Scottish Island Regions
The Scottish Island Regions geography was first released in 2023 and is used for grouping Scotland’s islands into nine different island regions. The geography is based on the Scottish Island Regions Framework (2020) initially developed by the James Hutton Institute and used as the basis for the National Islands Plan Survey (2020). Further details are published on http://www.gov.scot/ISBN/9781805259657. The geography is created by allocating eligible islands from the National Records of Scotland (NRS) Island geography, which currently have or have previously had at least one Royal Mail Delivery Point assigned to them, into one of the nine regions. There are a total of 179 currently or previously inhabited islands (excluding the Scottish mainland), which have each been given a unique 3-digit code by NRS. The Scottish Island Regions geography follows the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018 by including islands within six Council Areas, and excluding those within inland lochs. The six Council Areas, as defined by the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018, are Argyll and Bute, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, Highland, North Ayrshire, Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands. A lookup is available which shows the allocation of the 179 NRS Islands to the Scottish Island Regions. A data zone lookup is also available which provides a suggested allocation of data zones to the Scottish Island Regions. Further details on best-fitting data zones are published on http://www.gov.scot/ISBN/9781805259664.
dataset
https://maps.gov.scot/server/services/ScotGov/StatisticalUnits/MapServer/WMSServer?
protocol: OGC:WMS
name: ScottishIslandRegions
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function: information
https://maps.gov.scot/server/services/ScotGov/StatisticalUnits/MapServer/WFSServer?
protocol: OGC:WFS
name: SU:ScottishIslandRegions
description: OGC Feature Download Service
function: download
https://maps.gov.scot/server/rest/services/ScotGov/StatisticalUnits/MapServer/9
protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
name: ScottishIslandRegions
description: ESRI REST Service
function: download
https://maps.gov.scot/ATOM/shapefiles/SG_ScottishIslandRegions.zip
protocol: WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download
name: Scottish Island Regions
description: ESRI Shapefile Download
function: download
https://maps.gov.scot/ATOM/shapefiles/SG_ScottishIslandRegionsLookups.zip
protocol: WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download
name: Scottish Island Regions Lookups
description: NRS Islands to Scottish Island Regions lookup and Data Zone to Scottish Island Regions lookup
function: download
SG_ScottishIslandRegions
www.gov.scot
eng
EPSG
OSGB 1936 / British National Grid (EPSG:27700)
boundaries
Statistical units
publication
2008-06-01
island
publication
2010-01-13
Islands
Boundaries
publication
2020-11-18
-8.80
-0.71
60.87
54.63
publication
2007-12-13
GB-SCT
creation
2023-06-20
asNeeded
The initial Scottish Island Regions Framework (2020) created by James Hutton Institute (JHI) had assigned 100 Islands from the NRS Inhabited Islands 2020 geography into nine regions. In order to prevent regular updates being required as islands switch inhabited status, it was agreed that the JHI Framework would be revised. The Scottish Island Regions geography assigns eligible islands from the NRS Island product (released in 2023) to one of nine regions. The eligible islands include all those which currently have or have previously had at least one Royal Mail Delivery Point assigned, which can be easily identified as they have been given a unique 3-digit code by NRS. Only the islands which are within six Council Areas and not in inland lochs are included in the Scottish Island Regions. The six Council Areas, as defined by the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018, are Argyll and Bute, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, Highland, North Ayrshire, Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands. A lookup is available for download, and further details are published on http://www.gov.scot/ISBN/9781805259657. A data zone lookup is available which provides a suggested allocation of data zones to the Scottish Island Regions. The standard way to best-fit data zones to higher geographies is by following Pillar 4 of the GSS Geography Policy, which states that statistical building blocks (e.g. data zones) should be best-fitted by allocating whole building blocks based on the locations of their population weighted centroids. However, for Scottish Island Regions, it is recommended that this policy is not followed in one instance. The centroid of data zone S01007320 falls on Eilean Loain, which is allocated to the Argyll Islands Scottish Island Region. However, based on Census 2011 data, it is evident that almost the entire population of this data zone lives on the mainland. Therefore, to reduce the error associated with the best-fitting, it is advised not to follow the population weighted centroid method of allocation for this data zone, and instead to remove this data zone from the lookup. Further details on best-fitting data zones are published on http://www.gov.scot/ISBN/9781805259664
publication
2010-12-08
false
WMS
1.3.0
Available under the terms of the Open Government Licence. The following attribution statement must be used to acknowledge the source of the information: Copyright Scottish Government, contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right (insert year).
GIS Analyst
Scottish Government
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh
EH6 6QQ
United Kingdom
protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
publisher
Island Policy Unit
Scottish Government
Fishery Office
Kirkwall
KW15 1HU
United Kingdom
protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
pointOfContact
GIS Analyst
Scottish Government
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh
EH6 6QQ
United Kingdom
protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
pointOfContact
2023-06-19T12:27:41