Population around the county

Key points

  • Herefordshire is a predominately rural county of 842 square miles situated in the south-west corner of the West Midlands region bordering Wales.
  • The population of Hereford City is 55,800; the market towns range from 3,300 residents in Kington to 11,300 in Leominster.
  • Recent population growth has been more rapid in rural parts of Herefordshire: the ‘urban’ population increased by just 2% between 2001 & 2010; that of ‘rural town and fringe’ areas by 5%.
  • At 80 persons per square kilometre (or 0.8 per hectare), Herefordshire has the 9th lowest overall population density of all counties and unitary authorities in England & Wales; the 4th lowest in England.
  • Of the 179,300 people living in Herefordshire, 97,200 (54%) live in rural areas, and 76,600 of these (43% of the total) live in ‘rural village or dispersed’ areas. 
  • A particular challenge for service delivery is how scattered the population is (‘sparsity’).  According to measures used in the calculation of the Local Government Finance Settlement, no other English county-level authority has a greater proportion of its population living in ‘very sparse’ Output Areas than Herefordshire (25%).  

Estimates for small areas

A comprehensive set of population figures for areas smaller than county level (i.e. wards, parishes, output areas and super output areas) are only produced every 10 years, as part of the national Census of Population. However, the ONS has developed 'experimental' estimates for lower super output areas and wards. There are 116 LSOAs in Herefordshire, and these 'nest' into the current ward boundaries.  The figures have been aggregated to produce estimates of the population of market towns.

The LSOA, ward and market town estimates for mid-2010, broken down by age and gender, are available to download from the resource box below. Also available from this box are the total estimated population for each of these areas for all years, mid-2001 to mid-2010.

Please note that there are no current estimates of the population of Herefordshire parishes; the most recent figures are from the 2001 Census and can be downloaded from the resource box below.

Distribution around the county

Herefordshire has the 4th lowest overall population density in England at 80 people per square kilometre (or 0.8 per hectare), and the population is scattered across the 842 square miles of the county. Just under a third of residents live in Hereford city; just over a fifth in the five market towns (Leominster, Ross, Ledbury, Bromyard & Kington). This means that nearly half of the population lives in villages, hamlets and isolated dwellings in rural areas.

A scattered population presents particular challenges for service delivery; 'sparsity' measures give an indication of how widely dispersed an area's population is. Despite other counties having a lower overall population density, no area has a greater proportion of its population living in 'very sparse' areas than Herefordshire (25%). The first paper available to download from the second resource box below presents the analysis behind this statement, and the second looks at other aspects related to sparsity: distance from key services and road length.

Population estimates for areas of Herefordshire

 

Sparsity of Herefordshire's population

  • File (43.47kb)Sparsity of Population in Herefordshire
  • An analysis of Herefordshire's position, relative to the other 149 English top tier local authorities, in terms of 'sparsity' measures used in the Local Government Finance Settlement.
  • 43 kb
 

Last updated: 20 December 2011