An interactive online map has been launched today to help people view for the first time the exact detail of the extended Cork city boundary.

And the final Register of Electors 2019/2020 for the extended city has also been published with the total number of electors at 148,780, and 62,567 people seeing their vote transfer from the county council to the city council.

The register, which comes into effect on February 15, will be in force for the local and European elections in May.

City Council Returning Officer, Paul Moynihan, said the franchise teams at both the city and county councils have done a lot of work identifying electors to be transferred into the new city.

“The extension of Cork City means that residents in the newly extended city may be voting in this year’s elections for councillors they are less familiar with. And some councillors will be representing areas they haven’t in the past,” he said.

The franchise teams, which look after voting protocol, not only had to identify the electors in the newly extended areas but they also had to re-structure the local electoral areas as the city is moving from six electoral areas to five. This is a very complex body of work.

“However, there may yet be people who are not correctly identified on the register so we are encouraging all voters to please check their details online at checktheregister.ie or by contacting City Hall.”

You can contact the city’s Register of Electors at 4924107/4924108/4924109 or e-mail franchise@corkcity.ie.

If you are not on the current register or have changed your address you can apply to be included in the Supplement by completing the RFA2/RFA3 application forms which are available on the checktheregister.ie site.

Meanwhile, the mapping tool is the first phase of an extensive public awareness campaign which is being planned by the city council ahead of the boundary extension - the city’s first since 1965.

It will more than quadruple its geographical footprint and increase its population by over 85,000 to just over 210,000, bringing areas such as Ballincollig, Blarney, Glanmire, Douglas, as well as Cork Airport and its surrounds, within the administrative control of the city.

While the number of city and county councillors will remain the same at 55 in the county and 31 in the city, the boundary change is reducing the city’s local electoral areas (LEAs) from six to five.

The north central ward has been abolished and with two huge wards now spread across the northside.

The Cork North West ward, which runs from St Patrick’s Bridge west to Tower and Blarney, includes Gurranabraher, Knocknaheeny and Farranree.

It will have six councillors representing a population of just over 40,000.

The Cork North East ward, which extends as far east as the Dunkettle roundabout, to include Blackpool, Ballyvolane, Mayfield, Glanmire and Sallybrook, will have six councillors representing a population of just over 42,000.

The southside retains three wards but there are a number of polling district changes that voters should be aware of.

The largest of the city’s new wards, the South West Ward, extends from Glasheen, Togher and Bishopstown to the western outskirts of Ballincollig and will have seven councillors representing a population of 47,000.

The South Central Ward extends from Albert St to Victoria Cross, includes the city centre and UCC, runs south to Frankfield and parts of Grange, and will have six councillors representing just over 38,600 people.

The South East Ward, which extends eastwards from Kennedy Quay to Dunkettle, and includes Blackrock, Ballintemple, Ballinlough, Douglas, Donnybrook and Rochestown, and reaches almost as far east as Passage West, will have six councillors representing just over 42,780 people.

David Joyce, the director of services in the city council’s transition directorate, said publication of the map is the first step in helping people assess the impact of the boundary extension.

He said users can input an Eircode, using the correct format to include the space between the first three and last four characters, to identify an individual property.

The map automatically zooms to the identified building and allows people to zoom into an area of just 30-metres to view individual homes or business displayed in traditional map format or in a satellite or aerial-photo form.

A drop-down menu then displays which LEA or ward the property is in for the local elections, the population living in each LEA, the number of councillors to be elected in that LEA and the population per councillor.

Additional mapping layers can be turned on or off to show the progressive expansion of the city boundary since 1840.

Mr Joyce said they hope to add additional layers of information to the mapping tool over the coming months.

The map can be viewed at www.corkcity.ie.