Incorporating the historic counties into web maps and Geographic Information Systems

The Historic Counties Trust provides county border data as part of the Historic Counties Border Project. The digitised data can be used to bring county borders to your web map applications and GIS projects.

Incorporating county borders into web maps

At the most basic level, it is possible to embed a web map which displays the county borders via Google Maps. For more advanced users, one can use the KMZ or SHAPE files to integrate the borders into their applications

Simple embeddable web map via Google Maps

Open Google Maps in your web browser and paste “http://www.county-borders.co.uk/Historic_Counties.kmz” into the search box. Click on the link button and embed.

Integrating a KMZ file into a web map using the Google Maps API

You can integrate the border data as a KML layer using the Google Maps API. This will allow you to incorporate the data with other map layers and create a more bespoke solution. Simply add the following line to your code implementation:

var ctaLayer = new google.maps.KmlLayer(
'http://www.county-borders.co.uk/Historic_Counties.kmz');
ctaLayer.setMap(map);

More information about the Google Maps API can be found on the Google Developers website.

Using county border data in your GIS project

The HCT border data is supplied in SHAPE and KMZ formats, and is supplemented by the Historic Counties Standard, which describes the counties. These resources provide a basis which can be built-upon in your project with GIS solutions such as QGIS.

Digitised border data provided courtesy of the Historic Counties Trust.

The HCT maintains this data as part of the County Borders Project.