Geospatial origins: Prof. David Martin, the development of modern digital census geography in the UK

Jeremy Morley interviews Professor David Martin about how the UK census evolved from paper maps and manually drawn boundaries to a fully digital, GIS-based system. Martin describes his role in developing Output Areas, the small statistical geographies introduced for the 2001 Census that became the foundation for many government datasets, including deprivation indices and neighbourhood statistics.

The conversation also examines the impact of online data collection, the challenges posed by COVID-19 during the 2021 Census, and the future of census-taking. Martin concludes that while administrative data can supplement population statistics, a national census remains essential for collecting social and household information that routine government records cannot provide.

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