OS Open Built Up Areas
Last updated
Last updated
A dataset representing Built Up Areas of Great Britain designed to underpin statistical analysis and contribute to policy enablement across the public sector. OS Open Built Up Areas is released and maintained as an OS OpenData product with Open Government Licensing (OGL), which means that anyone can use this data for a wide range of purposes.
This product is updated every two years
Built Up Areas are used to analyse census data to understand their characteristics and output a range of statistics, informing government policy.
GSS codes enable you to link statistics across government departments to Built Up Areas, improving consistency and accuracy for decision making and planning.
Monitor your data related to Built Up Areas over time to improve your understanding of economic, social and environmental factors. You can also track changes or policy delivery to improve your planning and services.
Built Up Areas contains three unique datasets, each linked using the GSS code and name, offering maximum flexibility to meet your needs.
Built Up Areas allow policy makers and analysts, both nationally and locally, to conduct analysis corresponding to actual urban extents such as those of towns, cities and villages. They allow economic, social and environmental issues to be understood on the basis of the actual settlements that most people in Great Britain live in and in doing so aide in the design and implementation of policy areas such as levelling-up and net-zero.
A new product available from the OS Data Hub means it's available to anyone interested in Built Up Areas, maximising accessibility and delivering huge value. The data will be maintained and updated every two years and you can link your data using the GSS codes which are recognised and widely used across Government.
Access to OS OpenData is free through the OS Data Hub.
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: