New geography

Major towns and cities geography

Available with Annual population Survey, Claimant Count and Jobseekers allowance data sets

Major Towns and Cities

This statistical geography provides a precise definition of the major towns and cities in England and Wales. It has been developed specifically for the production and analysis of statistics, and is based on the built-up areas geography that was created for the release of 2011 Census data.

A population size threshold of 75,000 usual resident population or workday population (as at 2011 Census) was used to define the 112 major towns and cities included in the geography.

The major towns and cities geography has been released as 'experimental'. This mechanism allows time for ONS to assess the response from the user community, both about its usefulness fro analysis and its definitional accuracy.

Further information is available in the Towns and Cities User guide (pdf).