2011 Census Geography
NRS provide a range of geography products to support the census statistical information published as reference tables and datasets. These do not contain any information about the population themselves but describe the geographical areas, and the relationship between them, for which 2011 Census population estimates are produced. A range of index tables, digital boundary files and supporting information relating to the 2011 Census are available below.
Supporting information
NRS have provided a very useful resource of documents explaining the background to Census geography, best-fit and exact-fit policy, boundary changes and comparisons of 2001 and 2011 OAs (including a 2001 to 2011 look-up table).
Look-up products
The NRS website contains a 2011 Census Output Area to higher area index files in a Microsoft Access database format. This provides a link between OAs and higher areas such as Electoral wards, Council Areas, Postcode sectors and parliamentary constituencies. In addition a 2011 OA ‘old to new’ Excel file is available and provides a look-up between the interim OA codes that were published on 15 August 2013 but replaced when NRS re-coded the zones to run consecutively within Council Areas.
Digital boundaries
Both the NRS and the Scottish Government websites have provided a series of boundary files in ESRI shape file format to support access to Census data. To aid users, we have split the original national files into files local authorities in Scotland and made these available in Mapshore (BDY), MapInfo (TAB) and ESRI (SHP) formats below. These files have been created from the original “extent of the realm” boundaries released by NRS.
The boundaries below include Census 2011 Output Areas, 2001 Datazones, 2001 Intermediatezones, 2011 Census Local Characteristic Sectors, 2011 Census Detailed Characteristic Sectors, electoral wards and Council Areas. These boundaries are provided under a combination of the Open Government Licence, One Scotland Mapping Agreement and the Scottish Government Spatial data licence. More details around licence can be found on the NRS website.
| Description | Coverage | Downloads (zip) |
|---|---|---|
2011 Census boundaries:
|
Scotland (all zones as a single file for Scotland) | |
| All Council Areas (zones split by CA boundaries) | ||
| Aberdeen City | ||
| Aberdeenshire | ||
| Angus | ||
| Argyll_&_Bute | ||
| City of Edinburgh | ||
| Clackmannanshire | ||
| Dumfries & Galloway | ||
| Dundee City | ||
| East Ayrshire | ||
| East Dunbartonshire | ||
| East Lothian | ||
| East Renfrewshire | ||
| Eilean Siar | ||
| Falkirk | ||
| Fife | ||
| Glasgow City | ||
| Highland | ||
| Inverclyde | ||
| Midlothian | ||
| Moray | ||
| North Ayrshire | ||
| North Lanarkshire | ||
| Orkney Islands | ||
| Perth & Kinross | ||
| Renfrewshire | ||
| Scottish Borders | ||
| Shetland Islands | ||
| South Ayrshire | ||
| South Lanarkshire | ||
| Stirling | ||
| West Dunbartonshire | ||
| West Lothian |
