New county layer for users to choose recording location and for reporting

[DavidRoy]

some recorders find vice-counties confusing. Would 'ceremonial' counties be a better layer for reporting.
@kitenetter what is your view?

Potential source of the SHP is https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/products/boundaryline.html

[kitenetter]

Do you mean for reporting via the Explore menu? I'd be very reluctant to lose the vice-counties as they are fundamental to many recording schemes, and we already have the LERCs that often (but not always) reflect the modern counties, but we could consider adding the modern counties in as an additional layer.

I can't see the ceremonial counties on via that OS link but it looks like they are available for England here:
https://data.gov.uk/dataset/0fb911e4-ca3a-4553-9136-c4fb069546f9/ceremonial-county-boundaries-of-england

They have no seaward extension. Would need to find equivalents for the other UK countries.

I will also see if there is anywhere appropriate to add links to further information (or a Help page) about vice-counties.

[DavidHepper]

We would need a two-year lead time to change from Vice-counties to Ceremonial counties. The problem with the latter is that they are constantly being changed by politicians - you can't just freeze the status quo, as we have with VCs.
You might find this site useful for comparing the boundaries of Historical counties (always, I hope, one or more exact VC per HC) with current CCs.

[kitenetter]

@DavidHepper I don't think it's being suggested that recording schemes should move away from organising things by vice-county, it's more for website users who are new to the world of biological recording, and are not familiar with VCs when it comes to filtering records and setting up their preferences. I'm certainly not intending to give away the large part of Berkshire VC that I would lose if moth recording changed!

[DavidRoy]

@DavidHepper Vice-counties remain the main geographical structure for biological recording. As Martin says, this query is related to recorders who find some VCs confusing. Any new layers would be in addition to existing layers

[johnvanbreda]

Though we won't be forcing any move towards use of Ceremonial Counties, @DavidHepper's point about them changing regularly is still something to bear in mind as there is an overhead of keeping the boundaries up to date and re-indexing.
The SHP file for Great Britain is downloadable from https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/help-and-support/products/boundary-line.html

[DavidRoy]

Posting while I came across this. Lots of admin boundaries at https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk

Including county boundaries - https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/search?collection=Dataset&sort=name&tags=all(BDY_CTYUA%2CDEC_2019)

[DavidHepper]

I've had a request to use Ceremonial Counties in Explore, when creating a filter, and hence in Download. I can't find this facility on NBN Atlas, either. Would I do best to request it of them, as NBN Atlas is our preferred system for retrieval?

[kitenetter]

@DavidHepper as expressed above, we do aspire to adding the Ceremonial Counties, it is just a matter of prioritising the development that would be needed to implement them (and taking on board the ongoing maintenance that results from future changes).

You would need to contact NBN to request additional boundaries on the Atlas.