Downloading OS OpenData

• Firstly OS VectorMap District (Vector) format needs to be downloaded from the OS site: www.os.uk/opendatadownload/products.html

• Scroll to OS VectorMap District, ensure that the data type is Vector. Select grid reference square using the two letter reference list. Southampton lies in the SU grid reference square, so SU has been selected from the reference list.

OS VectorMap District in ESRI Shapefile supply format

Here is a larger image of the National Grid Reference squares:

National Grid Reference squares covering Great Britain

• Tick the box for Download (as seen in download page image). Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Next.

• Fill in the details required and you will receive an email with a link to download the data as a .zip file. Save to a designated folder. Once the download is complete, extract the file.

Now you should have a data folder with the all the components as SHX, SHP, PRJ and DRB files.

• As the download doesn’t come with Styled Layer Descriptors (SLDs), these need to be downloaded from the GitHub: https://github.com/OrdnanceSurvey/OS-VectorMap-District-stylesheets

On the webpage click ‘Download ZIP’.

• Save the file. Once downloaded, extract the file and this will create a folder which contains both ESRI Shapefile stylesheets and GML stylesheets. Later we will be using the ESRI Shapefile stylesheets.