Super output areas

Super output areas are small areas designed to improve reporting of small area statistics. They were last updated in 2011. The files here are provided as GeoJSON files. The links below will allow the area to be viewed, within GitHub, and then downloaded if required.

Output areas

Output areas are the building blocks of super output areas. They are the lowest level geography that census data is provided at. Unlike LSOAs and MSOAs (the 'super' output areas), they are not as uniform in terms of minimum and maximum numbers of households/population. However, some statistical data, including population counts, and other census information, are available for them.

Lower layer super output areas (LSOAs)

LSOAs are made up of output areas, and are designed to have a minimum population of 1000, and maximum of 3000. They have a minimum household count of 400 and maximum of 1200. Deprivation indices, which measure relative deprivation of an area in various categories, are released at this level of geography.

Middle layer super output areas (MSOAs)

MSOAs are made up of LSOAs and have a minimum population of 5000 and maximum of 15000. They have a minimum household count of 2000, and maximum of 6000.

Licence and data source

All super output area geographies are open data sourced from the ONS Geography portal. These are provided under the Open Government Licence.

  • Contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right 2018

  • Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2018

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