Historic ward boundaries

[Deleted]

I discovered this earlier today - historic ward boundaries as they existed at the time of each Census from 1981, which may be of interest to some of you. They are available in Shapefile or KML format and can be download by county.

You can also download 1971 ward boundaries (i.e. the pre-1974 authorities) but they are very poor quality.

census.edina.ac.uk/bds.html

[andrewteale]

Thank you!

[Pete Whitehead]

How do you open these things?

[afleitch]

Aug 28, 2016 19:01:46 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

How do you open these things?

I just use the map view.

[hullenedge]

There will be other (probably better) ways but choose KML (zipped) for download. Extract KML file and follow these instructions to open file in google maps:-

support.google.com/mymaps/answer/3024836?hl=en

The 1971 wards lack some accuracy but better than nowt...please see image below:-

www.dropbox.com/s/1tzosd5q6k7fheq/1971%20wards.png?dl=0

[Deleted]

You will need GIS software to open the Shapefile, I used a program called QGIS but there are many others around.

Once you have the right software you can do all sorts of tricks with Shapefiles, like overlay the boundaries on Google Maps or combine two together (to compare the 1981 wards with current wards, for example)