There are two sorts of parishes in an area. There are civil parishes – the first tier of local government – and ecclesiastical parishes that are centred around an Anglican church (and have a parochial church council). The boundaries for these two are not always aligned.
A civil parish is an independent local authority for villages, smaller towns, and suburbs of urban areas. Each parish has a parish (or town) meeting and where the electorate exceeds 200, has a parish council. In a more urban area, a parish council may choose to be known as a town council. They are generically known as local councils.
There are 104 local councils in County Durham including 13 town councils and 91 parish councils. In addition there are 22 parish meetings where no formal local council exists. Further information is available on the Durham County Council website. Please see the County Durham Association of Local Councils website for a list of parishes.
As these boundaries can change over time they do not match the standard statistical geographies (OA/LSOA/MSOA) commonly used to present data and so most of the currently available data is derived from the 2021 Census.
Parish data is available through the following link: