https://population-statistics.com/articles/ Findings and explainers from open population, price, crime and amenity data on true town boundaries. en-GB https://population-statistics.com/articles/britains-accidental-twin-towns/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/britains-accidental-twin-towns/ Sat, 12 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Blackpool's closest statistical match is Tredegar, a Valleys iron town 228km away. Six measures, 773 towns, and the pairs the data found on its own. https://population-statistics.com/articles/largest-towns-without-a-railway-station/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/largest-towns-without-a-railway-station/ Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Newcastle under Lyme has 76,505 residents and no railway station. Neither has Gosport. The pub-quiz claim, settled with the DfT's own register. https://population-statistics.com/articles/englands-emptying-primary-schools/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/englands-emptying-primary-schools/ Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT State primaries in the towns we measure hold 255,319 empty places, and 62 towns run below 80% of capacity. Where the falling rolls actually are. https://population-statistics.com/articles/towns-the-fibre-build-forgot/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/towns-the-fibre-build-forgot/ Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT A typical English or Welsh town has gigabit broadband available to 94.9% of homes. In Southport, 48.2% of homes still cannot order it. https://population-statistics.com/articles/where-cheap-and-quiet-actually-is/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/where-cheap-and-quiet-actually-is/ Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT 61 English and Welsh towns sit below the national median on both house prices and recorded crime. The cheapest is Consett: £145,000, 91.0 offences per 1,000. https://population-statistics.com/articles/the-retirement-coast-measured/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/the-retirement-coast-measured/ Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT 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 census, town by town. https://population-statistics.com/articles/why-skegness-crime-rate-misleads/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/why-skegness-crime-rate-misleads/ Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Skegness records 218.6 offences per 1,000 residents, higher than 99% of towns. One category in its table says that number means something different: the denominator. https://population-statistics.com/articles/how-many-people-live-in-london/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/how-many-people-live-in-london/ Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT There are at least four honest answers, from 8,072 to nearly ten million, and they are all correct. Which one you want depends on what you mean by London. https://population-statistics.com/articles/what-is-a-built-up-area/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/what-is-a-built-up-area/ Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT ONS built-up areas are drawn from where the buildings are, not where the council boundaries are. It is the reason two population lists can both be right and still disagree. https://population-statistics.com/articles/fastest-growing-places-uk/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/fastest-growing-places-uk/ Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT The City of London has more than doubled since 2001. Tower Hamlets added 130,796 people. Here is where Britain actually grew, from official ONS estimates. https://population-statistics.com/articles/coastal-towns-growing-and-ageing/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/coastal-towns-growing-and-ageing/ Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Great Yarmouth is up +10.5%, Thanet +12.6%. The seaside is not emptying. Its problem is who is arriving and who is leaving. https://population-statistics.com/articles/pubs-per-person-england/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/pubs-per-person-england/ Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT 35,117 pubs and bars across 264 English districts, from 22.3 per 10,000 residents in the Derbyshire Dales to 0.8 in outer London. https://population-statistics.com/articles/smallest-cities-in-the-uk/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/smallest-cities-in-the-uk/ Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT 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 their status, and which ones they are. https://population-statistics.com/articles/why-isnt-reading-a-city/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/why-isnt-reading-a-city/ Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Reading has over 300,000 residents, a university and a bigger economy than most UK cities. It has applied for city status four times. Here's why it keeps losing. https://population-statistics.com/articles/shrinking-towns-britain/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/shrinking-towns-britain/ Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Only 10 of the UK's 361 local authorities have fewer residents now than in 2001. Six are in Scotland or Wales. The biggest faller is one of the richest boroughs in London. https://population-statistics.com/articles/takeaway-map-of-england/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/takeaway-map-of-england/ Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Burnley has nearly one takeaway per restaurant. Kensington has one per eleven. What 264 districts of official food-register data shows about the English high street. https://population-statistics.com/articles/what-happened-to-the-world-gazetteer/ https://population-statistics.com/articles/what-happened-to-the-world-gazetteer/ Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT It was cited thousands of times across Wikipedia, then vanished in 2013. It blocked the Internet Archive, so nobody could preserve it. Here's how one file survived, and why this domain now hosts it.