This file contains the digital vector boundaries for built-up areas in England and Wales as at 27th March 2011 (Census day). 2011 Census data for built-up areas in England and Wales provides information on the villages, towns and cities where people live, and allows comparisons between people living in built-up areas and those living elsewhere. Census data for these areas (previously called urban areas) has been produced every 10 years since 1981. A new methodology to capture the areas has been used in the 2011 version, but it follows the rules used in previous versions so that results will be broadly comparable. As before, the definition follows a ‘bricks and mortar’ approach, with built-up areas defined as land with a minimum area of 20 hectares (200,000 m2), while settlements within 200 metre of each other are linked. There are 337 BUA where population has not been allocated (305 in England, 32 in Wales) and 133 BUASD where population has not been allocated (123 in England, 10 in Wales). The names and codes of these areas are included in the metadata accompanying the digital boundaries. This file contains the nine character coding only. For more information, please see the Code History Database (CHD) (link below). The built-up area boundaries area generalised and created using an automated approach based on a 50m grid squares. When viewing these boundaries in the map viewer, the names will only show when the scale is set to 1:15,000 or below. Please note that this product contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.
