Administrative Boundary of Antrim and Newtownabbey

About Antrim and Newtownabbey

Antrim and Newtownabbey is a district council area in Northern Ireland. Covering approximately 567 square kilometres on the western and northwestern shores of Belfast Lough and the southern shores of Lough Neagh, Antrim and Newtownabbey had a population of approximately 145,000 at the 2021 Census. The district was created in 2015 by the merger of the former Antrim Borough Council and Newtownabbey Borough Council as part of the reorganisation of local government in Northern Ireland from 26 to 11 district councils. Lough Neagh Lough Neagh — whose southern shore forms a significant portion of the district boundary — is the largest freshwater lake in the British Isles and one of the largest in Europe, covering approximately 388 square kilometres at a maximum depth of about 25 metres. The lough dominates the landscape and ecology of central Northern Ireland and has been a source of food, transport, and livelihood for the surrounding communities for millennia. The lough is renowned for its eel fishery — pollan (a freshwater fish found only in Ireland), eels, and other fish have been harvested from its waters for centuries — and the traditional eel fishing methods of Lough Neagh were inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2023. The shores of Lough Neagh within the district include Oxford Island (a nature reserve and discovery centre at Craigavon Bay, County Armagh, on the southeastern shore of the lough) and several important wetland habitats. Antrim Town and Castle Gardens Antrim town, on the northeastern shore of Lough Neagh at the mouth of the Six Mile Water, is the principal settlement of the district. Antrim Castle Gardens — adjacent to the site of the demolished Antrim Castle (destroyed by fire in 1922) — are among the finest surviving examples of formal Anglo-Dutch water gardens in Ireland, their geometric canals, parterres, and yew hedges dating from the late 17th century and restored in recent decades by Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council. The Round Tower of Antrim — a well-preserved 10th-century Irish round tower standing approximately 28 metres tall — is one of the finest examples of these characteristically Irish ecclesiastical structures in Ulster. Newtownabbey and the Greater Belfast Area Newtownabbey, to the south of the district, forms the northern fringe of the Greater Belfast metropolitan area and contains a largely suburban population with strong connections to the Belfast economy. Shane's Castle, on the northeastern shore of Lough Neagh, is the private estate of the O'Neill family (the historic lords of Ulster); the ruins of the 19th-century castle stand in a nature reserve managed by the RSPB, with a private steam railway operating on the estate. Population and Demographics The 2021 Census recorded approximately 145,000 residents. The district has a broadly balanced community composition: approximately 46% Catholic/Nationalist and 43% Protestant/Unionist, reflecting the mixed character of the area. GIS and Boundary Data The administrative boundary of Antrim and Newtownabbey District Council is available for free download in GeoJSON and KML formats, sourced from the OSNI Open Data portal (Crown copyright 2024). Compatible with QGIS, ArcGIS, Mapbox, and Google Earth, the dataset supports lough ecology mapping, heritage garden conservation, round tower archaeology, wetland management, and demographic analysis across the Antrim and Newtownabbey local authority area.

📍 Administrative boundary of Antrim and Newtownabbey county