Guidance on finding statistics
Neighbourhood Statistics website.
for
settlements
using
the
Scottish
Background
General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) produces mid year population
estimates for settlements. Settlements are built up areas which can be broadly
identified as cities, towns and villages. These settlements encompass smaller
localities i.e. the settlement of Dunfermline covers the localities of Crossgates,
Dalgety Bay, Dunfermline, Halbeath, Inverkeithing, North Queensferry and Rosyth.
Information on how GROS defines these settlements and localities is available here.
The basic geographic unit used on the Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics (SNS)
website is the data zone. This is a statistical geography based on population and
each datazone in the country has an approximate population of 750 people. There
are 6505 data zones in Scotland and these fit exactly into local authorities but do not
map exactly onto settlements or localities so a ‘best fit’ approach is required when
looking at customised geographical areas.
This best fit is achieved by looking at where in the data zone most of the people are
living and grouping together data zones that show neighbouring concentrations of
population. This can result in some settlements including large tracts of farmland or
forest because the data zones around the edge of the settlement have most people
living at one edge of the zone. Lossiemouth is one such example.
Finding statistics for your area.
There are two possible methods of finding statistics relating to a settlement or
locality, both using the ‘Advanced Reporter’ function of the SNS website.
Method 1. By typing the name of the area of interest into the ‘Advanced
Reporter’ and selecting data zones to build up to that area.
Method 2. By using the look up showing the data zones that correspond to the
settlements used by GROS and entering these into the ‘Advanced Reporter’ .
Method 1
Step 1. Go to the SNS website http://www.sns.gov.uk/ and click on the ‘Advanced
Reporter’. Then click on the ‘Show Map’ link on the right hand side. On the ‘Choose
Area Type’ dropdown menu on the right hand side choose ‘Data Zone’. In the
‘Search Map’ box type the name of the area of interest. If there are two or more
areas in the country with the same name you will need to choose the appropriate
one from a drop down list that will appear. This will focus the map on the area in
question, Blackburn, West Lothian in the example below.
Step 2. Click on the arrow under the zoom buttons and use this to select datazones
to build up to the area of interest. This will produce a map roughly similar to that
shown below.
Step 3. The list of highlighted data zones will show up on the left hand side in the
‘Selected Areas’ box and will have a check box beside it. This check box can be
used to delete any unwanted datazones. Click on ‘next’ on the top right hand side of
the page and you will be taken to a page like the one below.
Step 4. Select your topic areas of interest from the ‘Topic’ drop down menu and
subtopics if required. Make sure the boxes you require statistics for are checked,
and hit ‘view result’. This will let you see the statistics for the data zone(s) you have
chosen. If you have chosen more than one data zone and you would like to see their
results added together then click on ‘summarised view’.
Method 2
Step 1. Using the look up provided here identify the data zones that correspond with
the settlement of interest.
Step 2. Go to the SNS website http://www.sns.gov.uk/ and click on the ‘Advanced
Reporter’. Then click on the ‘Show Map’ link on the right hand side. On the ‘Choose
Area Type’ dropdown menu on the right hand side choose ‘Data Zone’. Then enter
your data zones in the rectangular box near the bottom right. Note that if entering
more than one each of these will need to be followed by a comma including the final
one. Click on ‘Go’. You will need to zoom in on the area e.g. West Lothian to find the
highlighted data zones. A map of the selected area will then be displayed, similar to
that below.
Step 3. The settlement of Blackburn, West Lothian covers the localities of Bathgate
and Blackburn. So at this point datazones can be selected or deselected using the
arrow on the right hand side of the screen to focus on the locality of Blackburn within
the settlement. Continue as from Step 3 in Method 1.