Households
The number of households: people living alone, or groups sharing a home and its living space, counted at the census.
- Level of detail
- Output area
- Published for
- Nation, Region, Council, Constituency, Ward, Middle area, Neighbourhood and Output area
- Covers
- All four nations
- Updates
- Every 10 years
- Latest period
- 2021
- Published
- 21 July 2026
- Fetched by Open Index
- 15 October 2026
- Licence
- Open Government Licence 3.0
Where it covers
- England
- Wales
- Scotland
- Northern Ireland
- England178,605 of 178,605 output areas have a figure
- Wales10,275 of 10,275 output areas have a figure
- Scotland46,363 of 46,363 output areas have a figure
How it is made
Open Index shows the figures as Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland and NISRA Census 2021 publish them, for the areas they were published for: nations, regions, councils, constituencies, wards, middle areas, neighbourhoods and output areas.
Counts for larger areas are added up from output areas.
Zoom in past output area level and the map keeps the output area shapes and says so, rather than inventing detail.
- Nation2021 only
- Region2021 only
- Council2021 only
- Constituency2021 only
- Ward2021 only
- Middle area2021 only
- Neighbourhood2021 only
- Output area2021 only
Before you use it
- A household is one person living alone, or a group of people who live at the same address and share a kitchen or living space. People in care homes, halls of residence and other communal homes are not in a household.
- England, Wales and Northern Ireland held their census on 21 March 2021. Scotland's was a year later, on 20 March 2022, so its figures describe a day a year on.
- Each census office makes small random changes to counts to protect privacy, so the smallest areas can be a few people out, and small areas do not add up exactly to larger ones.
- Wards and constituencies are worked out by Open Index by adding up the census areas that best fit them, so they are close but not exact. Councils whose boundaries changed after the census are added up from output areas.
- Scotland's census publishes output areas and Data Zones in bulk, so Open Index adds up Data Zones for Intermediate Zones, councils and Scotland.
- Northern Ireland has no 2021 output areas. Its smallest census areas are Data Zones, so the map holds at that level there.
Colours on the map
Seven groups with about the same number of areas each, worked out from the latest period and held for every period, so colours mean the same over time.
How Open Index describes it
Page text on Open Index comes from this layer’s sentence rules, filled in with published figures. For Hackney:
Hackney had 106,081 households at the census.
Hackney is 76th highest of 361 for the number of households.
Sources and licences
- Edition
- Census 2021 topic summaries (Nomis bulk)
- Published
- 19 January 2023
- Fetched by Open Index
- 15 October 2026
- Licence
- Open Government Licence 3.0
- Edition
- Scotland's Census 2022 bulk tables, July 2026
- Published
- 21 July 2026
- Fetched by Open Index
- 15 October 2026
- Licence
- Open Government Licence 3.0
- Edition
- Census 2021 Flexible Table Builder extract, October 2026
- Fetched by Open Index
- 15 October 2026
- Licence
- Open Government Licence 3.0