Code-Point

Code-Point | Data Products | OSOrdnance Survey

Code-Point is a postcode locator that locates over 1.7 million postcode units in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Code-point provides users with information about delivery points within the postcode, positional quality, type, and district codes amongst other key points of postcode-level data.

This product is updated quarterly

Representation of Code-Point data

Features

Authoritative data

Coverage of over 1.7 million postcodes in Great Britain and Northern Ireland updated quarterly – accurate depiction of all live postcodes in GB and NI.

Get more from your postcode data

Understand the split of residential and commercial delivery points within a postcode area for a greater depth of analysis.

Interoperable data

Combine your statistical and health datasets with postcode data by linking to ONS administrative codes and Health Authority codes provided with Code-Point.

Code-Point data provides:

• information about the number and type of postal delivery points in the postcode;

• a positional quality indicator (PQI), indicating the quality of the data underlying the Code-Point location coordinate (CPLC);

• the country indicator (either England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland);

• the postcode type;

• the National Health Service region and area codes; and

• the local government county, district and ward codes.

Use cases

Code-Point has been widely used in a variety of applications, including:

• Site location

• Enabling web searches

• Market analysis and profiling

• Health and epidemiology

• Resource allocation

• End-to-end journey route planning

• Socio-economic profiling

• Sales targeting

Summary

• Access: Download

• Data theme: Postcodes

• Data structure: Vector - Points

• Coverage: Great Britain

• Scale: 1:1 250 to 1:10 000

• Format: GeoPackage, CSV

• Ordering area: All of Great Britain

• Publication months: February, May, August, November

• OS Data Hub plan: Public Sector Plan, Premium Plan, Energy & Infrastructure Plan

Additional information

Code-Point postcode coverage

Code-Point includes 121 postcode areas in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but does not include the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands.

It can take some time for a new postcode to work its way through the system into Code-Point

Until our surveyors have visited the area to complete the very precise large-scale mapping, we allocate a calculated map reference to the postcode that, depending on the level of development in the area, can be somewhat inaccurate. When this has been done, a positional quality indicator in the Code-Point record makes it clear that the coordinates provided are temporary, and will be improved to a full quality match as soon as possible.

Code-Point accuracy and resolution

Code-Point is created by taking the average of the coordinates of all the individual addresses in a postcode (provided they are of sufficient quality), then snapping to the nearest of those addresses. Code-Point then delivers the coordinates of that address, as representative of the whole postcode, to a resolution of 1 metre.

The accuracy of a Code-Point Open record could be expressed as, that the coordinated position will always be within the notional geographical extent of the postcode. The accuracy of each postcode unit coordinate pair is defined by the positional quality indicator (PQI) which provides a quality statement of a Code-Point record.

Code-Point contains five admin ward codes for postcodes on the Isles of Scilly

These have been issued by ONS for statistical purposes only, because there are no wards on the Isles of Scilly. The Codelist.xls file supplied with Code-Point is generated from Boundary-Line. Boundary-Line does not contain these ward codes as they do not exist for political purposes. Therefore, these codes are not available in the Codelist.xls file supplied in the Doc folder with Code-Point. All other ward codes should exist in both Code-Point and the Codelist.xls file.

What administrative and NHS codes are included in each Administrative and NHS field?

Column	Object definition
Administrative County	Counties
Administrative District	Unitary Authorities Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Districts London Boroughs Scottish Council Areas
Administrative Ward	Electoral Wards/Divisions
NHS Regional Health Authority	English Pan Strategic Health Authorities
NHS Health Authority	English Strategic Health Authorities Scottish Health Board areas

How to get this product

Access to this product is free for PSGA members. Find out if you are a PSGA member or find other ways to access Code-Point data by visiting the product page with links to all of the relevant resources.

Visualise Code-Point data online

This product is available to try out online using one of our three sets of sample data (Exeter, Newport and Inverness) through the OS MasterMap product viewer:

OS MasterMap Product Viewer

Interactive demonstrator of OS MasterMap Generation data