As part of our continuing census series, James Reid introduces the opportunities, challenges and solutions when approaching different geographies in the UK censuses.
The UK decennial censuses of population are unique in terms of their geographical coverage and depth – not least because of the geographical detail at which they capture primary socio-economic and demographic data at a small area level.
Why ‘geography products’?
Census geography products (typically expressed as indonesia rcs data digital data for use in statistical and mapping software), supplement the census statistical information in published reference tables (the ‘aggregate’ data – which most people would consider ‘the census’ i.e. tables of numbers) and provide a wealth of associated datasets which describe for example the relation of one geographical area to another and cross-walk areal codes so that it is possible to traverse the census geography at different spatial scales from street level to country level.
The core geography census products are effectively the areal ‘buckets’ into which the aggregate (population) count information can be poured for purposes of mapping, visualisation and statistical analyses.