The Historic Counties Institute has today formally written to Ordnance Survey (OS), urging the national mapping agency to correct what it describes as a “fundamental error” in a dataset currently published on the UK Government’s data portal.
The dataset in question, titled “Historic counties data” and published via data.gov.uk, claims to show historic county boundaries. However, on closer inspection, it is based on the administrative county areas created under the Local Government Acts of 1888 (England and Wales) and 1889 (Scotland).
According to the Institute, this is not a matter of interpretation – but of fact.
Administrative areas presented as “historic counties”
The key issue is straightforward: the boundaries created in 1888 and 1889 were administrative constructs, introduced for the purposes of local government. They do not represent the historic counties themselves, which had already existed for centuries as the enduring geography of the country.
By presenting these administrative areas as “historic counties”, the dataset risks reinforcing a long-standing confusion between geography and administration.
As the Campaign explains, the correct historic county boundaries are those that existed immediately before the introduction of these Acts – not the administrative units that followed them.
Established standard already in use by government
This is not an unresolved or ambiguous issue. The correct framework is already in use within government.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS), in its Index of Place Names (IPN), explicitly adopts the Historic Counties Standard (Definition A) as the basis for identifying historic counties. The ONS describes these counties as:
a stable, unchanging geography which covers the whole of Great Britain
and notes that they have:
existed largely unchanged since the Middle Ages.
This stands in clear contrast to the OS dataset, which instead reflects a short-lived phase of administrative geography beginning in the late nineteenth century.
A call for correction
In its letter to Ordnance Survey, the Institute has called for two simple but important actions:
- That the current dataset be correctly labelled as representing administrative county areas established in 1888/1889; and
- That any dataset described as “historic counties” be aligned with the Historic Counties Standard already used by the ONS.
The Institute argues that this distinction is not merely technical, but essential to public understanding. The use of the word “county” for multiple, overlapping administrative purposes since 1888 has been a major source of confusion – one that persists to this day.
A shared responsibility
The letter also highlights Ordnance Survey’s unique position. Established in 1791 to map the country, the OS carried out its work county-by-county, documenting the true geographic counties long before the advent of modern local government structures.
As such, the Institute suggests that the OS is particularly well-placed – and indeed well-obliged – to ensure that these distinctions are clearly and accurately maintained.
Offering collaboration
Alongside its request for correction, the Institute has offered to work constructively with Ordnance Survey going forward.
In recent years, it has developed its own detailed and freely accessible interactive map of the historic counties of Great Britain, designed to clarify boundaries and make this enduring geography more widely understood.
By combining resources and expertise, the Campaign believes there is a real opportunity to improve the accuracy and consistency of geographic data across government – and to finally begin addressing the confusion that has built up over more than a century.