January 2020

No limit

SHP, MIF/MID

January 2020

Various (as Overlay)

OS Digimap Licence

© Crown copyright and database rights 2020 Ordnance Survey (100025252)

1:10,000

N/A - when downloading Code-Point with Polygons you will get data for the full postcode area(s) that your selected area covers.  For example if you select a small area of Edinburgh City Centre you will be supplied with postcode polygons for the full EH postcode area.

• Market analysis
• Statistical analysis
• Crime pattern analysis

• Official User Guide: http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/docs/user-guides/code-point-polygons-user-guide.pdf
• Ordnance Survey Product Information: http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/products/code-point-with-polygons.html
• Ordnance Survey Support Information: http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/help-and-support/products/code-point-with-polygons.html

There are three versions of Code-Point available through Digimap:

• Code-Point - a list of all the current postcode units in Great Britain including co-ordinates
• Code-Point Open - generated from the same underlying data as Code-Point but with fewer attributes
• Code-Point with Polygons - polygon boundaries showing groupings of delivery points which share the same postcode.

Code-Point polygons represent postcode unit boundaries in Great Britain. The boundaries are derived from ADDRESS-POINT^®, an Ordnance Survey product which provides a National Grid co-ordinate for each postal delivery address in Great Britain. Each postcode unit boundary is created to surround all addresses with the same postcode. Where appropriate, the boundaries follow major roads, railways, rivers and Royal Mail postcode sector boundaries. Often, tower blocks or similar buildings will be assigned with more than one postcode. Such buildings are called vertical streets and are represented in the polygon dataset as small squares. A separate look-up table links postcodes to vertical streets using a unique vertical street reference code. Some postcode units are omitted from the dataset, due to issues of accuracy or because they are PO boxes (i.e. non-geographic postcodes). These are listed in separate tables, included with the Code-Point polygons.

Code-Point Polygons contains the following information:

Code-Point Polygon Attributes

Code-Point polygon attributes include the following fields:

• Postcode (full postcode from Code-Point or vertical street identifier)
• UPP (Unique Polygon Identifier)

Vertical Streets Look-up Table

This comma delimited text file provides a look-up table of vertical street reference codes (as present in the Code-Point polygon 'Postcode' field) and the postcodes contained in them.

PO Boxes Look-up Table

This comma delimited text file lists those postcodes that are omitted from the Code-Point polygon dataset because they are PO boxes. The file includes two fields:

• Postcode (postcode that has been omitted from the polygon dataset)
• Reason (in this case, the reason is always "POBOX")

Discards Look-up Table

This comma delimited text file lists those postcodes that are omitted from the Code-Point polygon dataset because there were no ADDRESS-POINT records of sufficient positional quality to create a useful postcode polygon. The file includes two fields:

• Postcode (postcode that has been omitted from the polygon dataset)
• Reason (in this case, the reason is always "QUALITY")

Accuracy and Resolution

Postcode unit boundaries are a type of synthetic boundary. The postcode unit is a collection of delivery points with the same postcode, while the 'boundary' can be drawn anywhere , so long as it contains all delivery points. The postcode unit boundary does not exist in the real world. Where the boundary lines fall makes no difference to the postman, only the delivery points matter. In other words, there is such thing as a correct postcode boundary.

The Code-Point unit boundaries however, have been created to best represent the postcode unit footprint in a way that allows the dataset to be used for many different applications. ADDRESS-POINT delivery points with sufficient positional quality were used to create the postcode unit polygons, which have been edited to follow major physical features but still enclose each delivery point in the correct postcode unit. Some postcode units do not contain enough delivery points with sufficient positional quality to create an acceptable polygon 'footprint'. These have been left out of the Code Point polygon dataset and are listed separately in a 'Discards' look-up table.

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/docs/user-guides/code-point-polygons-user-guide.pdf