This download service provides spatial data published by National Records of Scotland (NRS).

This view service provides spatial data published by National Records of Scotland (NRS).

From 1845 to1930, civil parishes formed part of Scotland’s local government system. The parishes, which had their origins in the ecclesiastical parishes of the Church of Scotland, often overlapped the then existing county boundaries. Parishes have had no direct administrative function in Scotland since 1930. There are 871 civil parishes in Scotland. The initial version of the Civil Parish boundaries was first created by Geography Branch, GROS in the mid-1960s. The boundaries were plotted on to Ordnance Survey 1:10,000 maps using the written descriptions of the parishes. In the late 1980s the boundaries were digitised using the Geographic Information System, called “GenaMap”. In 2006, GenaMap was replaced by ESRI’s ArcGIS product, and the civil parish boundaries were migrated to the new system. In March-April 2009 many of the coastal postcodes were edited to improve their alignment with MasterMap’s coastal detail. As a result, in May 2009 some of the coastal parishes were edited to ensure that all postcodes’ Gridlink points would fall within the limits of the civil parish boundaries. In terms of provenance, the vast majority of the civil parish boundaries date back to their original drawing in the mid-1960s onto OS 1:10,000 maps.

National Records of Scotland (NRS) create and maintain digital locality boundaries to support the creation of statistics for geographies that generally describe the urban areas of Scotland. Localities have a minimum rounded population of 500 people or more and generally correspond with the more recognisable towns and cities of Scotland. Localities nest within NRS Settlements geography, with every settlement having at least one locality (i.e. the Locality is the Settlement). Current Locality boundaries are reflective of mid-2016 populations, having been created using an amended version of postcodes from the Scottish Postcode Directory (SPD) 2016, release 2. Older versions of Settlements and Localities geographies are available from the NRS website.

This dataset shows the 2011 Census Output Areas (OAs) – Part Removed. This dataset contains the polygons which were removed in order to make the OA whole. The area of these polygons is included in the area figure for the 2011 OA. There were 349 non contiguous census output areas not caused by water. A decision was made to delete one of the polygons to make the OA whole. This was purely a cosmetic exercise. The part to be removed did not contain the master postcode and in the majority of the cases it was the smaller of the polygons but in a few instances it may have been the large part simply because the smaller part was more dense and master postcode assigned to it. Revisions and Corrections Revision to 2011 Output Area codes (13 September 2013) An anomaly was discovered in the 2011 Census Output Area (OA) codes which were published on 15 August 2013. The anomaly meant that, whilst all the current 2011 Census OA codes were unique, they did not always run in sequential order by council area. We decided to replace the codes with new ones that start at S00088956 and end with S00135306. Correction to 2011 Output Area boundaries (7 October 2013) Ten boundaries have been added to the dataset following amendments in line with the cosmetic exercise/spatial improvement described earlier

A 2011 LC sector was one of 2 special postcode sectors created for 2011 Census Output. A postcode sector comprises all the unit postcodes that have the same identifier except for the last two characters. Special postcode sectors are created for census output to ensure sectors conform to a minimum threshold and do not cross Council Area boundaries. LC sectors have a minimum threshold of 20 households and 50 persons, the same minimum threshold as Census Output Areas. There are 1,012 LC sectors. Corrections and Revisions Revision to Local Characteristic (LC) sector boundaries at boundary between East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire Council areas. (7 October 2013) LC Sectors S29000556, S29000558, and S29000870 have been amended following a correction to Ordnance Survey BoundaryLine.

This is the set of postcode boundaries used for 2011 census outputs. The postcode boundaries for census were originally frozen in January 2011 but have since been re-aligned to Ordnance Survey 2011 BoundaryLine for the purposes of producing census outputs. The re-alignment work ensures consistency of approach with the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and the Scottish Government (SG). The improvements made to the dataset as a result of re-alignment did not affect any existing higher area assignments in the Postcode Index although there will be some very minor differences in the boundaries if compared against the 2011_1 set of postcode boundaries already published. The dataset contains 145,690 postcode polygons. Revisions and Corrections Revision to postcode boundaries at boundary between East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire Council areas (7 October 2013) Postcodes PA2 7DA, PA2 7TX, PA2 8TY, G53 7TH, G78 1HJ, and G78 1TJ have been amended following a correction to Ordnance Survey BoundaryLine.

This dataset contains grid references for the 2011 frozen postcode boundaries. Each individual postcode polygon holds a grid reference. Grid references have been assigned by NRS, choosing the building nearest to the centre of the most populous part of the postcode, or the grid reference is from Gridlink®.

The geography of Scotland comprises the mainland plus many islands. Some of these islands are inhabited and through time their inhabited/uninhabited status can change. As statistics for individual islands could reveal details about individual people, the individual islands have been grouped into 56 ‘island groups’ for 2011 Census output. Revisions and Corrections An anomaly was discovered in the 2011 Island Groups boundaries where the boundaries for some of the island groups were not including the mainland part of the island group.

An DC sector is one of 2 special postcode sectors created for 2011 Census Output. A postcode sector comprises all the unit postcodes that have the same identifier except for the last two characters. Special postcode sectors are created for census output to ensure sectors conform to a minimum threshold and do not cross Council Area boundaries. DC sectors have a minimum threshold of 400 households and 1000 persons. There are 866 DC sectors. Revisions and Corrections Revision to Detailed Characteristic (DC) sector boundaries at boundary between East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire Council areas. (7 October 2013) DC Sectors S28000494, S28000496, and S280007669 have been amended following a correction to Ordnance Survey BoundaryLine.