Boundary-Line Overview

This overview introduces Boundary-Line and gives context for all users – highlighting key features, providing examples of potential uses, and listing details such as file sizes, supply formats, etc.

Boundary-Line provides a representation of the hierarchy of administrative and electoral boundaries and their names for England, Scotland and Wales. Boundary-Line for England and Wales was initially digitised from Ordnance Survey’s boundary record sheets at 1:10 000 scale (or, in some cases, at larger scales).

The Government Statistical Service (GSS) codes are supplied by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and General Register Office for Scotland (GROS).

Appropriate software is needed to use the data for your intended application.

An example of Boundary-Line data in Scotland

Boundary-Line benefits

The high specification of Boundary-Line offers you the following benefits:

• Full coverage of Great Britain, supplied as England, Scotland and Wales.

• The key boundary dataset for Great Britain, suited to multiple applications using a geographical information system (GIS) and other digital mapping systems.

• The full hierarchy of boundaries.

• Structured vector format, offering great functionality.

• GSS codes, where available, which allow you to link Boundary-Line polygons with GSS information.

• Area values for every polygon.

• Mean high water (springs) mark, which enables you to build and explicitly identify dry land areas within coastal polygons.

• Documented updates via bi-annual releases allow you to easily identify relevant changes.

• Unique administrative area identifiers are retained at each update, allowing revised boundaries to be related to your existing data.

Applications

Boundary-Line can be used for GIS analysis to support a wide range of business decision-making, such as:

• Political analysis

• Environmental analysis

• Statistical analysis for social or marketing decision-making

• Geo-demographic analysis

• Asset management

• Planning applications

• Legal work

• Reference and research

• Customised graphic output

Available formats

Boundary-Line is available in the following formats:

• Esri shapefile

• MapInfo TAB file

• GeoPackage

• Geography Markup Language (GML)

• Vector tiles (MBTiles)

Supply mechanism

Boundary-Line can be freely downloaded under the Open Government Licence. Data can be downloaded in various formats from the Ordnance Survey Data Hub.

Update schedule

Boundary-Line is updated twice a year, in spring and autumn, allowing a choice as to which update is preferred.

The spring update represents boundaries (as defined and modified by Orders, Acts and Statutory Instruments) at the date of the May local elections.

The autumn update also represents boundaries at the date of the May local elections and is operative from the previous spring / May to autumn / October release.

Unlike changes to other boundaries, changes to Westminster constituency (parliamentary) boundaries do not come into operation on a defined date, and it is therefore difficult to timetable such changes into the spring or autumn updates. Therefore, any forthcoming Westminster constituency (parliamentary) boundary changes that have been approved by Government will be supplied as a separate file (in MapInfo TAB or Esri shapefile formats only) as part of the updates until they are included in the product.