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How Big is your Garden?

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About the map

In wake of the COVID-19 lockdown, we all became accustomed to living in our bedrooms, kitchens and for the more fortunate, gardens. This analysis takes a deeper look at the average garden size per property, in various cities across the country. The patterns and trends that emerge from the analysis provide interesting insight to how much private green space we really have access to (on average) in different parts of the UK. This garden analysis combined with the recent surge of home-owners relocating to the countryside, may indicate the new priorities for purchasing a property.

Why it works

The map of garden sizes across London shows a clear trend, highlighting larger gardens as you travel further from the city centre. This combined with the comparison of cities statistics, creates an interesting piece of analysis drawing attention to where in the UK garden sizes really are larger.

Requirements

  • Data and software

    Esri UK created the analysis and map using ArcGIS Pro 2.6, using data from the latest MasterMap Topography Layer® from Ordnance Survey (OS), Office of National Statistics and Valuation Office Agency.

  • Analysis

    Esri UK extracted the garden features from the OS MasterMap Topography Layer, then calculated the size of each area. Creating a sum value of total garden size for each Local Authority, they then divided this by total number of properties (VOA) in that same Local Authority. The ONS data was then used to identify the most populated cities.

  • Time

    The map creation took several days to run, mainly due to the large number of polygon features spanning across GB. Once the garden size had been calculated, the visualisation was quicker to create.

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Tips and tricks

  • Focusing on quality

    Removing the basemap entirely allowed for a clean look, focusing the attention on the colours rather than the unnecessary background info. This approach may not work when you don’t have recognisable features (such as the River Thames).

  • Virtual machine

    Using a virtual machine to run the analysis allowed for the tools to run overnight and avoid hitting the local machines spec limits.

  • Keeping focus

    Adding a faded mask to the area outside of London naturally draws the readers eye to your area of interest, without inserting boundary lines that can often be disruptive to the cartography.

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Links & Resources

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City

Average garden size per property (m2)

Total area of gardens (m2)

Number of Properties

Population

Leeds

181

64,120,038

355,030

795,565

Bradford

178

38,755,812

218,190

540,909

Sheffield

171

42,748,311

249,900

589,710

Birmingham

171

75,917,609

444,440

1,152,785

Greater Manchester

156

191,714,856

1,228,110

2,844,611

Coventry

154

22,053,813

142,770

378,966

Sunderland

142

18,432,390

129,880

277,540

Nottingham

133

18,558,665

139,150

333,963

Leicester

127

17,689,284

139,330

360,557

Bristol

124

25,105,453

201,980

471,344

Newcastle-upon-Tyne

121

16,157,541

133,970

302,680

Liverpool

111

25,408,380

229,550

502,326

Brighton and Hove

111

14,391,869

130,210

293,917

Greater London

100

364,533,429

3,642,640

9,039,389

Sam Bark, Cartographer

Map Author

Sam Bark

Sam Bark is a Cartographer on the Product Communications team at Esri UK. Aside his passion for map design, Sam’s other interests extend to fair-weather cycling, London’s diverse food scene and photography.

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