A Map of Country of Birth Across the UK

Above: Areas of east and south-east London with more than 8% of inhabitants being originally from (from top to bottom) India (in East Ham), Lithuania (in Beckton) and Nigeria & Nepal (in Abbey Wood). Ever wondered why some branches of Tesco, the ubiquitous supermarket, have an American food section, while others have a Polish food … Continue reading A Map of Country of Birth Across the UK

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The Age of Buildings

We don’t have open individual building age data in the UK, unlike in some other countries (the data has been used to great effect in New York City and Amsterdam) but the Valuation Office Agency, which amongst other things decides council tax bandings for residential properties in England and Wales, has published some interesting data … Continue reading The Age of Buildings

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Deceptive in their Beauty?

  Finding ways to effectively map population data is a big issue in spatial data visualization.  The standard practice uses choropleth maps that simply colour administrative units based on the combined characteristics of the people that live there (see below). These maps are popular with cartographers for a couple of reasons. You get a clear sense that the …

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My Academic Research: What’s in a Name?

I have spent the last few years investigating the geography of family names (also called surnames). I work with the team who assembled the UCL Department of Geography Worldnames Database that contains the names and geographic locations of over 300 million people in nearly 30 countries (a few of these are yet to be added to the website). My research has …

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Workshop: geo-referencing, geo-demographics, postcodes and classifications

Workshop on geo-referencing, geo-demographics, postcodes and classifications University of Cardiff,  18 February 2011 Census.ac.uk are hosting a free workshop at the University of Cardiff for anyone working or studying in UK academia. This workshop will introduce participants to the use of postcodes and other area classifications, including the commercially-used Mosaic data and the ONS Output […]

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