Area classification for statistical wards - cluster summaries
This classification groups statistical wards into clusters based on similar characteristics. See information on statistical wards. The largest cluster is the supergroup, of which there are nine. Each supergroup is further split into groups (17 in total) and further into subgroups (26 in total). The results are easily viewed as maps in pdf files.
Each of these downloadable pdf files contains statistical summaries of the supergroup and its constituent groups and subgroups. Each summary highlights the main socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the clusters in the collection.
The summaries have been created by listing the variables that meet certain definitions for 'far below average', 'far above average', and 'close to the average' (see footnote). The variables have been listed in ascending order of distance from the UK mean, so the first variable mentioned as being below the UK mean is furthest below the UK mean, and the last variable mentioned as being above the UK mean is the furthest above the UK mean.
Greater variation can be seen in the summaries that contain London wards, that is, the supergroups Prospering Metropolitan and Multicultural Metropolitan. These have larger differences from the UK mean so these supergroups have more variables in the far above/below categories whereas other cluster groups have fewer variables in the far above/below categories but more in the 'close to the average' category.
The "most typical" and "least typical" wards for each cluster were chosen on the basis of similarity (distance) to the average characteristics (centroid) of the cluster. The distance from every ward to the cluster centroid indicates how similar it is to the cluster as a whole. See Distance from Centroids for values and more information.
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