Administrative Boundary of Norfolk

About Norfolk

Norfolk is a county in the East of England. Covering approximately 5,372 square kilometres of wide skies, fenland, coast, and broad river valleys, Norfolk had a population of approximately 930,000 at the 2021 Census. The most easterly county in England, Norfolk is dominated by its extraordinary natural assets — the Norfolk Broads, the most extensive area of protected lowland wetland in Britain; the north Norfolk coast, one of the finest stretches of undeveloped coastline in England; and Holkham Bay, one of the most spectacular beaches in the country — alongside great historic monuments at Norwich, Castle Rising, and the Royal Family's Sandringham estate. The Norfolk Broads The Norfolk Broads — designated as a National Park in 1989 — cover approximately 303 square kilometres of rivers, lakes, marshes, and fens across Norfolk and a small part of Suffolk. The Broads were long assumed to be natural lakes, but research in the 1960s established that they are the flooded remains of medieval peat diggings: Norfolk's peat was exhausted as fuel for Norwich and other towns over several centuries of intensive extraction in the medieval period, the workings flooding after the sea level rose in the 13th and 14th centuries. The Broads contain approximately 200 kilometres of navigable waterway, making them the most extensive navigable inland waterway network in England, and support remarkable biodiversity including rare bitterns, marsh harriers, swallow-tail butterflies, and the endangered Norfolk hawker dragonfly. The traditional Norfolk wherry — a clinker-built sailing barge — was the working vessel of the Broads for centuries; several are preserved. Norwich and its Cathedral Norwich — the county city and until the 18th century the second-largest city in England outside London — retains one of the most complete medieval urban cores in Britain, including over 30 medieval parish churches within the old city walls (more medieval churches within a single city boundary than any other in northern Europe). Norwich Cathedral — the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity — was founded in 1096 by Herbert de Losinga and is one of the most complete Norman cathedrals in England; the Romanesque nave, the bishop's throne (a very rare survival of a pre-Conquest episcopal chair), and the extraordinary fan-vaulted cloisters (the most extensive and finest Romanesque cloisters in England, largely rebuilt in the late medieval period) make it one of the most satisfying Gothic buildings in England. The Norwich School of painters — John Crome (1768–1821), John Sell Cotman (1782–1842), and their followers — was the first distinctly regional school of landscape painting in England. Sandringham and the North Norfolk Coast Sandringham House, the private country estate of the British Royal Family in northwest Norfolk, was purchased by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) in 1862. It has been used as a private retreat by the Royal Family ever since, and both George V and George VI died at Sandringham. The Sandringham Estate covers approximately 8,000 hectares. Holkham Hall — the supreme example of English Palladianism (1734–1764, designed by William Kent for the 1st Earl of Leicester of the 3rd creation) — stands in a vast park above the North Norfolk coast; Holkham Bay, accessible through the estate, is one of the most spectacular sandy beaches in England. The north Norfolk coast between Hunstanton and Cromer is designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and contains some of the most important bird reserves in England (Titchwell, Holme, Cley). GIS and Boundary Data The administrative boundary of Norfolk 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 Broads ecology, coastal conservation, cathedral heritage, royal estate mapping, and demographic analysis across the Norfolk local authority area.

📍 Administrative boundary of Norfolk county