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Questions the tables raise but can't answer on their own: why the UK's smallest city has 1,751 residents, which places are losing people, and what happened to the reference work this domain used to publish.
The smallest cities in the UK
St Davids has 1,751 residents and is a city. Reading has over 300,000 and isn't. Here's how the UK's smallest cities got…
Why isn't Reading a city?
Reading has over 300,000 residents, a university and a bigger economy than most UK cities. It has applied for city statu…
The ten places in Britain that are shrinking
Only 10 of the UK's 361 local authorities have fewer residents now than in 2001. Six are in Scotland or Wales. The bigge…
The takeaway map of England
Burnley has nearly one takeaway per restaurant. Kensington has one per eleven. What 264 districts of official food-regis…
What happened to the World Gazetteer
It was cited thousands of times across Wikipedia, then vanished in 2013. It blocked the Internet Archive, so nobody coul…
How many people live in London?
There are at least four honest answers, from 8,072 to nearly ten million, and they are all correct. Which one you want d…
What is a built-up area?
ONS built-up areas are drawn from where the buildings are, not where the council boundaries are. It is the reason two po…
The fastest growing places in the UK
The City of London has more than doubled since 2001. Tower Hamlets added 130,796 people. Here is where Britain actually …
Britain's coastal towns are growing, not shrinking
Great Yarmouth is up +10.5%, Thanet +12.6%. The seaside is not emptying. Its problem is who is arriving and who is leavi…
Where England still has pubs
35,117 pubs and bars across 264 English districts, from 22.3 per 10,000 residents in the Derbyshire Dales to 0.8 in oute…
Largest towns with no railway station
Newcastle under Lyme has 76,505 residents and no railway station. Neither has Gosport. The pub-quiz claim, settled with …
England's emptying primary schools
State primaries in the towns we measure hold 255,319 empty places, and 62 towns run below 80% of capacity. Where the fal…
The towns the fibre build forgot
A typical English or Welsh town has gigabit broadband available to 94.9% of homes. In Southport, 48.2% of homes still ca…
Where cheap and quiet actually is
61 English and Welsh towns sit below the national median on both house prices and recorded crime. The cheapest is Conset…
The retirement coast, measured
The middle resident of Rustington is 56.2 years old, and 6.3% of the town is over 85. England's oldest towns, from the c…
The Skegness crime rate, explained
Skegness records 218.6 offences per 1,000 residents, higher than 99% of towns. One category in its table says that numbe…
Britain's accidental twin towns
Blackpool's closest statistical match is Tredegar, a Valleys iron town 228km away. Six measures, 773 towns, and the pair…