England/Wales IMD 2015 joined to LSOA Shapefiles

This data set includes the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) 2015 data tables, commissioned by the UK Government Department for Communities and Local Government (proper credits are included in the attached technical report). It is worth noting to anyone planning to use this data for strategic planning etc., that the data here is meant to provide an update to IMD 2010, but that most of the underlying data was generated in 2012-2013. You can read more about the underlying technical details in the included PDF files, and find information about specific data columns there as well.

IMD data is geo-referenced to Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOA) areas, but this data is not provided as a shapefile for easy download, so for convenience sake, I have joined IMD 2015 with the Census Output Area (LSOA) shapefiles which are produced separately by the Office for National Statistics UK (ONS).  Both of these data sets are produced under an Open Government License, so I am redistributing these files on that basis. The primary purpose of placing these datasets in a repository is to enable their usage in reproducible research outputs.

LSOA shapefiles are produced in several versions. This is because the canonical LSOA polygon data is produced at a high resolution, so the actual shapefiles can be quite large (up to 1GB). ONS produces a series of "generalised" shapefiles which have simplified geometries, and are thus smaller in size. Options for shapefiles include the following:

- Full resolution - extent of the realm (usually this is the Mean Low Water mark but in some cases boundaries extend beyond this to include off shore islands);
- Full resolution - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark);
- Generalised (20m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark);
- Super generalised (200m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark) and
- Ultra generalised (500m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).