GEOG3025

Administrative and statistical geographies

GEOG3025

Administrative and statistical geographies

• Lecture overview:Objectives of lecture

Introductory questions

Introduction to principal geographical systems:

Census

Postcodes

Lecture summary

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Objectives

• To understand the variety of different geographies in use in the UK

• To identify those for which most useful information about neighbourhoods might be obtained

• To learn how to find out about the boundaries, names and codes of these geographies

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Introductory questions…

What do we mean by a ‘geography’?

So what are examples of different ‘geographies’?

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Principal NS geographies

• Local government• Mail delivery• Health care delivery• Census collection and

output• Electoral representation• Statistical and functional…

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United Kingdom?

• Important to recognise that there are many differences in geography systems between the countries of the UK

• Our focus is primarily on England and Wales

• EU NUTS!

England

GOR

UA

County

District

ST Ward

CAS Ward

OA

Wales

UA

ST EDiv

CAS EDiv

OA

Scotland

CA

ST PCS

CAS PCS

OA

NI

LGD

Ward

OA

Sourc

e:

Just

in H

ayes

Incompatible hierarchies! (England)

Health Administrative

Electoral Postal

Strategic health

authorities

Government office regions

European electoral regions

Counties, Met. Counties, Gtr.

London

Postal regions

Primary care organizations

Boroughs, districts, unitary

authorities

Westminster constituencies

Postal districts

Wards Electoral wards

Postal sectors

Parishes Postcodes

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Does geography matter?

Source

: new

s.bbc.co

.uk

Source

: guard

ian.co

.uk

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Relationships between geographies

No functional linkage

‘Snapshot’ linkages

Various…

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Census geography

• Enumeration districts (EDs)• Output areas (OAs)• Statistical wards, Census Area

Statistics (CAS) wards and Standard Tables (ST) wards

• Districts, unitary authorities etc.

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Enumeration districtSourc

e:

ON

S

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New for 2001 Census geography…

• Separation between collection and output geographies

• Creation of OA boundaries by application of automated zone design to postcode boundaries

• Creation of synthetic postcode boundaries as first step

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Automated output area design

Initial RandomAggregation ofBuilding Blocks

Initial RandomAggregation ofBuilding Blocks

Iterative RecombinationIterative RecombinationDesign Constraints

(Contiguity, Thresholds,Shape, Size, Homogeneity)

Design Constraints(Contiguity, Thresholds,

Shape, Size, Homogeneity)

2001 OutputAreas

2001 OutputAreas

2001 Output Areas (n=175,434)

[England and Wales]

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OA sizes summarizedEngland and Wales

No. Zones

MinCount(rest’d)

Maxcount

Meancount

St Dev

01 OAsPers

175434

100 4156 296.65 71.65

01 OAsHhds

175434

37 616 123.47 16.86

01 WardsPers

8850 106 35102 5880.44

4077.00

01 WardsHhds

8850 42 14397 2447.50

1700.81

91 EDsPers

113465

0 (3890)

1803 419.17 159.89

91 EDsHhds

113465

0 (4990)

664 174.37 62.34

2001 OA

1991 Ward

1991 ED

Code-Point

1991 ‘sea’

[Portswood, Southampton]

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Super Output Areas

• New geography for reporting of small area statistics.

• Initially for use on the NeSS website

• Eventually standard across National Statistics

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UK postcodes

• Devised to aid automated sorting and delivery of mail

• Controlled by Royal Mail• No formal geographical

boundaries at the smallest scale: just lists of addresses

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UK postcodes

Example Geographical unit

Number in UK (Aug 2003)

SO Area 124

SO17 District 2932

SO17 1 Sector 9750

SO17 1BJ Postcode 1.75m (approx)

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Change over time

• Census– Once every 10 years

• Administrative– Periodical

• Electoral – Continual, by review areas

• Postal– Continual

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ONS Beginners guide to UK Geog

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To be continued…

• We have identified the principal geography systems, but not the method by which social data comes to be associated with them

• This is called geographical referencing (georeferencing) and comes later in the course…

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Assignment 3• Work through the ONS Beginners’

guide to UK geography • Identify where your chosen

neighbourhood falls within each of the principal geography systems

• Identify the appropriate geographical area names and codes, using the smallest geographical units for which you can obtain information

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Lecture summary

• Multiple geographies covering the UK and its constituent countries

• Each designed for different purposes, by different bodies, at different times

• Particular interest in census and postal geographies, but in any geography that may help describe neighbourhoods