What counts as a priority habitat?

A priority habitat is an area identified as a habitat of principal importance for biodiversity. In England these are listed under section 41 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 and mapped in the Priority Habitats Inventory. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each have their own equivalent register, all reconciled here into one schema.

Which nations are covered?

All four UK nations: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The layer is built from four separate national registers held by Natural England, NatureScot, Natural Resources Wales and DAERA NIEA.

How current is the data?

The model is snapshot-versioned and refreshed from the custodians' published registers on a monthly cycle. Each record carries its source designated and amended dates with a date_precision flag, so a year-only value is never served as an exact calendar date.

What licence applies?

Open Government Licence v3.0 throughout, sourced only from named public-sector custodians. Every record returns per-custodian attribution, so the data can be reused commercially with correct credit. Non-OGL sources are deliberately excluded.

Read-only over REST. You can query by point, radius, bounding box or polygon, fetch a single habitat by its stable id, or list the public type vocabulary for free. The product is sold as an annual licence rather than pay-per-call.

What coordinate system is the geometry in?

Every polygon is served in EPSG:4326 (WGS84), reprojected server-side from each source's native grid: British National Grid (27700) for Great Britain and Irish Grid (29902) for Northern Ireland. You can map each feature directly without further reprojection.

Is a priority habitat the same as a protected site?

No. Priority habitats record where habitats of principal importance occur, which is distinct from statutory protected sites such as SSSIs or conservation areas. They are a screening and constraint layer, not a legal designation of the land they cover.

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Conservation & Nature

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Priority Habitats

Habitats of principal importance for biodiversity across all four UK nations, mapped as polygons. Reconciled from Natural England, NatureScot, NRW and DAERA NIEA into one schema.

2.84 million

Features

Nations

EPSG:4326

Geometry

OGL v3.0

Licence

Overview

About this dataset

Priority Habitats maps the areas identified as habitats of principal importance for biodiversity. It is the largest layer in the dataset, at roughly 2.84 million polygons across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Each nation has its own statutory basis. In England the layer is the Priority Habitats Inventory under section 41 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, held by Natural England. Scotland draws on the Habitat Map of Scotland from NatureScot. Northern Ireland follows the Wildlife and Natural Environment Act (Northern Ireland) 2011, held by DAERA NIEA. Wales uses the BAP habitat family curated by Natural Resources Wales.

We reconcile these four registers into one schema with one stable identity per feature. Every polygon is reprojected server-side to EPSG:4326 from its native grid, and returned with the custodian's attribution. Query by point, radius, bounding box or polygon over REST, or fetch a single habitat by id.

The layer supports biodiversity net gain screening, environmental constraint checks and ESG or natural-capital reporting. Open Government Licence v3.0 applies throughout, so records can be reused commercially with attribution.

What's included

Everything in the box

Point, radius and polygon query

Query the inventory by point, radius, bounding box or polygon over REST, or fetch a single habitat polygon by its stable id.

EPSG:4326 polygons

Every feature carries valid WGS84 geometry, reprojected server-side from each source's native grid.

Four registers, one schema

England's Priority Habitats Inventory, the Habitat Map of Scotland, the Northern Ireland register and the Welsh BAP habitat family reconciled into a single schema with one identity per feature.

Stable identifiers

Each habitat carries a stable id in the form design.{product}.{nation}.{type}.{reference}, so records can be tracked across snapshots.

OGL provenance

Open Government Licence v3.0 throughout, with per-custodian attribution returned on every record.

Welsh bilingual names

name_cy carries the Welsh habitat name where the source register provides one.

Data fields

What each record carries

schema14 fields

reference: string// Custodian reference for the habitat feature within its source register.

nation: enum// Nation the feature belongs to: ENG, SCT, WAL or NIR.

source: string// Named public-sector custodian of the record.

name: string// Habitat feature name or label.

name_cy: string// Welsh-language name where the source register provides one.

designation_type: enum// Canonical type for the feature within this product.

category: string// Priority habitat class as recorded by the custodian.

designated_date: date// Date the feature was recorded or last surveyed in the source register.

date_precision: enum// Precision of the served dates: day, month, year or none.

local_authority: string// Local authority the feature falls within.

area_hectares: float// Mapped area of the habitat polygon in hectares.

source_url: string// Link to the custodian's published source dataset.

centroid: object// Representative point of the polygon in EPSG:4326, as lat/lng.

attribution: string// Per-custodian OGL attribution string returned with the record.

Sample response

Straight from the API

response.jsonapplication/json

{
  "id": "design.conservation.ENG.priority_habitat.PHI1042337",
  "reference": "PHI1042337",
  "nation": "ENG",
  "source": "Natural England",
  "name": "Deciduous Woodland",
  "name_cy": null,
  "designation_type": "priority_habitat",
  "category": "Deciduous Woodland",
  "designated_date": "2018-05-01",
  "amended_date": "2023-03-14",
  "date_precision": "day",
  "local_authority": "South Hams",
  "area_hectares": 12.47,
  "source_url": "https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/priority-habitats-inventory-england",
  "centroid": {
    "lat": 50.3421,
    "lng": -3.7765
  },
  "geometry": {
    "type": "Polygon",
    "coordinates": [
      [
        [-3.7771, 50.3418],
        [-3.7759, 50.3418],
        [-3.7759, 50.3425],
        [-3.7771, 50.3425],
        [-3.7771, 50.3418]
      ]
    ]
  },
  "licence": "OGL v3.0",
  "attribution": "Contains Natural England data, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0"
}

Use cases

What people build with it

Biodiversity net gain screening

Identify priority habitats on or near a site to scope biodiversity net gain obligations before design and submission.

Developers

Site environmental constraints

Check habitats of principal importance alongside other designations when assessing applications and land allocations.

Planners

ESG and natural capital reporting

Quantify habitat exposure across a portfolio to support ESG disclosure and natural-capital assessment.

Investors

Pre-acquisition due diligence

Map habitat polygons over a target parcel to flag environmental risk early in appraisal.

Surveyors