Great Britain coastline boundary (modified from 2011 Census boundary data) [GeoJSON]

Original purpose

This coastline boundary dataset was originally derived for research on population proximity to the UK coast. It required adaptation of boundary files in order to prevent areas close to major rivers from being counted as ‘coastal’. With no single definition of what ‘coastal’ is, we took a decision to cut off the coastline where major estuaries/rivers narrowed to approximately 1km. The original publication that used this approach and informed the development of the dataset is cited below (Wheeler et al, 2012).

Please note therefore that this is a somewhat arbitrary definition of what is coastal, and you will need to make sure this definition is appropriate for your application for this to be useful.

Method & Data Format

Original source data: UK Census 2011 Lower-layer Super Output Areas / Data Zones  – full resolution / Mean High Water version.

LSOA/DZ boundaries were dissolved to create outline boundary at Mean High Water.

Major estuaries/rivers were manually truncated where they narrowed to approximately 1km width.

Data are provided as a GeoJSON file

Co-ordinate system is British National Grid (EPSG 27700)

Original data source & copyright

This boundary dataset was derived from Ordnance Survey/Office for National Statistics/Scottish Government data, under Open Government Licence. Its use/re-use is dependent on appropriate citation and acknowledgement of the original source data.

Licence: Adapted and redistributed under Open Government Licence: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Copyright statements to appear on any maps/publications containing these data:

Contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right 2012

Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2012

Copyright Scottish Government, contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right (2012).

Citation and Attribution

The original source of the approach and methodology for this coastal definition should be cited as:

Wheeler, B.W., White, M., Stahl-Timmins, W., Depledge, M.H., 2012. Does living by the coast improve health and wellbeing? Health and Place 18: 5, 1198-1201. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2012.06.015

The boundary dataset requires the copyright statements as above to be stated on any publication/redistribution.

The adapted data are redistributed here under CC-BY Licence - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/