Guide to Geography

This website’s data is available at the geographical levels for which it is published, therefore not all data will be available at all levels. The geographies you will find on DataWand:

  • Lower Super Output Areas (LSOA)
  • Wards
  • Local Authorities (LA)
  • Regions (e.g. London)
  • Countries

See below for more information on geographies.

Use the map below to lookup your LSOA or Ward:

  • Search by address or place using the location search in the top-right corner.
  • Zoom to and click on your area to see the LSOA and Ward names.
  • Turn layers on and off using the legend (show using >> button).

Contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right [2017] Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right [2017]

If you know your required geography, you can search using the geography filter in the Data Explorer.

Administrative Geographies

Local Authority (LA)

The London Borough of Wandsworth, along with other London Boroughs is a Unitary Authority, meaning that there is a single level to local government. As such, the borough boundary also represents the local authority boundary, inside of which the borough council has responsibility for providing services. However, the Greater London Authority do have some citywide service responsibilities.

Ward

There are 20 wards in the London Borough of Wandsworth. These Electoral Wards are the spatial units used to elect Borough Councillors and as such, all wards nestle within the borough exactly. Find out about the population characteristics of Richmond’s Wards using the Quick Ward Profile on the Homepage; or create a Ward Report or a Ward Map for a Data Theme – see the How To section for video tutorials.

Electoral Ward Boundary Changes – May 2022 

New ward arrangements for Wandsworth have now successfully completed a 40 day period of Parliamentary scrutiny and will come into force at the local elections in May 2022. For more information on the ward boundary changes in Wandsworth, visit the Local Government Boundary Commission website. 

On DataWand, we will aim to make data available for the 2022 ward areas. Unfortunately, current data output areas do not align with the 2022 ward boundaries, so a best-fit method is used. 2011 Census Output Areas (OAs) are allocated to the 2022 wards based on how the population is distributed within OAs – an OA is allocated to the ward where the majority of its population lives. 

Due to this method of allocating data output areas to future boundaries, not all datasets will be available for the 2022 wards – only 2011 Census data (including age, ethnicity, gender, religion, language etc.) and the latest available ONS Population Estimates (currently mid-2019) will be available. We have initiated this work by making these datasets available for the 2022 wards in the DataExplorer and the Population Map Explorer (look out for “Ward 2022”).  

This method is currently the best available for providing data estimates for the 2022 wards and appears to be appropriate in most cases across Wandsworth – however, in areas where boundaries have changed more significantly, estimates will be less accurate. Due to the scale of change in the northeast of the borough, the OA allocation appears to underestimate the current population of the new Nine Elms ward by approximately 30% and overestimate the population of the new Shaftesbury & Queenstown and Lavender wards by 9% and 7% respectively. 

More information on administrative boundaries can be found here.

Statistical Geographies

Output Area (OA)

Output areas (OA) were created for Census data. The OA is the lowest geographical level at which census estimates are provided. They were originally designed to have a minimum of 100 residents and 40 households, with a recommended size of 125 households.

Super Output Areas (SOAs) were designed to improve the reporting of small area statistics and are built up from groups of output areas – several OAs make up a Lower Super Output Area (LSOA); OAs and LSOAs can be aggregated to make up a Middle Super Output Area (MSOA) – see Table.1.

Table.1. Population and household thresholds for 2011 census super output areas.

Geography Minimum Population Maximum Population Minimum Number of Households Maximum Number of Households
LSOA 1,000 3,000 400 1,200
MSOA 5,000 15,000 2,000 6,000

 

DataWand allows you to create LSOA Reports or Maps for a Data Theme – see the How To section for video tutorials.

More information on census geographies can be found here.