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Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Great Britain Historical Database has been assembled as part of the ongoing Great Britain Historical GIS Project. The project aims to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain at sub-county scales. Further information about the project is available on A Vision of Britain webpages, where users can browse the database's documentation system online.These data were originally collected by the Censuses of Population for England and Wales, and for Scotland. They were computerised by the Great Britain Historical GIS Project and its collaborators. They form part of the Great Britain Historical Database, which contains a wide range of geographically-located statistics, selected to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain, generally at sub-county scales. The Census of Population first gathered data on housing "density", i.e. the number of persons in each household relative to the number of rooms, in 1891, although the first year included here is 1901. In 1891, over-crowding was defined as over 2 persons per room; by 1931 this threshold had dropped to 1.5 persons; and by 1961 to 1 person per room. Up to 1931, the data for each locality and date form a table of numbers of persons against numbers of rooms, and these transcriptions sometimes exclude the rows/columns for the very largest households (see the documentation for individual tables). From 1951 onwards, simpler tables simply list numbers of households in each density category (e.g. over 1 person per room and not more than 1.5 persons). This is a new edition. Data have been added for 1911 and 1951. Wherever possible, ID numbers have been added for counties and districts which match those used in the digital boundary data created by the GBH GIS, greatly simplifying...