Administrative Boundary of Hertfordshire

About Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire is a county in the East of England, immediately north of Greater London. Covering approximately 1,643 square kilometres of chalk hills, river valleys, and suburban and semi-rural hinterland, Hertfordshire had a population of approximately 1.2 million at the 2021 Census. The county contains the Roman city of Verulamium at St Albans — one of the most important Roman sites in Britain and the home of the earliest Christian martyr in Britain — the magnificent Jacobean mansion of Hatfield House, the world's first Garden City at Letchworth, and a rich cultural heritage including connections to Francis Bacon, Elizabeth I, and many significant figures in British history. St Albans and Roman Verulamium St Albans — the Roman Verulamium — was one of the largest and most important cities in Roman Britain. Established after the Claudian conquest of AD 43, Verulamium was a municipium (the second highest status of Roman city), and was the third largest city in Roman Britain after Londinium and Camulodunium. The city was sacked by Boudicca in AD 60 but rebuilt and continued to flourish for several centuries. The Verulamium Museum holds the finest collection of in-situ Roman mosaics in Britain, as well as extraordinary everyday objects. The Roman Theatre of Verulamium — one of only five known Roman theatres in Britain — is partially preserved and open to visitors. Alban, a Roman soldier or citizen who sheltered a Christian priest and was executed in his place (c.209-304 AD), became the first recorded Christian martyr in Britain; the Abbey of St Albans was founded on the hill where he died, and the present cathedral — one of the longest medieval cathedrals in England — includes a Perpendicular nave of great length and the original 11th-century Norman tower built from Roman brick salvaged from Verulamium. Hatfield House and Elizabeth I Hatfield House, in the town of Hatfield, is one of the finest Jacobean mansions in England, built 1607–1611 by Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury (son of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, the great Elizabethan administrator). The house contains one of the most important collections of English portraits and historic artefacts in private hands, including the famous Ermine Portrait and Rainbow Portrait of Elizabeth I. In the grounds of Hatfield House stands the Old Palace (the Palace of Hatfield) — a late 15th-century brick building that was an occasional royal residence; it was in the Great Hall of the Old Palace that the young Princess Elizabeth is traditionally said to have been sitting under an oak tree in the palace garden when she was told of her accession to the throne on 17 November 1558. The World's First Garden City Letchworth Garden City, founded in 1903 by the social reformer Ebenezer Howard and designed by architects Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin, was the world's first planned garden city — putting into practice Howard's vision of a new kind of urban settlement combining the social advantages of the city with the space, greenery, and community life of the countryside. Letchworth's layout, with its curved streets, generous garden plots, arts-and-crafts architecture, and separation of pedestrian and vehicle routes, influenced town planning worldwide; Welwyn Garden City (also in Hertfordshire, founded 1920) was the second planned garden city in Britain. GIS and Boundary Data The administrative boundary of Hertfordshire County Council is available for free download in GeoJSON and KML formats, sourced from the ONS Open Geography Portal (Crown copyright 2024). Compatible with QGIS, ArcGIS, Mapbox, and Google Earth, the dataset supports Roman archaeology, Jacobean heritage conservation, garden city planning heritage, literary landscape mapping, and demographic analysis across the Hertfordshire local authority area.

📍 Administrative boundary of Hertfordshire county