How Cheltenham and Gloucester Have Grown Since 1975, Mapped Five Years at a Time

A new map shows how Cheltenham, Gloucester and nearby villages have been built up since 1975, with a slider to step through every five years.

By Mat Benfield · Published 2026-11-01

Our new growth map shows how much of Cheltenham, Gloucester and the villages around them was built up in 1975, and where the towns have spread since.

Move the slider to step forward five years at a time. Each area is shaded by when it was first built up, and the newest land is outlined, so new estates on the edges of both towns stand out. Across the nine postcode districts, built-up land grew from 5,503 hectares in 1975 to 8,625 hectares in 2020. GL2, on Gloucester’s side, added the most at 841 hectares, followed by GL54, the Cotswold villages east of Cheltenham, at 483 hectares.

FAQs

What Does the Growth Map Show?

  • A map of the area built up by each year from 1975 to 2020, shaded by when each part was first built on, and a table of built-up hectares for each postcode district.

Which Areas Does It Cover?

  • The postcode districts GL1 to GL4 for Gloucester, GL50 to GL53 for Cheltenham and nearby villages such as Bishop’s Cleeve, and GL54 for the Cotswold villages east of Cheltenham.

Where Does the Data Come From?

  • The European Commission’s Global Human Settlement Layer, which measures buildings from satellite images in 100-metre squares, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.

How Often Is It Updated?

  • The map will be updated when a new edition of the data is published. The latest year measured so far is 2020.