This polygon shapefile depicts electoral wards and divisions for England and Wales as of 2001. The wards and electoral divisions in the United Kingdom are electoral districts at sub-national level represented by one or more councillors. The ward is the primary unit of English electoral geography for civil parishes and borough and district councils, electoral ward is the unit used by Welsh principal councils, while the electoral division is the unit used by English county councils and unitary authorities. Each ward/division has an average electorate of about 5,500 but ward-population counts can vary substantially. This layer is part of the Office of National Statistics (ONS) Boundary Dataset supply, 2001-2011. This dataset is intended for researchers, students, and policy makers for reference and mapping purposes, and may be used for basic applications such as viewing, querying, and map output production, or to provide a basemap to support graphical overlays and analysis with other spatial data. Great Britain. Office for National Statistics. (2011). Wards and Electoral Divisions: Great Britain, 2001. Great Britain. Ordnance Survey. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/bm356gk8568. This layer is presented in the WGS84 coordinate system for web display purposes. Downloadable data are provided in native coordinate system or projection.