ArcGIS shapefile of 2433 polygons providing boundary and attribute data for the 1096 hundreds, wapentakes, wards, divisions, liberties and boroughs of England and Wales as given in the 1831 census.These data were created as part of a research program directed by Leigh Shaw-Taylor and Tony Wrigley, which aims ultimately to reconstruct the evolution of the occupational structure of Britain from the late medieval period down to the early twentieth century.

The GIS data originates from the 173 digital maps of the boundaries of English and Welsh parishes and their subdivisions produced by Roger Kain and Richard Oliver based on the listing in the 1851 census. The maps were subsequently converted into a single GIS by Burton et al. The GIS attribute data were checked, edited and enhanced with extra data from the census by Max Satchell, Tony Wrigley and a small army of research assistants with technical support from Peter Kitson and Gill Newton. Max Satchell checked and in some cases edited the GIS polygon data using a variety of cartographic and documentary sources. Of these the most important were digital scans of the Ordnance Survey first edition 1:2500 and 1:10560 maps from the Landmark Group distributed by Edina , the series of maps of registration districts and sub-districts boundaries prepared for the Registrar General prior to the censuses of 1861, 1871 and 1891 and the description of enumeration district boundaries given in the Census Enumerators Books for the censuses from 1851, 1861 and 1871. The 1:63,360 maps and Census Enumerators Books are held in The National Archives, Kew (TNA, RG 18/3-155, 198-227, HO 107, RG 9, RG 10). The work involved changing one or more elements of information about place, parish, county, or three figure census number for 2,461 (10.8 per cent) of 22,729 lines of data in the Kain and Oliver GIS. This editing process saw the redigitisation of 644 of the 22,729 polygons, the deletion of 81 polygons, and the digitisation of 525 new polygons. The hundreds data was created as follows. Geoffrey Stanning under the supervision of Peter Kitson added the hundreds as given in the population tables of the 1851 census to each census parish or place as given in the Burton et al GIS. The remainder of the work was done by Max Satchell who systematically checked the hundred of each 1851 administrative unit against the hundred of the same unit as it was given in the enumeration abstract volumes of the 1831 census. The hundred of the unit was then changed to its 1831 designation where necessary. Where the census listed a hundred, wapentake, division, liberty or borough as belonging to a larger unit below the level of the county, such as a lathe, rape, riding division or part, its name is given in the separate column. In some instances a parish or place lay within two or more hundreds in 1831 but was represented by only a single Burton et al polygon. In such situations the polygon was subdivided using a variety of cartographic sources of hundred boundary data where these were available. The most significant of these were those maps of the Ordnance Survey first edition 1:2500 and 1:10560 prepared from 1844 to c.1880 when hundred boundaries were still shown. Maps of boundaries prepared for the Boundary Commissions of 1832 and 1837 were also invaluable for borough boundaries. At the end of this exercise only two out of 23,177 polygons could not be assigned to any hundred, wapentake, division, ward, liberty or borough.