Census 1991 - Localities

This dataset portrays the boundaries of ‘Localities’ in Scotland as at the 1991 Census.. There is widespread interest in statistics for the built-up areas in Scotland as most of the population lives in a built-up environment. When the former two-tier local government structure of regions and districts came into being in May 1975, the small local authorities known as large and small burghs were lost. However, Census users stated that there was a need to know the population (and characteristics) of built-up areas. For 1991 Localities, information on the area of a postcode was available from the digitised postcode boundaries and also on the postcode’s population from the 1991 Census. The method used to identify localities in 1991 was basically to classify a postcode as either urban or rural based on population density. Groups of urban (high population density) postcodes were identified where the number of residents in all the postcodes in the group was 500 or more. The final stage was to ask the local authorities to suggest any changes which might refine the boundaries of the identified settlements. This method identified 603 localities, 448 of which contained 1,000 residents or more, with the remainder containing a population of 500 or more but less that 1000.