The map above is the companion to England’s North/South Divide Based Only On Population, expect this time splitting the England and Wales East/West rather than North/South based on 2021 census numbers on official county borders.
The map sparked some controversy on reddit with user Elegant_Celery400 claiming that:
Ah, but it’s not actually ‘by population’ is it? It’s ‘by county population’, which is why we have the obvious anomaly of Leeds being designated as ‘West’ when it’s clearly further to the East of the notional boundary line than the East-designated Sheffield. (Still with me? Keep up, it’ll be on the test.)
To which u/willtkred responded:
You are right, of course. I have considered doing it by wards/constituencies for a more accurate line. Doing it by MSOA data doesn’t seem worth it and indeed I think the point of these maps (that when split by population, the north south divide is pretty southern, which is basically a funny way to consider the divide) has already been proven – this is buttressed by the comments on the N/S map you alluded to. Essentially, I don’t think narrowing it down is worth it for what I wanted to show with the map (not would it change many of the few useful conclusions which can be drawn from it). You are right that it would be more accurate it determine specific cities locations relative to dividing lines, but again, I think there’s over 7,000 MSOA areas from the 2020 data, in England and Wales and I don’t think the output from such research would be worth the immense increase of input.
For other similar maps have a look at:
Susan E Munter says
What are the sources of your data? I don’t see any attributions. Thanks.