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🔃Product supply

Available formats

The OS ESG is available in two formats:

  • GeoPackage – Full Supply only

  • Comma-separated values (CSV) – Full Supply and Change-Only Updates (COU)

The GPKG and CSV formats conform to the AddressBase Premium specification.

It is not available in Geography Markup Language (GML) format.

GeoPackage overview

GeoPackage is an open standard data format as defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). GeoPackage is designed to be a lightweight format that can contain large amounts of varied and complex data in a single, easy-to-distribute and ready-to-use file.

Please be advised that older versions of GIS software may need updating before being able to display and interact with GeoPackage files.

COUs are not available in GeoPackage format.

The ordering area is all of Great Britain for GeoPackage format or you can select areas of interest (AOIs).

GeoPackage offers users the following benefits:

  • The single file is easy to transfer and offers the end-user a rich experience.

  • Attribute names are not limited in length, making it user-friendly.

  • The file size limit is very large at 140TB, so lots of data can be easily accommodated (please note that a file size limit may be imposed by the file system to which the file is written).

  • It supports raster, vector and database formats, making it a highly versatile solution.

  • It is an OGC standard.

  • In most cases, it is a plug and play format.

For information on how to open, use and understand a GeoPackage dataset, please refer to our ‘Getting Started with GeoPackage’ guide. Further detailed information on GeoPackage can be taken from the GeoPackage website.

CSV overview

CSV files are a delimited text file that uses commas or other characters to separate individual elements of a feature. It is used to store data, often in the form of a table. These tables can be freely loaded into databases and programs, allowing for the easy loading and updating of data holdings.

Full Supply and COUs are available in CSV format.

The ordering area is all of Great Britain for CSV format or you can select AOIs.

In the CSV supply of OS ESG:

  • There is one record per line in each file.

  • Fields are separated by commas.

  • String fields are delimited by double quotes.

  • No comma is placed at the end of each row in the file.

  • Records are terminated by Carriage Return / Line Feed.

  • Double quotes inside strings are escaped by doubling.

  • COUs are available in this format.

Where a field has no value in a record, two commas are placed together in the record (one for the end of the previous field and one for the end of the null field). Where the null field is a text field, double quotes are included between the two commas, for example -, “”,

The CSV data is transferred using Unicode encoded in UTF-8. Unicode includes all the characters in ISO-8859-14 (Welsh characters).

The transfer is normally in a single file, but the data can be split into multiple files using volume numbers. The OS ESG records are provided within continuous files cut at approximately 1  million lines, as referred to above.

This means different record types (for example, BLPUs and LPIs) can be found in the same CSV file.

CSV header files

The CSV header files are available to download from the OS ESG Downloads page.

Order Summary File

Orders supplied from the OS Data Hub will be provided with an Order Summary File, a manifest for the product that provides a record count for each feature type the product contains. This file can be used to validate your order, enabling you to check record counts across all feature types included in the product.

The following file naming convention will be applied to the Order Summary File you receive:

  • productname_orderSummary.json

For example, the file name for the OS Multi-modal Routing Network Order Summary File would look like this:

  • OSMulti-modalRoutingNetwork_orderSummary.json

The example below shows the information the Order Summary File contains:

The following table provides a brief description of each field:

Field
Description
Use

productName

The product delivered in this order (for example, OS Multi-modal Routing Network).

Validate the downloaded product against your order.

crs

The coordinate reference system used for your supply.

Validate the coordinate reference system against your order

validToDate

The end date of coverage for this supply.

Validate the currency of your data to ensure the latest date aligns with the expected supply window for your order frequency.

totalRecordCount

The total number of records delivered across the whole product package.

Validate that the delivered entries match the overall number of records expected for your download.

featureTypes

Array of feature types included in the product package, including identifier, schema version, and record count.

Validate included feature types, their schema versions, and per-feature-type record totals against your order.

Supply mechanism

The OS ESG product is supplied as an online download from the OS Data Hub. You can select a data format (GeoPackage or CSV) during the download process.

🔃 Currency

The product will be refreshed on a monthly basis.

The OS ESG references unique street reference numbers (USRNs) in AddressBase Premium; however, there is a disconnect in publication schedules between the two products, with the OS ESG publishing monthly and AddressBase Premium publishing every six weeks.

The following table shows the corresponding publication schedule alignments between the two products:

OS ESG Release
Corresponding AddressBase Premium Epoch

January 2027

Epoch 132

December 2026

Epoch 131

November 2026

Epoch 131

October 2026

Epoch 130

September 2026

Epoch 129

August 2026

Epoch 128

July 2026

Epoch 128

June 2026

Epoch 127

May 2026

Epoch 126

April 2026

Epoch 126

March 2026

Epoch 125

February 2026

Epoch 124

January 2026

Epoch 123

December 2025

Epoch 123

November 2025

Epoch 122

October 2025

Epoch 121

September 2025

Epoch 120

August 2025

Epoch 120

July 2025

Epoch 119

June 2025

Epoch 118

May 2025

Epoch 118

April 2025

Epoch 117

March 2025

Epoch 117

February 2025

Epoch 116

January 2025

Epoch 115

Please note that the publication schedule alignments between the two products may change for future releases, especially as we add more datasets to the OS ESG.

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