Burgh, District of County and Parish-level statistics for Scotland taken from the 1931 census

Table ID:

PAR_1931_S     (1252544)

Contents:

Burgh, District of County and Parish-level statistics for Scotland taken from the 1931 census

Approx. number of rows:

1,516

Table type:

Raw Data

Documentation Author:

Humphrey Southall

Chronology:

The data are for the single year 1931.

Sources:

1. This table is a full transcription of Table 1 from the County Reports of the 1931 Census of Scotland, 'Population of Burghs, Districts of County and Parishes'.
2. These data were originally computerised by the Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis at the Queen's University of Belfast in 2000. They were checked against the original, restructured and re-documented by Humphrey Southall in August 2015.
3. National total populations, but not housing data, have been added from Table 1, "Population of counties (including all burghs), and intercensal changes, 1911-1931" in Populations, ages and conjugal conditions, birthplaces, Gaelic speaking and housing, Scotland, Vol. II, 1931.

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Notes:

1. This is a very complex table geographically due to:
   • Populations actually inside the four cities being also included in the relevant counties. To filter out these rows, exclude rows with exclude_city = Y. However NB that total populations for parishes need to include parts within cities.
   • The inclusion of additional rows giving pre-change data for 1911 and 1921 for areas whose boundaries had changed between 1921 and 1931. To filter out these rows, exclude rows with data_1921 = Y.
   • The inclusion of county totals for various kinds of unit.
2. The area_type column generally reproduces the labels in the report, except:
   • The data for the four cities are in reports titled "City of ..." but the table labels them as Burghs. We have re-labelled them as "City". Edinburgh and Dundee had a single row labelled "Parish and Burgh", but we have duplicated them labelling one row "City" and the other "Parish".
   • Other towns were also labelled simply as "Burgh" with a dagger or asterisk against those which had been designated as Large Burghs under the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1929. We have re-labelled those as "Large Burgh" and the remainder as "Small Burgh".
   • The county of Lanark is especially complex as four parishes were partly within the City of Glasgow and partly outside: Cadder, Glasgow, Govan and Rutherglen. The figures for these parishes in the Lanark report cover the entire parish, so have been labelled by us as "Entire Parish", so excluding them from totals. We have added rows of data for the parts outside the City using the counts of 1931 variables listed in Table 5 of the Lanark County Report, which subdivides parishes, plus 1921 counts and total acreages computed by subtracting the figures for the parts within Glasgow from the Entire Parish figures. The final result is that the computed Lanarkshire parish totals match the listed County totals, excluding Glasgow City, except for the 1911 populations, these not being given for the parts of the parishes within Glasgow.
   • The counties of Kinross and Nairn were too small to be divided into Districts of County, so for various purposes their Landwards need to be treated as if they were Districts of County.
3. The rows giving totals for the 4 cities have been duplicated and added to the table again as data for the burghs of the same name. This is to ensure consistency in the mapping on A Vision of Britain through Time. Please ignore these rows for all other purposes.
4. The following types of unit appear in the table and have been systematically matched to the AUO (the counts exclude rows with exclude_city = Y or data_1921 = Y):
   • Nation (1 area).
   • County (33 areas).
   • City (4 areas): Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow.
   • Large Burgh (24 areas). These include copies of the data for the four Cities re-assigned to the equivalent Burgh-level units.
   • Small Burgh (171 areas).
   • Landward (33 areas).
   • District of County (198 areas).
   • Parish (884 areas).
   The table also includes these other values of area_type in some or all counties, which have not been matched to the AUO (except for the final three the value of area_name will always be "TOTAL"):
   • LB_Total (9 areas): Totals for all Large Burghs within County.
   • Total_ex_LB (10 areas): County totals excluding Large Burghs.
   • SB_Total (33 areas): Totals for all Small Burghs within County.
   • Mainland_Parishes (3 areas): Listed for Argyll, Inverness-shire and Ross and Cromarty.
   • Insular_Parishes (3 areas): Listed for Argyll, Inverness-shire and Ross and Cromarty.
   • Entire Burgh (1 area): Appears only for Renfrew Burgh, Renfrewshire, which was partly in Lanark. That other part was actually in the City of Glasgow, and that report treats the whole City as being part of the Burgh of Glasgow, so there is only one row of data for Renfrew Burgh contributing to overall totals.
   • Entire Parish (9 areas): Totals for parishes divided between counties/cities. It is not clear that these totals are always listed.
   • Not ascertained (1 area): Appearing only for Scares Islands, Wigtownshire, whose "parochiality ... has not been ascertained".
5. The table provides correct 1931 counts for Counties, Cities, Small and Large Burghs and Districts of County provided you select by g_unit and always exclude rows with exclude_city = Y or data_1921 = Y. We have checked that the overall total population of counties and cities sums to the 1931 population of Scotland as listed in the national report, as does the sum of pop_1931 for area_type="Parish". To extract correct data for parishes, you must group by g_unit, as some parishes have more than one row, and again always exclude rows with exclude_city = Y or data_1921 = Y. Do not extract data by grouping by cnty_unit, as this will generally produce large over-counts.

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Checking:

1. Numbers of females and males correctly sum to total population for both 1921 and 1931 for all areas.
2. With the exception of numbers of females and of males, checked by the previous procedure, all counts for Large and Small Burghs and Districts of County were summed by county and compared with the published county totals (the Landwards of Kinross and Nairn were here treated as Districts of County). Following corrections, just one inconsistency remains in the data, for Zetland: a footnote to the table says "Nesting Parish (30,995 acres) comprises two Districts, viz., Nesting and Whalsay. The respective acreages of these Districts have not been ascertained." These two districts consequently have no acreage figures, and the listed county total is greater than the computed total by 30,995. All counts for counties, burghs and districts are completely correct.
3. Similar checking against county totals was carried out for parishes. The following inconsistencies exist in these counts:
   • Lanark: The population in 1911 could not be checked, as statistics for the parts of four parishes that were outside the City of Glasgow (Cadder, Glasgow, Govan and Rutherglen) had to be added from other sources, and no source could be found for the 1911 populations.
   • Renfrew: The computed total number of rooms in 1931 is greater than the reported county total by 1,000; this is a definite inconsistency in the table as published.
   • Wigtown: The computed total acreages of the parishes is less than the reported county total by 1, which is the area of the unpopulated Scares Island which is listed as not known to be part of any particular parish.
   With the above exceptions, all counts for parishes are completely correct.
4. NB similar checking has not been done on the various county sub-totals, and on the final five columns reporting rates. All these data can and should be re-calculated from rows and columns which have been checked.

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Indices:

Index	Type	Column(s) indexed
par_1931_s_pkey	Primary key	rec_num
par_1931_s_idx	Unique	sco_cnty, sco_type, sco_area, rec_num

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Constraints:

The table has the following associated constraints:

Constraint	Type	Details
par_1931_s_pkey	Primary Key	See details above for primary key index

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Columns within table:

Column	Type	Contents
sco_cnty	Text string (max.len.=44).	Name of the county; the data are from the County Reports, so this is part of the volume title.
sco_area	Text string (max.len.=104).	Name of Burgh, District of County, or Civil Parish. The various county totals all have area_name = 'TOTAL'.
sco_type	Text string (max.len.=44).	Type of area; these actually appear above the start of each type of area name. See above notes for the values appearing here.
cnty_unit	Integer number.	Unit ID for the county containing the current area, as defined in the AUO. Note that the table includes rows for county totals, with g_unit set to the county ID, whereas summing the data by cnty_unit will produce massive over-counting.
g_unit	Integer number.	Unit ID for the current unit, which may be a county, a county Landward, a Burgh, a District of County or a Parish. Deliberately unset for various totals, and for rows which would cause double-counting (see above).
area_note	Text string (max.len.=84).	Text immediately following area name. This includes dates of boundary changes, within brackets.
part_of	Text string (max.len.=6).	Flag: "Y" if area is labelled as "Part of". Usually means the remainder is in another county but sometimes parts are inside and outside cities.
exclude_city	Text string (max.len.=6).	Flag: "Y" indicates rows withing county listings which duplicate data included in the reports for cities, which should be excluded to avoid double counting. These rows all have null values of g_unit.
data_are_for_1921	Text string (max.len.=6).	Flag: "Y" indicates the row is for the population of the unit as defined in 1921. These rows all have null values of g_unit.
pop_1931	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1931: Population: Both Sexes'.
male_1931	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1931: Population: Males'.
fem_1931	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1931: Population: Females'.
sep_occ_1931	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1931: Separate Occupiers'.
hous_occ_1931	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1931: Houses: Occupied'.
hous_unoc_1931	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1931: Houses: Unoccupied'.
room_1931	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1931: Windowed Rooms (Occupied Houses only)'.
pop_1921	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1921: Population: Both Sexes'.
male_1921	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1921: Population: Males'.
fem_1921	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1921: Population: Females'.
sep_occ_1921	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1921: Separate Occupiers'.
hous_occ_1921	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1921: Houses: Occupied'.
hous_unoc_1921	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1921: Houses: Unoccupied'.
room_1921	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1921: Windowed Rooms (Occupied Houses only)'.
pop_1911	Integer number.	Original column heading: '1911: Population (Both Sexes)'.
area_1931	Integer number.	Original column heading: 'Area in Acres (1931)'.
pop_acr_1931	Floating point number.	Original column heading: 'Population per 100 acres (1931)'.
inc_2131_num	Integer number.	Original column heading: 'Increase or Decrease: Number (1921-1931): Increase'.
dec_2131_num	Integer number.	Original column heading: 'Increase or Decrease: Number (1921-1931): Decrease'.
ch_2131_pc	Floating point number.	Original column heading: 'Increase or Decrease: Percentage: 1921-1931'.
ch_1121_pc	Floating point number.	Original column heading: 'Increase or Decrease: Percentage: 1911-1921'.
notes	Text string (max.len.=1004).	Footnotes transcribed from the report.
rec_num	Integer number.	Sequence number keeping rows in order.