Game of Populations

The UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS) has today released the latest population and household estimates for England and Wales based on the 2021 census. The population of England & Wales is now 59,597,300. In the previous census (2011) the population of England & Wales was 56,075,912 The UK population as a whole is now almost 67 million.

In celebration of the new population data for England & Wales the ONS has released the Census 2021 Population Game. In this new daily game you have to travel across a map of Great Britain, step by step, until you reach the suggested destination. To move forward across the map you have to guess correctly at each stage whether the next local authority area has a higher or lower population than the local authority area that you are currently located on (on the map). 

Each time you get an answer wrong that local authority area is marked red. Turn too many local authorities red and you will end up blocking all the possible routes to your destination. In which case you lose the game. Winning the game is simple - you just need to reach the stated destination.

The Census 2021 Population Game has taken quite a lot of inspiration from Ahmad Barclay and Sam Cottrell's MapBusters game. MapBusters requires you to travel the length of Great Britain from Land's End to John O'Groats by guessing the population of local authority areas. This game, released last year is very, very similar to ONS's new game but used 2020 mid-year population estimates rather than the newly released England & Wales population data.