Sources, dates and limitations
Compiled October 2026. Layers describe different dates; this is an exploratory national map, not a survey or a development suitability assessment.
- Carnell, Tomlinson & Reis (2025), UKCEH gridded population. Residential census population for England, Wales and Northern Ireland (2021), and Scotland (2022), distributed using Land Cover Map 2021. Original 1 km grid retained. Open Government Licence. Positive estimates are pink/red; in-country cells without an assigned estimate are green. A cell can contain homes and extensive farmland. These are modelled allocations, not counts of occupied buildings.
- Copernicus CORINE Land Cover 2018, via the EEA map service. Agricultural classes 2xx combined; includes pasture and mixed farming, not farm ownership boundaries. Generalised source: 25 ha minimum mapping unit and 100 m minimum width. Display sampled at 500 m, so small parcels are not resolved. Sports/leisure includes uses besides golf. © European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, European Environment Agency.
- OS Open Greenspace, via Esri UK, April 2026 edition. Selected “Golf Course” areas. Great Britain coverage only: no equivalent Northern Ireland golf boundaries are supplied here. Records may describe parts of a course and do not establish present operation or ownership. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Open Government Licence.
- Historic England: Registered Parks and Gardens; Historic Environment Scotland; Cadw registered historic parks and gardens; and Northern Ireland Department for Communities. Official records accessed for this map. Includes public parks, private estates, cemeteries and other designed landscapes. Not a complete inventory of large private gardens; ownership and public access are not inferred. Contains public sector information under the Open Government Licence; © respective bodies / Crown copyright.
- Natural Earth 1:10m country outlines and settlement labels (public domain). Generalised coastlines are unsuitable for parcel decisions. Projection: OSGB36 / British National Grid, EPSG:27700. Boundaries simplified for display; areas calculated before display simplification, from retrieved geometry. Small discrepancies between coastlines and raster cells are expected. The overview excludes the remote rock of Rockall.
The population map is not a measure of a town’s capacity or “overpopulation”. This map does not assess protected habitats, flood risk, slope, infrastructure capacity, planning permission or land availability. No classification of wealth or “waste” is inferred.
Interactive mapping: Leaflet 1.9.4, © Vladimir Agafonkin / CloudMade and contributors, BSD 2-Clause. No map tiles, tracking, login or external requests are needed to use this file.