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A spatial area object describing the geometry, extent, and function of a real-world feature. This does not imply a physical boundary.
Unique identifier of the site.
Attribute name: id
Type: CharacterString
Length: 38
Multiplicity: [1]
Description of the function of the site.
Attribute name: function
Type: FunctionValue
Length: 40
Multiplicity: [1]
The name of the site.
Attribute name: distinctiveName1
Type: CharacterString
Length: 254
Multiplicity: [0..1]
The name of the site.
Attribute name: distinctiveName2
Type: CharacterString
Length: 254
Multiplicity: [0..1]
The name of the site.
Attribute name: distinctiveName3
Type: CharacterString
Length: 254
Multiplicity: [0..1]
The name of the site.
Attribute name: distinctiveName4
Type: CharacterString
Length: 254
Multiplicity: [0..1]
The geometry of the greenspace area.
Attribute name: geometry
Type: GM_MultiSurface
Length: 20 000
Multiplicity: [1]
Access Point features are point geometries that depict either vehicular or pedestrian access into a Greenspace Site.
The spatial object type defining a point feature which would normally lie on the boundary of a site extent where there is access into or out of the site.
The unique identifier of the Access Point.
Attribute name: id
Type: CharacterString
Length: 38
Multiplicity: [1]
Describes the nature of the access permitted at the Access Point.
Attribute name: accessType
Type: AccessTypeValue
Length: 40
Multiplicity: [1]
The unique identifier of the Greenspace Site to which the Access Point relates.
Attribute name: refToGreenspaceSite
Type: CharacterString
Length: 38
Multiplicity: [1]
Location of the point.
Attribute name: geometry
Type: GM_Point
Length: 50
Multiplicity: [1]
This technical specification provides detailed technical information about OS Open Greenspace. It is targeted at technical users and software developers.
OS Open Greenspace depicts the location and extent of greenspaces, such as parks and sports facilities, which are likely to be accessible to the public. Where appropriate, it also includes access points to show how to get into these sites. Its primary purpose is to enable members of the public to find and access greenspaces near them for exercise and recreation.
OS Open Greenspace is an OpenData product. It is part of the OS OpenData portfolio, which currently consists of a range of datasets, such as OS VectorMap District, OS Open Map – Local, OS Terrain 50, and OS Open Roads. For more information on the OpenData portfolio, see the OS OpenData Downloads page of the OS Data Hub.
OS Open Greenspace is available in the following formats:
Geography Markup Language (GML) 3.2.1
Esri shapefile
GeoPackage
Vector tiles (MBTiles)
The data structure of OS Open Greenspace in Geography Markup Language (GML) format is described by a Unified Modelling Language (UML) class diagram and accompanying tables containing text.
OS Open Greenspace geometry is published with a precision of two decimal places.
OS Open Greenspace consists of the following classifications:
Public parks or gardens
Play spaces
Golf courses
Sports areas or playing fields
Churchyards or burial grounds
Allotments or community growing spaces
A full table of these classifications and associated Ordnance Survey real-world terms and their definitions is included in the .
The product is supplied in GML version 3.2.1. This sub-section describes how OS Open Greenspace is defined in GML. An understanding of XML (eXtensible Mark-up Language) and XML schemas is required.
GML is an XML grammar for expressing geographic features. GML serves as a modelling language for geographic systems, as well as an open interchange format for geographic transactions on the Internet. More information can be found on the .
The XML specifications that GML is based on are available from the .
Information about Unicode and UTF-8 (the character encoding we use) is available on the .
The examples in this section that mention specific data content are for demonstration purposes only and not intended for use.
XML schemas are used to define and validate the format and content of the GML. The GML version 3.2.1 specification provides a set of schemas that define the GML feature constructs and geometric types. These are designed to be used as a basis for building application-specific schemas to define the data content.
The Ordnance Survey application schema, OSOpenGreenspace.xsd, which is referenced by the data, is available on the of the 'XML file resources' section of our website.
The product's two code lists are available at the following links:
Function Value Code List:
Access Type Value Code List:
OS Open Greenspace is supplied as an Esri shapefile. Shapefile is an open specification file format to store geometry and attribute information about spatial features. It is developed and regulated by Esri for data interoperability among Esri and other geographic information systems (GIS) software products.
Allotments or Community Growing Spaces | Areas of land for growing fruit, vegetables and other plants, either in individual allotments or as a community activity. Produce is for the grower's own consumption and not primarily for commercial activity. |
Bowling Green | A specially prepared area intended for playing bowls. |
Cemetery | Areas of land associated with burial areas. |
Religious Grounds | Areas of land associated with churches and other places of worship. Only included where there are significant areas of greenspace (over 500m2 of natural space – identified as surfaces that are not manmade, such as grass, woodland and bare earth). |
Golf Course | A specially prepared area intended for playing golf. |
Other Sports Facility | Land used for sports not specifically described by other categories. Includes those facilities where participation in sport is the primary use of the area. |
Play Space | A specially prepared area intended for children’s play, usually linked to housing areas or parks, and containing purpose-built equipment. Not captured if within schools or paid-for tourist attractions. |
Playing Field | Large, flat areas of grass or specially designed surfaces, generally with marked pitches, used primarily for outdoor sports, i.e. football, rugby, or cricket. |
Public Park or Garden | Areas of land designed, constructed, managed, and maintained as a public park or garden. These normally have a defined perimeter and free public access, and generally sit within or close to urban areas. Access is granted for a wide range of uses and not usually restricted to paths or tracks within the area. May include areas with managed facilities, such as benches and flowerbeds, and more natural areas. |
Tennis Court | A specially prepared area intended for playing tennis. |
A code list is a controlled set of allowable labels or codes represented as an alphanumeric attribute. This sub-section identifies the code lists used within OS Open Greenspace and describes their values.
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) defines GeoPackage (*.gpkg) as an open, non-proprietary, platform-independent, standards-based data format for geographic information systems (GIS). It 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. GeoPackage is natively supported by numerous software applications.
GeoPackage offer users the following benefits:
The single file is easy to transfer and offers a rich end-user experience.
Attribute names are not limited in length, making the format user friendly.
The file size limit is large at 140 TB.
A file size limit could 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. For further information on GeoPackage, please see the GeoPackage website.
We've recently updated some of our products available in GeoPackage format to align with OGC standards and we've also fixed various formatting inconsistencies. For OS Open Greenspace, the updates are as follows:
GeoPackage attribution: The following attribute names have been changed from title case to snake case:
| GeoPackage attribute name prior to April 2023 | GeoPackage attribute name after April 2023 |
|---|---|
Layer names: The following layer names have been changed from title case to snake case:
AccessPoint to access_point
GreenspaceSite to greenspace_site
Constraints: The following constraints have been changed from title case to snake case:
AccessPoint_pkey to access_point_pkey
GreenspaceSite_pkey to greenspace_site_pkey
The UML class diagram and accompanying feature type attribute tables on the data structure page are provided in GML format.
The naming of attributes between the formats varies due to the differing naming conventions associated with each format (for example, presence of underscores, character limitations and capitalisation). For example, Esri shapefile attribute names are limited to 10 characters, whereas GML has no character limit. The following tables map the attribute names for each feature type across the formats.
A couple of attributes are not mapped to all formats; the absence of an attribute field is represented by ‘N/A’ in the table. The fid attribute is only available in GeoPackage format (this is a procedurally generated, non-persistent number required for some GIS applications to be able to read the data). GML and GeoPackage contain the geometry attribute which describes the geometry of the feature; this attribute is not applicable for the Esri shapefile or vector tiles formats as they apply their geometry visually.
OS Open Greenspace attribute naming differences between GML, Esri Shapefile, GeoPackage and vector tiles for the Greenspace Site Feature Type.
| GML | Esri shapefile | GeoPackage | Vector tiles |
|---|---|---|---|
OS Open Greenspace attribute naming differences between GML, Esri Shapefile, GeoPackage and vector tiles for the Access Point Feature Type.
| GML | Esri shapefile | GeoPackage | Vector tiles |
|---|---|---|---|
OS Open Greenspace is provided in MBTiles, which is an open specification tileset format used for vector tiles. The format is designed to be simple, high resolution, customisable and efficient to load as a single file. The data is supplied in Web Mercator projection (ESPG:3857).
The vector tiles schema, as well as the zoom level for each attribute, is detailed in the following table:
In the Zoom levels columns, 'N' (no) indicates that the specified layer and attribute does not display within that zoom level, whereas 'Y' (yes) indicates that the specified layer and attribute does display within that zoom level.
id
function
distinctive_name_1
distinctive_name_2
distinctive_name_3
distinctive_name_4
| Feature types | Zoom levels: 0 to 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
id
access_type
The Access Point feature is attributed with an accessType with a data type of AccessTypeValue. The following table lists the codes which are used to populate this field and gives a description for each code:
Value describing the type of access indicated by the Access Point
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
This sub-section describes the two feature types (Greenspace Site and Access Point) available in the OS Open Greenspace product, giving detailed information about each attribute.
| Feature types | Zoom levels: 0 to 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
fid
fid
id
id
function
function
distinctiveName1
distinctive_name_1
distinctiveName2
distinctive_name_2
distinctiveName3
distinctive_name_3
distinctiveName4
distinctive_name_4
geom
geometry
accessType
access_type
refToGreenspaceSite
ref_to_greenspace_site
N/A
N/A
fid
N/A
id
id
id
id
function
function
function
function
distinctiveName1
distinctiveName1
distinctive_name_1
distinctive_name_1
distinctiveName2
distinctiveName2
distinctive_name_2
distinctive_name_2
distinctiveName3
distinctiveName3
distinctive_name_3
distinctive_name_3
distinctiveName4
distinctiveName4
distinctive_name_4
distinctive_name_4
geometry
N/A
geometry
N/A
N/A
N/A
fid
N/A
id
id
id
id
accessType
accessType
access_type
access_type
refToGreenspaceSite
refToGSite
ref_to_greenspace_site
N/A
geometry
N/A
geometry
N/A
Allotments Or Community Growing Spaces
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Bowling Green
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Cemetery
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Golf Course
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Other Sports Facility
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Play Space
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Playing Field
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Public Park Or Garden
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Religious Grounds
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Tennis Court
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Motor Vehicle
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Motor Vehicle and Pedestrian
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Pedestrian
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Motor Vehicle
Access Point permits access to motor vehicles.
Motor Vehicle and Pedestrian
Access Point permits access to motor vehicles and pedestrians.
Pedestrian
Access Point permits access to pedestrians.
The name of the attribute and what it is describing.
The nature of the attribute, for example a numeric value or a code list value.
The length of the attribute provided (optional).
Describes how many times this element is expected to be populated in the data. An attribute may be optional or mandatory within the product. These are denoted by:
‘1’ – there must be a value.
‘0..1’ – population is optional but a maximum of one attribute will be returned These values may be used in combination.
