Product supply

Available formats

Code-Point is available in the following formats:

• Comma-separated values (CSV)

• GeoPackage (GPKG)

Supply mechanism

Code-Point is only available as national cover of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The product is supplied in two formats (CSV and GeoPackage) as an online download from the OS Data Hub. Alternatively, you can request a DVD of the product in CSV format from OS Orders.

The GeoPackage format of the product is not available as a DVD supply option.

The product is provided as a complete resupply. Any postcode that is deleted between supplies will not be included.

Product update schedule

Code-Point is supplied to customers quarterly (in February, May, August, and November), incorporating updates from georeferenced Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF) and GridLink. GridLink is a joint consortium dataset that provides geospatially referenced postcode data, consisting of UK postcodes, administration areas and health authority codes. The GridLink Consortium comprises Royal Mail, Ordnance Survey, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Land & Property Services (LPS), and National Records of Scotland (NRS). Each consortium member supplies component data to create the GridLink dataset.

Administrative and health authority codes are allocated to postcodes using a point in polygon comparison against Boundary-Line data.

Coverage and file sizes

Code-Point covers postcodes for Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Postcodes are divided into postcode areas and supplied as 121 files.

The approximate file sizes of the respective data formats are as follows:

• CSV: 198MB

• GeoPackage: 290MB

The header file for CSV can be downloaded from theCode-Point Product Support page on the OS website.

Code-Point data structure

CSV

There are two folders in the root directory: Doc and Data. The Doc folder contains the following files:

• CD_INFO.TXT: Note about the data on this DVD

• Codelist.xls: Lookup table of GSS Codes

• NHS_Codelist.xls: Lookup table of Health GSS Codes

• metadata.txt: Number of postcode units in each postcode area

• Readfirst.txt: Summary of copyright, licence, and data format information

• DISCCARE.TXT: Contains information on the care of DVDs The Data folder contains the following sub-folder:

• CSV: 121 Postcode area files in CSV format

GeoPackage

There are two folders in the root directory: Doc and Data. The Doc folder contains the following files:

• Codelist.xlsx: Lookup table of GSS Codes

• NHS_Codelist.xls: Lookup table of Health GSS Codes

• metadata.txt: Number of postcode units in each postcode area

• Readfirst.txt: Summary of copyright, licence, and data format information The Data folder contains the following file:

• UK_CODEPOINT.gpkg: One postcode area file in GeoPackage format