In the past, we created two products to support periods of change in administrative geographies. We no longer maintain these products, but one of them is still available from us.

‘The ONS Geography User Guide’ provided details of administrative area boundary changes in England and Wales between the 1991 Census and the 2001 Census. It contained maps showing which counties, districts and unitary authorities were affected by boundary change, as well as indicating the extent and frequency of those changes. There were also a number of directories listing the instances of each type of boundary change. In each directory, users were referred to the applicable Statutory Instruments or Act of Parliament. This product is no longer available.

‘The Gazetteer of the Old and New Geographies of the United Kingdom’ provides details of the local government reorganisation (LGR) between 1995 and 1998 which resulted in major changes to the administrative structure of the UK. The gazetteer is a comprehensive and illustrated guide to those changes. It relates all new administrative geographies to the former ones, and also links the new areas to regions (former government office regions (GOR)), standard statistical regions (SSR), Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) areas and health geographies. This one is available as a pdf file.

Availability and cost

If you require the gazetteer, please contact us at ons.geography@ons.gov.uk.

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