Our home page allows straightforward searching by placename and postcode, but more specialised searches are also possible. Searches can be broadened by using wild cards and looking for 'sound-alikes', or narrowed by specifying a part of the country, or a type of entry:

Administrative units search

The core of the system is a detailed inventory of administrative units from the U.K. down to individual parishes, constructed from established authorities:

Administrative units typology

Our administrative units gazetteer is organised by level, type and status. Directly explore our typology here:

Descriptive gazetteer search

The administrative gazetteer is limited to legally defined units. However, the system also includes the complete text of three gazetteers published in the late 19th century. These cover 'places' and landmarks, like mountains and bays:

Data documentation

The Vision of Britain system uses a metadata framework developed by the Data Documentation Initiative to organise its statistical data. This is the most abstract part of the system, but here you can learn the precise definitions of the rates we map and graph, and how we have converted the original classifications used at different dates to standardised classifications we can present over time:

GB Historical Database

Most of the material in Vision of Britain has been imported from an older, larger and more traditional system called the Great Britain Historical Database. The more traditional structure means we cannot provide users with direct access to the contents of GBHDB, only this documentation system: