Feature types

The following is a description of the features that are available in the product. A full list of feature classes and their associated attributes is given in the technical specification.

Not all features available in the product are included in the raster format. For a full list of features and their styling in the raster format please refer to the legends in the Raster specification page of the technical specification.

The GML naming of attributes is used in the main text of this guide; the naming of the attributes in shape files will be different due to the limitations of the shape file format.

Buildings

A built entity that includes a roof. This is a generalised building and could be made up of an amalgamation of other buildings and structures.

Shapefile: Building.shp

Building Glasshouses

A building constructed largely of glass for the purposes of commercial horticulture. This is a generalised glasshouse and could be made up of an amalgamation of individual glasshouses. Only glasshouses larger than 5000m² are included.

Shapefile: Glasshouse.shp
GML FeatureType: Glasshouse

Roads

Road alignments

A road is defined as a metalled way for vehicles. A vehicle is defined as one with wheels on both sides of its body. Metalling is defined as any artificial (man-made) surface including areas of asphalt, concrete and gravel. Roads that form part of the public network and driveways to private properties that are over 100m in length are captured. Dual carriageways are represented by centrelines when the two carriageways are closer than 32.5m, roundabouts are represented by points when smaller than 450m², dead ends are removed when shorter than 36m and roads are simplified with a 4m tolerance.

Road alignments will have one of the following 13 classifications, each of which can be separately identified by the

‘classification’ attribute:

‘Motorway’
‘Primary Road’
‘A Road’
‘B Road’
‘Minor Road’
‘Pedestrianised Street’
‘Local Street’
‘Private Road Publicly Accessible’
‘Motorway, Collapsed Dual Carriageway’
‘Primary Road, Collapsed Dual Carriageway’
‘A Road, Collapsed Dual Carriageway’
‘B Road, Collapsed Dual Carriageway’
‘Minor Road, Collapsed Dual Carriageway’ Shapefile: Road.shp
GML FeatureType: Road

Roundabouts

Roundabouts smaller than 450m² are represented as point features, and the roads are extended to meet at the centre point. Mini roundabouts are not included.

Shapefile: Roundabout.shp
GML FeatureType: Roundabout

See the Technical specification for full list of roundabout ‘classification’ attribute values.

Road tunnels

Road tunnels are represented as approximate centrelines of the road that runs through the tunnel.

Shapefile: RoadTunnel.shp
GML FeatureType: RoadTunnel Differences between vector and raster formats:

A selection of road names and numbers are shown in the raster product, where space permits.

Motorway junctions

Point feature representing the approximate location of numbered junction on a motorway.

Shapefile: MotorwayJunction.shp
GML FeatureType: MotorwayJunction

Surface water

An inland waterway body sufficiently wide enough to capture as an area feature. Small lakes and small islands in waterbodies are not included.

Shapefiles: SurfaceWater_Line.shp, SurfaceWater_Area.shp
GML FeatureTypes: SurfaceWater_Line, SurfaceWater_Area

Tidal boundary / High and Low Water Marks

In England and Wales these tide lines will be the levels of mean tides, for example, of a tide between a spring and neap tide. In Scotland the tide lines are those of mean spring tides. In places where there is no Foreshore (for example vertical cliffs), the TidalBoundary is classified as 'High Water Mark'.

Shapefile: TidalBoundary.shp
GML FeatureType: TidalBoundary

Tidal water

Polygons defining the extents of tidal water, up to the High Water Mark defined by the TidalBoundaries and the Normal Tidal Limit of rivers. Tidal water is not included under bridges.

Shapefile: TidalWater.shp
GML FeatureType: TidalWater

Foreshore

The part of the shore or beach which lies between the Low Water Mark and High Water Mark defined by the TidalBoundaries. The same condition may exist in non-contiguous off-shore areas.

Shapefile: Foreshore.shp
GML FeatureType: Foreshore

Administrative boundaries

A line feature representing the limit of a government administrative area. In the event that a boundary represents the limit of more than one administrative area, classifications are applied in hierarchical order, with priority given to the largest containing area. An exception is made for National boundaries, which will be coincident with the underlying local government boundary.

The attribute ‘classification’ defines the type of boundary:

‘National’
‘District Or London Borough’
‘County Or Region Or Island’
‘Parish Or Community’
Shapefile: AdministrativeBoundary.shp
GML FeatureType: AdministrativeBoundary Differences between vector and raster formats:
In the raster product only the national boundaries are depicted.

Railway tracks

All railways are represented as lines and are broken where they pass under bridges, buildings or other obstructing detail. Railway sidings and the tracks of travelling structures are not included. The attribute ‘classification’ defines the type of railway:

‘Multi Track’
‘Single Track’
‘Narrow Gauge’
Shapefile: RailwayTrack.shp
GML FeatureType: RailwayTrack

Railway tunnels

Railway tunnels are represented as approximate centrelines of the railway that runs through the tunnel.

Shapefile: RailwayTunnel.shp
GML FeatureType: RailwayTunnel

Railway stations

Point feature representing the buildings and platforms by a railway line where a train may stop to pick-up or drop-off goods or passengers. The attribute ‘classification’ defines the type of station:

‘Light Rapid Transit Station’
‘Railway Station’
‘London Underground Station’
‘Railway Station and London Underground Station’
‘Light Rapid Transit Station and Railway Station’
‘Light Rapid Transit Station and London Underground Station’

The name of the station is held in the attribute ‘DISTNAME’ in Shape and distinctiveName in GML.

The position of the railway station will be close to a railway alignment but will not necessarily be coincident with it.

Shapefile: RailwayStation.shp
GML FeatureType: RailwayStation

Functional sites

A point feature that represents the location of certain types of function or activity with appropriate attribution. The classifications are:

Air Transport
Education Facility - School
Education Facility - Higher
Medical Care
Road Transport
Road Services
Water Transport
Place Of Worship
Leisure Centre
Police Station

Please note:

Only available in the vector product, functional sites include features previously supplied as ‘PublicAmenity’ and ‘Airport’ features. In previous product releases a cartographic selection was applied to these features, which is now replaced with a complete supplied set.
Some functional sites may contain multiple sites (points) such as Educational Facility where they may have both Educational Facility – School and Educational Facility – Higher.
Shapefile: FunctionalSite.shp
GML FeatureType: FunctionalSite

Woodland

Areas of trees; coniferous, non-coniferous and mixed are represented as polygons. Small areas of woodland are omitted and small clearings in woodland are filled.

Shapefile: Woodland.shp
GML FeatureType: Woodland

Ornament

Ornament features are facsimiles of artwork, represented as a polygon, these were originally drawn on paper maps to depict coastal rocks, outcropping rocks, cartographic slopes and scree.

Shapefile: Ornament.shp
GML FeatureType: Ornament

Electricity transmission line

Cables used to supply electricity that is suspended between pylons.

Shapefile: ElectricityTransmissionLine.shp
GML FeatureType: ElectricityTransmissionLine

Named places

A representative point feature giving the general location of a settlement name or geographic place name, for the purposes of text placement.

GML supports all the characters in the Welsh language and all names are stored in the ‘distinctiveName’ attribute. Legacy formats such as shapefile, do not support the full Welsh alphabet, therefore an alternative is provided using either the ‘DISTNAME’ or ‘HTMLNAME’ attributes.

When using the OS VectorMap District shapefile NamedPlace.shp:

If labelling using the DISTNAME attribute, accents appear on vowels, but the Welsh consonants will have their circumflexes removed: W, w, Y, y.
If labelling using the HTMLNAME attribute, the accents on vowels will be the same, but the Welsh consonants will be encoded using HTML escape characters, which will display correctly when displayed using software that can interpret these characters (Ŵ,ŵ,Ŷ,ŷ).
fontHeight: the suggested height of the font is Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large
textOrientation: the orientation of the text string in degrees clockwise from horizontal. It is held as a number between -90 and 90. This is named ORIENTATIO in Shape and textOrientation in GML
Shapefile: NamedPlace.shp
GML FeatureType: NamedPlace

Summit / Spot height

Point feature which in most cases represents the location of a summit of a hill or mountain, together with an elevation measurement.

Shapefile: SpotHeight.shp
GML FeatureType: SpotHeight

Coordinate referencing system

The vector product formats provide for the use of a variety of coordinate reference systems. At present, only the British National Grid (BNG) is used in OS VectorMap District. The BNG spatial reference system uses the OSGB36® geodetic datum and a single Transverse Mercator projection for the whole of Great Britain. Positions on this projection are described using easting and northing coordinates in units of metres.

Height datum

The BNG is a horizontal spatial reference system only; it does not include a vertical (height) reference system. In OS VectorMap District, heights are given by the ‘height’ attribute in the ‘SpotHeight’ feature. The geometric attributes therefore contain horizontal geometry only.

Currency

Completeness

During production many checks are undertaken to ensure that data supplied to customers are both accurate and complete. During digital manipulation in creating the data, all sources of that data are checked for conformance to specification.

These quality control checks take the form of:

visual checks by operators;
data testing against the product specification; and
testing is carried out on a selection of tiles from a full national set.

Coordinate resolution

Coordinates have a precision of 1 cm and are stored to two decimal places of a metre.

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