These are digital boundaries for the system of Civil Parishes which was and is the most detailed level of local administration in England and Wales, although in many areas parish councils are now moribund. This system was created in the mid-nineteenth century, although based on an earlier system of Ancient Parishes which were primarily ecclesiastical. This file represents the system as it was used to report the 1931 Census of Population. To distinguish between identical place names with different administrative geographies, an Administrative County Boundaries layer may be used to add County name attributes to this layer. Statistical data and other information used in “A Vision of Britain through Time” can be accessed here: http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/data. This dataset is intended for researchers, students, and policy makers for reference and mapping purposes, and may be used for basic applications such as viewing, querying, and map output production, or to provide a basemap to support graphical overlays and analysis with other spatial data. Great Britain Historical GIS Project. (2009). Civil Parishes of England and Wales, 1931. University of Portsmouth. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/gm960bz8147 Gregory, I, Bennett, C, Gilham, V., and Southall, H. 2002. The Great Britain Historical GIS Project: from maps to changing human geography.' The Cartographic Journal, Vol. 39, No. 1, p. 37-49. Southall, H 2012, 'Rebuilding the Great Britain Historical GIS, part 2: a geo-spatial ontology of administrative units' Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, vol 45, no. 3, pp. 119-134. DOI: 10.1080/01615440.2012.664101 For full details see License document included with this layer This layer is presented in the WGS84 coordinate system for web display purposes. Downloadable data are provided in native coordinate system or projection.
