Estimating urban areas using historical census data and the H3 grid

Abstract

Historical (1851-1911) urban areas in England and Wales have often been derived from population data, which typically utilise census administrative units. However, these frequently fail to conform to the spatial boundaries of urban settlements. Recent developments in the geocoding of individuals enumerated by the census to a street level now facilitate a re-evaluation of this approach. Utilising Uber’s H3 grid, this paper outlines a method for estimating urban areas at each historical decennial census, using 1901 as a case study.

Metadata

Item Type:	Proceedings Paper
Authors/Creators:	Solomon, G. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4394-1498
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© 2025 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords:	urban settlements; historical population; historic census; H3 grid
Dates:	Published (online): 16 April 2025 Published: 16 April 2025
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
Depositing User:	Symplectic Sheffield
Date Deposited:	27 May 2025 14:10
Last Modified:	27 May 2025 14:10
Status:	Published
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.5281/zenodo.15229219
Related URLs:	Conference
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:227096

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Estimating urban areas using historical census data and the H3 grid

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