Kent Civil Parishes

A parish (also known as a 'civil parish'), is the smallest unit of local government in England. However, not all parishes have a council and there are still several areas within Kent which remain un-parished. 

As at 2011 there were 309 civil parishes in the Kent County Council area and a further 11 in the Medway Unitary Authority area.

Although parishes are affected by the boundary changes of the county districts or unitary authorities in which they fall, they are not contiguous with electoral wards. Many parishes are a similar size to wards, some are much smaller than wards and some can contain several wards, and ward boundaries need not be followed.

In consequence, the huge range in population size between parishes; the frequent change to the number of parishes and the fact that some areas of the country have parishes and others not make them an unsatisfactory unit for national statistical production on an annual basis. However, the national census does provide data at parish level. 

The total population of Kent parishes is summarised in the 2011 Census parish population bulletin (PDF, 347k)

Socio-economic profiles for all individual parishes in Kent have been produced using data from the 2001 Census and 2011 Census. These are available on the area profiles page.