
Gain invaluable insights that can be used in the design and implementation of policies, such as, Levelling Up and Net Zero.
Monitor changes related to built up areas over time to improve understanding of economic, social, and environmental factors.
Measure the effectiveness of policy delivery to improve planning and services.
Use Built Up Extents data to support population density and demographic analysis.
Use Non Built Up Extents data to provide insights into non-built-up areas that can be used to inform and calculate statistics, such as, the impact of natural capital on house prices.
Use GSS codes to connect with other datasets to support improved asset management, planning and analysis.
Create thematic mapping and data visualisations linked to government-recognised Built Up Areas.
Index
Last updated
Was this helpful?