Where do I get digital boundaries for census data output areas?

You may need digital boundaries if you want to map census area statistics using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software.

Map of standardised limiting long-term illness ratios for males by local authority districts in England & Wales: 2001 Census

Historical Census boundaries (pre-1971)

These can be accessed from the Historical Geographical Information System (GIS) for Great Britain website. This project covers the period from the late 1830s when modern statistical data collection is said to have started. (Some of the historical GIS boundaries from this project can be accessed via UKBORDERS.)

Recent Census boundaries (1971 onwards)

UKBORDERS provides digitised boundary datasets of the UK, available in many GIS formats (MapInfo, ArcView, Arc/Info and several others), for teachers and researchers in the UK further and higher education community to download and use in their work.
The Casweb interface allows academic users to download census data along with digital boundaries in MapInfo and ArcView formats.
CommonGIS, an interactive web-mapping system which provides a range of visualisation and exploratory analysis functionality, is also accessible via the Casweb interface. It is currently available for use with aggregate data from the 1991 Census and will be extended to be available for data from other censuses. A worked example using data from the 1991 Census Small Area Statistics has been developed to introduce users to the CommonGIS software.