Printable map of UK counties and council areas

Free PDFs, ready for A4 or Letter. Print in colour or black and white.

Outline map of UK counties and council areas with its regions

Printing a map of UK counties and council areas

With 232 administrative areas, the version with regions of this map is a dense sheet, and it pays to decide what the sheet is for before you print it. With regions draws every area with no names; Blank outline gives the shape of the UK with nothing inside it. Both are free PDFs for A4 or Letter, in colour or black and white.

Using the dense sheet

Few tasks need all 232 areas at once, so pick a handful. Ask pupils to find and colour Cornwall, Kent, Norfolk, Gwynedd and Highland, then label them from the list further down this page. A local-history project can colour the area the school sits in and the ones around it. A family-history sheet can colour where each branch lived, with a key down the margin, and a trip planner can shade the areas on the route and add a few dates beside them.

Younger children get more from the blank outline: colour the whole shape, then place dots for London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield and write each name beside its dot, with an atlas to help.

Getting a legible print

Black and white at 100% gives the sharpest lines, and a pencil works better than a felt tip on the small areas. Laminate a copy and pupils can rub out and try again with a dry-wipe pen. A4 is fine for a handful of areas; if everyone needs to read the shapes, choose Customise before printing and download an A3 PDF from the editor. For the country on its own, see the printable map of the United Kingdom.

How to do it in MapMaker

Choose With regions for the 232 administrative areas, or Blank outline for the shape of the UK.
Pick A4 or Letter, then Black and white for sharp lines.
Print the PDF at 100%, and number only the areas the task needs.
Colour a few areas with the bar on the map and choose Download your map for a prepared sheet.
Choose Customise before printing for A3, names or a title.

The 232 administrative areas on the map

A key for labelling the map by hand.

Aberdeen
Aberdeenshire
Anglesey
Angus
Antrim
Ards
Argyll and Bute
Armagh
Ballymena
Ballymoney
Banbridge
Barking and Dagenham
Barnet
Barnsley
Bath and North East Somerset
Bedford
Belfast
Bexley
Birmingham
Blackburn with Darwen
Blackpool
Blaenau Gwent
Bolton
Bournemouth
Bracknell Forest
Bradford
Brent
Bridgend
Brighton and Hove
Bristol
Bromley
Buckinghamshire
Bury
Caerphilly
Calderdale
Cambridgeshire
Camden
Cardiff
Carmarthenshire
Carrickfergus
Castlereagh
Central Bedfordshire
Ceredigion
Cheshire East
Cheshire West and Chester
Clackmannanshire
Coleraine
Conwy
Cornwall
Coventry
Craigavon
Croydon
Cumbria
Darlington
Denbighshire
Derby
Derbyshire
Derry
Devon
Doncaster
Dorset
Down
Dudley
Dumfries and Galloway
Dundee
Dungannon and South Tyrone
Durham
Ealing
East Ayrshire
East Dunbartonshire
East Lothian
East Renfrewshire
East Riding of Yorkshire
East Sussex
Edinburgh
Enfield
Essex
Falkirk
Fermanagh
Fife
Flintshire
Gateshead
Glasgow
Gloucestershire
Greenwich
Gwynedd
Hackney
Halton
Halton
Hammersmith and Fulham
Hampshire
Haringey
Harrow
Hartlepool
Havering
Herefordshire
Hertfordshire
Highland
Hillingdon
Hounslow
Inverclyde
Isle of Wight
Isles of Scilly
Islington
Kensington and Chelsea
Kent
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Thames
Kirklees
Knowsley
Lambeth
Lancashire
Larne
Leeds
Leicester
Leicestershire
Lewisham
Limavady
Lincolnshire
Lisburn
Liverpool
London
Luton
Magherafelt
Manchester
Medway
Merseyside
Merthyr Tydfil
Merton
Mid Ulster
Middlesbrough
Midlothian
Milton Keynes
Monmouthshire
Moray
Moyle
Neath Port Talbot
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newham
Newport
Newry and Mourne
Newtownabbey
Norfolk
North Ayrshire
North Down
North East Lincolnshire
North Lanarkshire
North Lincolnshire
North Somerset
North Tyneside
North Yorkshire
Northamptonshire
Northumberland
Nottingham
Nottinghamshire
Oldham
Omagh
Orkney Islands
Outer Hebrides
Oxfordshire
Pembrokeshire
Perth and Kinross
Peterborough
Plymouth
Poole
Portsmouth
Powys
Reading
Redbridge
Redcar and Cleveland
Renfrewshire
Rhondda Cynon Taf
Richmond upon Thames
Rochdale
Rotherham
Rutland
Salford
Sandwell
Scottish Borders
Sefton
Sheffield
Shetland Islands
Shropshire
Slough
Solihull
Somerset
South Ayrshire
South Gloucestershire
South Lanarkshire
South Tyneside
Southampton
Southend-on-Sea
Southwark
Staffordshire
Stirling
Stockport
Stockton-on-Tees
Stoke-on-Trent
Strabane
Suffolk
Sunderland
Surrey
Sutton
Swansea
Swindon
Tameside
Telford and Wrekin
Thurrock
Torbay
Torfaen
Tower Hamlets
Trafford
Vale of Glamorgan
Wakefield
Walsall
Waltham Forest
Wandsworth
Warrington
Warwickshire
West Berkshire
West Dunbartonshire
West Lothian
West Sussex
Westminster
Wigan
Wiltshire
Windsor and Maidenhead
Wokingham
Wolverhampton
Worcestershire
Wrexham
York

Facts about UK counties and council areas

This map shows 232 administrative areas in Northern Europe. Together they have an area of about 243,000 km². The capital is London. The population is about 67 million (2019 estimate). The largest cities are London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield.

Questions people ask

How many areas does the printable map show?

The version with regions shows 232 administrative areas, each drawn as its own shape. The list further down this page names every one, so it works as the key when you mark a labelling task.

Will 232 areas print clearly on a home printer?

The PDFs are vector files, so the lines stay sharp, but small areas are close together on A4. Print in black and white at 100% for a sharp sheet, or use Customise before printing to download A3 for a wall.

Does the printable map show the names of the counties?

No. The PDFs carry no names, so pupils write them in. For names on the map, choose Customise before printing, select the areas you want named and download a PDF from the editor.

Can I print the outline without the areas?

Yes. Blank outline gives the shape of the UK with no lines inside it, which suits younger children or a project where only the country matters.