LibGuides: Maps: Reference maps & data

Places & boundaries

Limits in the Seas
Maritime boundaries, 1970-present. Includes maps as well as descriptive text. Hosted by the Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs, U.S. State Department.
IBRU: Centre for Borders Research
Based at the University of Durham. This page has links to maps, databases and publications relating to border research
UN member states
List of member states of the United Nations, including links to statistics.
Independent States in the World
Permanent archive of states and dependencies from the U.S. State Department.
Royal Mail Postcode Finder
UK postcode finder. Allows up to 50 free searches per day.

Environment

UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre
UNEP WCMC provides information for policy and action to conserve the living world. Their programmes concentrate on species, forests, protected areas, marine, mountains and freshwaters; plus habitats affected by climate change such as polar regions. They also address the relationship between trade and the environment and the wider aspects of biodiversity assessment.
UK-AIR, Air Quality Information Resource
Information and interactive maps relating to air quality and air pollution in the UK. DEFRA site.
Biomapping
Christian Nold is an artist who produces emotional maps of places. Bio Mapping is a community mapping project in which over the last three years almost 1000 people have taken part. Samples of the maps are available here, and links to the full version of the Greenwich emotion map. A Stockport Emotion Map and a San Francisco emotion map have also been produced.

Statistics & censuses

Office for National Statistics
Official statistics from the ONS. Covers various themes eg. Agriculture, fishing and forestry, Crime and justice. Includes a section on key figures eg. Social indicators, Employment and GDP, or look up regional statistics. Also links to online publications eg. Social Trends, Regional Trends.

Census Datasets This link opens in a new window
UK Data Service Census Support provides a one stop gateway to data and support services which allow users and researchers in UK Higher and Further Education to access the 1971, 1981, 1991, 2001 and 2011 UK censuses. It also provides access to other important census related resources.
Includes links to:

- Aggregate statistics. There are two web-based interfaces that enable users to access and extract data from the aggregate statistics outputs from the 1971, 1981, 1991, 2001 and 2011 censuses. Casweb, the older interface, contains UK census data up to 2001. InFuse contains the 2011 and 2001 census aggregate data for England and Wales.

- Flow data. Access to interaction data is provided through WICID (Web-based Interface to Census Interaction Data).

- Microdata. Samples of Anonymised Records (SARs), which are samples of individual person-level records, are currently available from the 1991 and 2001 censuses, and will be available from the 2011 census in due course. Most SAR files can be downloaded from the Census microdata page.

- Digitised boundary datasets, digitised representations of the underlying geography of the censuses, are available on the Census boundary data site. They are available in many Geographical Information System (GIS) formats. Includes 1991, 2001 and 2011 UK census boundaries and some historic boundaries.

-The Historical Censuses Collections (CHCC), which comprise individual and aggregate-level historical census data.

Help and guidance
The UK Data Service provides guides for the different types of census data that are available (aggregate data, flow data, microdata and boundary data). They also provide a wide range of guides on discovering, interpreting and manipulating data.

Teachers may be interested in the teaching datasets and practical resources that the UK Data Service provides to support the use of data in teaching and learning.

City population
Population statistics and maps for countries, major cities, major agglomerations and administrative divisions of each country. Includes interactive maps and diagrams showing population growth and density.