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Is there a comparatively easy way to marry-up UK election boundary data with Google maps?

I am 100% NOT looking for anyone to do the work I should be doing, but with data sets from Open Gov, Ordnance Survey and a couple of other places I have not seen any ways that that data maps on to my (very outdated) knowledge of Google maps.

I hope someone clever might already know the answer and be able to just say a "use this (data set) and then search Google for info on ????". Then I do the work, join them up and have constituency map and then have to decide what to do with it.

PolyGeo
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BeNice
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2 Answers2

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Like this?

GB not UK

enter image description here

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/election-maps/gb/

For Google Maps you will need to get the OS Boundary Line data and reproject the data to WGS84 (Web Mercator) and use the google maps api.

Someone has already done the 2018 Boundary Changes here: https://constituencyboundaries.uk/ Map Example: https://constituencyboundaries.uk/2018/london

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/opendatadownload/products.html#BDLINE

Mapperz
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If you specifically need the base layer to be from Google Maps, you can do it in QGIS. QGIS is a free GIS software. It's not hugely user-friendly if you're new to GIS, but this is a relatively simple GIS task. There are many online tutorials and guides available. Here are the basic steps:

  1. Download and install QGIS from QGIS.org. Be sure to get the long-term release (LTR) version, not the latest version.
  2. Open QGIS, click on the Plugins menu, click on Manage and Install Plugins. This opens the Plugin Manager window. Find and install the plugin called QuickMapServices.

  3. Once the QuickMapServices plugin is installed, you can access it through a new button on the Layers toolbar. Activate the "contributed pack" of basemaps, as explained here. Add a Google basemap (the "normal" Google Maps is the layer called "Google Road).

    enter image description here

  4. Get the UK election boundary data in a geospatial format such as shapefile. See Mapperz's answer for some places where you can download it.

  5. Add the UK election boundary data to the QGIS project. There are multiple ways to do this. One way is to click the "add vector layer" button on the Layer toolbar. This opens the data source manager window. Click the ... button (it says "Browse" if you hover your mouse over it). Find the boundary data you downloaded, select it and add it to the project. If it's in shapefile format, there will be several files; select the one that ends with .shp.

    image

Now you should have the boundary data and Google Maps on the same map. You may need to take some additional steps to get the map to look the way you want. I strongly recommend saving the project before proceeding.

  • If the boundary layer loads in the wrong part of the world (Null Island, for example), that means it has the wrong coordinate reference system, or CRS. There are lots of questions here on GIS Stack Exchange about how to fix that.
  • Rearrange the layers in the layer panel so the boundary data is above Google Maps.
  • Change the CRS of the project. The Google Maps layer will look best in EPSG:3857, but it might make the UK look weirdly distorted. Try some different projections and see what looks best to you.
  • Change the symbology of the boundary data (in the Layer Styling panel). By default (if it's polygons) it will load as opaque shapes that hide the base layer. Try a simple line outline style.
  • Refer to the QGIS user manual for additional information.
csk
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