Feature types

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer contains one feature type: GreenspaceArea

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer is comprised of a subset of the TopographicArea polygons from OS MasterMap Topography Layer (which represent topographic objects that have a polygon-based

geometry). Only polygons which have been classified as a form of green space will be supplied. This subset of polygons will have the Topographic Identifier (TOID) and version number from OS MasterMap Topography Layer (to enable the datasets to be used in conjunction) plus additional attributes providing the green space-specific information.

Attributes

TOID

The unique reference number of the feature in OS MasterMap Topography Layer. Combined with the version number, this enables joins with the Topography Layer dataset.

Version

The version number of the feature in OS MasterMap Topography Layer. This identifies the specific version of Topography Layer feature this dataset was created from. Combined with the TOID, this enables joins with the Topography Layer dataset.

Primary function

The main function of the green space area. Functions are determined from a specific green space list, and for features within this dataset can be found below.

Secondary function

Where a polygon has more than one green space function present, this field will be populated with the second function. These functions come from the same list as the Primary Functions. The order of the Primary and Secondary Functions is predetermined by a hierarchy (shown later in this guide) and does not indicate an order of importance or scale.

Primary form

The main form of the green space area. Forms are determined from a specific green space list. A list of the possible forms for features within this dataset can be found later in this section.

Secondary form

Where a polygon has more than one green space form present, this field will be populated with the second form. These forms come from the same list as the Primary Forms. The order of the Primary and Secondary Forms is predetermined by a hierarchy (shown later in this guide) and does not indicate an order of importance or scale.

OS Open Greenspace lookup table

OS Open Greenspace is part of Ordnance Survey’s Open Data portfolio and depicts the location and extent of exercise and recreation facilities likely to be open to the public. This Open Data product was designed alongside OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer, and it is intended that the two products can be used together easily.

A lookup table exists to form a link between the two products and is provided in the full Great Britain (GB) supply of OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer. Further information can be found in the technical specification.

Release notes listed here provide information about the latest release of OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer

Information about the April 2024 release of OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer.

The OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer dataset has been designed for the public sector; it shows accessible and non-accessible greenspaces in urban areas, helping to support a wider set of government initiatives around health and the environment.

Feature count

Product quality

There are no significant issues that would impair the use of this product in the April 2024 release.

Next release

The next release of OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer is scheduled for October 2024

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer gives a comprehensive view of the green spaces within an urban area. The dataset consists of topographic areas published in , with additional green space-specific attribution to describe their function. It includes both publicly accessible and private green spaces, sports facilities and natural environment features, to give a comprehensive view of spaces that are important for applications such as environmental management, health, planning, or habitat mappings.

This product is designed for PSGA customers with these uses in mind.

Key features

The key features of the OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer are:

• Comprehensive coverage of the natural environment in major urban areas.

• Identifies green spaces, both public and private.

• Built from a sub-set of OS MasterMap Topography Layer and retains the detailed features from this product and their positional accuracy.

• Inclusion of OS MasterMap Topography Layer TOID attribute to allow links between these MasterMap products.

• Information on both form and function of the green space areas to better describe the environment of these spaces.

• Ability to relate to the OS Open Greenspace product through the Greenspace IDs.

• Space for up to two forms and two function categories per feature to allow for complex land areas.

Product applications

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer supports a wide range of customer applications that use geographical information. The product can be used on its own, or combined with other Ordnance Survey products, such as , , and . Applications of the OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer product include, but are by no means limited to:

• Providing detailed data to support audit, policy, planning, environmental planning, and research.

• Analysing air quality and use of amenities.

• Managing and planning green spaces efficiently.

• Evaluating Britain’s natural habitat and environment.

• Encouraging activity for all, improving mental and physical health.

Obtaining OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data

This Getting Started Guide illustrates how to load OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer into several commonly used Geospatial Information System (GIS) applications. In most cases, instructions are also included on how to style the data after it has been loaded.

Product formats

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer can be downloaded from the . It is available in the following formats:

• ESRI shapefile

• GML (3.2.1)

• GeoPackage

• Vector tiles (MBTiles)

The data is supplied in 5 km² tiles, but features are not clipped at tile edges, resulting in what is called ‘hairy’ tiles. All formats contain one element, namely the greenspace site information.

Media

This product is not available via hard media supply.

Available formats

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer is supplied in four different formats:

• GML 3.2.1

• ESRI Shapefile

• GeoPackage

• Vector tiles (MBTiles)

Product supply mechanism

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer incorporates a web-based ordering system that allows customers to order their initial data supply and any updates, obtain price estimates and view details of their holdings on demand. The product is supplied as an online download. You can download data in any of the available formats from the .

Coverage

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer covers all major urban areas in Great Britain.

For England and Wales, urban areas are included where they are greater than 6km².

For Scotland, urban areas are defined as those with a population more than 500. This is based on data provided by the National Records of Scotland. In Scotland a buffer of 500 m has been added to the urban extents to define the product coverage.

Where a site crosses the boundary of an area, all features within the site are included in OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer, even where these are outside the urban area. This applies up to a limit of 1 500 m from the urban boundary.

A coverage extent map and downloadable GIS files are available at the bottom of the .

File size

For all formats the data is only available as full supply (that is, not as a Change Only Update – COU). Orders of Great Britain (GB) only are available across all four formats. Area of Interest (AOI) orders are only available in GML or Shapefile formats.

For GML format, the product is supplied in 5km-by-5km tiles of data in either a specified AOI or GB supply. Tile file size estimates can vary from 1 KB to 9 600 KB.

For Shapefile format, the product is supplied in 5 km-by-5 km tiles of data in either a specified AOI or GB supply. Tile file size estimates can vary from 2 KB to 10 900KB.

For GeoPackage and vector tiles formats, the coverage will be GB only. The file size is 6.83 GB zipped for GeoPackage and 11.5 GB zipped for vector tiles.

Product update schedule

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer is updated every 6 months (April and October).

Loading and displaying Shapefile supply

There are two possible ways of loading and displaying the shapefile data in ESRI ArcGIS. The shapefile data can be loaded straight into ArcGIS. However, if more than one 25km² tile is being loaded, the rendering performance can become an issue. The recommended way of loading the data is to use a file geodatabase to house the data. This is the method which will be described in this guide.

Open ArcCatalog. Choose a folder where the file geodatabase is to be created.

Right-click on the folder and in the context menu select ‘New’ and then ‘File Geodatabase’. Give the new file geodatabase a suitable name for ease of reference by highlighting the geodatabase and typing a new name.

Once created, right-click on the file geodatabase, and select ‘Import’ and then ‘Feature Class (multiple)’.

In the next window, browse to the location containing the data you want to import. Because the individual shapefiles begin with the 5 km prefix, it is possible to import more than one OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer tile into the geodatabase as per user requirements.

Click on the button to the right of the blank window under ‘input features’ and navigate to the folder that contains the OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer shapefile data.

Select all the shapefiles that are required and click ‘Add’.

The shapefiles selected will now appear as a list in the import feature class window. The output file geodatabase should default to the one which has been previously selected. Click ‘OK’. The window will close and now ArcCatalog will import the feature classes into the file geodatabase. A dialog box will appear when the process is complete.

If the file geodatabase is now highlighted, a list of the imported feature classes should be visible. In this example, two shapefiles have been imported.

A useful point to note is that loading the shapefiles into a file geodatabase will automatically add spatial indexes to the data in the import process. There is therefore no need to manually add one once the data has been loaded, which would be the case if shapefiles had been loaded into ArcGIS without using the file geodatabase option. As has been previously mentioned, the addition of a spatial index greatly improves rendering performance.

Start ArcMap. Click on the ‘Import Data’ button in the top toolbar.

In the window that appears, navigate to the location of the file geodatabase just created. Select the feature classes that are required and click ‘Add’.

The data will load into ArcMap. Although ArcMap does put the shapefiles into a more logical sequence, the user can move the layers as they wish. The data will, of course, load in as un-styled data. ArcMap will assign a random style to the data.

Loading multiple Shapefiles for larger areas of interest

If loading a larger area of interest, it is recommended that the user merge the shapefiles together before loading into the file geodatabase. This procedure is described later in this guide. Doing this will also mean that the supplied layer files for styling will only need to be applied once to the data and all the styles will work properly.

If, however, the user simply wants to load multiple areas using the file geodatabase option, there is no mandatory requirement to merge shapefiles together.

To add another 25 km² tile of data in ArcMap, that was previously loaded into the file geodatabase created earlier, simply click ‘Add Data’ and repeat the procedure described above for loading the individual layers for the subsequent tile(s). The user may wish to group the layers for each 100 km tile loaded, for example, all the tiles in 100 km grid square ‘TR’, in the table of contents window to avoid confusion.

To do this, select all the layers within the 100 km tile added, right-click, and then select ‘Group’. The additional layers can be styled as before, using a predefined layer file, or manually as required.

The example above shows that all the layers for TR have been loaded into ArcMap from within the file geodatabase. Another advantage of the file geodatabase option in ArcGIS is that, if you want to add another tile of data later, you can simply import the shapefiles into the same file geodatabase using ArcCatalog and then display them in ArcMap.

Merging Shapefiles and removing duplicate features from the data

As has already been stated, OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer is supplied as ‘hairy tiles’ with features which cross a tile edge being supplied in both tiles in which the feature appears. These duplicate features will occur if more than one 25km2 tile is loaded into a file geodatabase. In many instances, the user will not need to remove duplicate features along the tile edges as the features will display perfectly clearly with one duplicate feature overlying the other.

There may, however, be instances where the user wishes to carry out some form of analysis using feature counts contained within the data. In this case, the data will need to have the duplicate features removed.

To remove duplicate features in ArcMap, it is necessary to firstly merge the tiles together before removing the duplicate features. This procedure can take some time, so the user should consider if this is really needed.

Firstly, the tiles need to be merged to create new feature classes within the file geodatabase containing the original data (or to a completely new file geodatabase or shapefile if required).

Using either ArcMap or ArcCatalog, from the main menu, select ‘Geoprocessing’ followed by ‘Merge’. In the next window, select the layers to be merged. In this example, two feature classes: TR15NE and TR15NW, are being merged. All the attribution is being copied into the new feature class, though the user can specify what attributes need to be copied. The user can also specify the output required. This can be a new feature class within a file geodatabase or a shapefile. In this example a new feature class containing the merged data will be created.

Click ‘OK’ when all the feature classes (or shapefiles) to be merged have been selected. It can be seen using this method, several OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer tiles could be merged, although only two are shown in this example. ArcGIS will then merge the files and load the newly created feature class (or a shapefile if that was being used), into the map window. Depending upon the sizes and number of tiles being merged, this could take some time. A dialog box will appear when the process is finished.

In the example shown below, a new feature class within the original file geodatabase used to hold the data, has been created. This new feature class is called ‘TR Merged’ and covers the entire area of the two separate feature classes previously loaded into the geodatabase. This new feature class has been styled using the ESRI stylesheets for OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer available on GitHub.

The ‘Dissolve’ function in ArcGIS will remove the duplicated features along the tile boundaries. This procedure can be carried out in either ArcCatalog or ArcMap. Firstly select ‘Geoprocessing’ and then ‘Dissolve’ from the main menu.

The user will then need to specify which merged file from which duplicate features are to be removed. In this example, we are looking at the TR Merged feature class.

We are going to save the de-duplicated data as a feature class within the original file geodatabase called ‘TR_Dissolved’. All the dissolve fields in the box need to be ticked except the ObjectID field as otherwise the attribution will not be carried over to the new dissolved file. Once complete, the new dissolved feature class will be loaded into ArcMap. This new dissolved feature class will contain no duplicate features. This procedure could also be performed using shapefiles simply loaded into ArcMap without using a file geodatabase.

The new feature class can now be styled as previously described. A count using the attribute table on both the original merged file and the dissolved file will confirm that the dissolved shapefile contains fewer features. The count below shows the merged feature class with duplicates contains 34 031 features.

The count below shows that the dissolved feature class contains 33 869 features.

Styling the ESRI Shapefile supply

Predefined stylesheets for OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer are available to download from the Ordnance Survey GitHub page below:

To style your OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data, first download the zip file from the above GitHub repository, then extract and save the extracted files to your preferred location. When styling ESRI shapefiles in ArcMap, you will need to navigate to ESRI Shapefile Stylesheets > ESRI stylesheets (LYR). There are currently no predefined stylesheets for styling GML in ArcMap.

Inside the respective subfolders for each stylesheet type is a ‘Quick Start Guide’ that can be followed to style your OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data.

Loading and displaying the GML supply

The GML data can be imported into ArcGIS using the Quick Import function in ArcToolbox. The data will be imported un-styled. Users should also note that due to the large file sizes of some of the 25km2 grid tiles, especially within larger cities, this import may take time to process.

The user will need to specify the type of data being imported (in this case, GML data) and browse to the files where the GML data is stored.

The quick import will create a new file geodatabase into which to import the data. Once the database location and name has been selected, click ‘OK’ in the dialog box as shown below to start the quick import.

Once the quick import function has been completed, the data can be added using the usual ‘Add Data’ button in ArcMap and selecting all the layers from the newly created file geodatabase.

The data will be loaded un-styled as shown in the example below.

The resulting imported data will then appear in the ArcMap window and can then be styled according to user requirements. The user should manually select the column header of the appropriate table within the data on which to base the styling. This is because in the GML imported data, the column header information is not shortened, unlike the shapefile data (see technical specification). Shapefile data is limited to eight characters within the column header. GML imported data is not limited in this way. In the example below, we are matching the column ‘priFunc’ in the ESRI lyr file with the primaryFunction column header in the imported GML data.

The screenshot above shows the GML imported data styled using a predefined ESRI .lyr file.

This getting started guide focuses on using the product in Shapefile and GML format.

PostGIS is the geospatial extension to the free open-source database application PostgreSQL. The PostGIS extension needs to be installed as part of the PostgreSQL install. This guide uses pgAdmin as a platform for managing and querying PostgreSQL databases.

Loading and displaying the ESRI Shapefile supply

Open ‘PG Admin’ and, using the menu options available, create a new database and a new schema within the database to hold the OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data. It is recommended that you do not use the ‘public’ schema to hold the data itself.

In the example above, a database called ‘osdata’ has been created along with a schema called ‘greenspace’ into which the data will be loaded.

As the data to be loaded comes in shapefile format, there is an easy to use PostGIS plugin available within PostgreSQL to load shapefile data.

Select ‘plugins’ from the main menu followed by ‘PostGIS Shapefile and DBF Loader’

The next window allows the user firstly to view connection details and then to add files to the database. The first thing to do will be to test connection details. Click on the ‘View connection details’ button.

The resulting box should contain the username and password already entered along with the host name. The database being used to contain the data should already be selected. Click ‘OK’.

If everything is working OK, ‘Connection succeeded’ should appear in the Log Window. Click the ‘Add File’ button.

In the next window, which appears, use the file tree in the ‘Places’ box on the left-hand side to navigate to the folder in which the OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer shapefiles data sits. A list of the files will appear in the main window. It is possible to load one or all of the files into the database. In the example above, all of the shapefiles have been selected. Then, click ‘Open’.

Another window will open listing the selected shapefiles. The Schema and SRID will need to be changed. The schema will need to be changed to the schema in the database into which the data is being loaded (in this case ‘greenspace’). The SRID (or co-ordinate reference system) will need to be changed to 27700, which is the code for British National Grid. This will need to be done for all the shapefiles being loaded. No other element will need to be changed. Once this has been done click ‘Import’.

At the end of the procedure, the log window at the bottom of the PostGIS import/export manager box should indicate that all the shapefiles have loaded successfully. However, one or two of the shapefiles (depending upon the area of the country being loaded) may fail to load because the text encoding needs to be changed from UTF-8 to LATIN1. If this is the case, the user will need to close the plugin and start again selecting just the shapefiles which failed to load previously. The schema and SRID must be changed again and this time, the character encoding will need to be changed. This can be done by clicking the ‘Options’ button.

Change the DBF character encoding to LATIN1 and click ‘OK.

Changing this should allow the import to complete successfully. For information, the shapefiles which are most likely to need this change to be made are either in Wales or Scotland. This is because files in these areas may contain text which has accents which are not part of the UTF-8 character set.

Once the import has been completed, the user can check if the data is loaded properly by refreshing the schema in PGAdmin and opening the ‘Table’ tree. If the data has loaded correctly, there should be the same number of OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data tables in the schema as the number of shapefiles opened.

The data is now loaded into the PostGIS database and is now ready to be viewed in a GIS application. As QGIS, the open-source GIS, has been developed to work seamlessly with PostGIS, we will open and view the data using that application. However, any GI application which includes support for PostGIS can be used.

Viewing the data in QGIS

In QGIS, click on the ‘Open PostGIS layer’ button on the left-hand side of the window.

If the OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data has been placed into an existing database, as in this case, the user will simply need to open the connection to that database within QGIS. The greenspace schema should appear in the list of available schemas within that database.

If the database in which the OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data sits is new, create a new database connection by clicking the ‘New’ button. The following window appears and the information relating to the new database will need to be entered within the appropriate boxes:

Click on the + sign next to the schema to expand the list of tables. Select all the tables within OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer that need to be loaded to QGIS.

Once all have been selected, click ‘Add’.

The OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data will load into QGIS. The data will need to be ordered and then styled appropriately using personalised style files or the style files available from GitHub published by Ordnance Survey. . It should be noted that there is no need to add a spatial index to the data from PostGIS as those indexes were added automatically during loading data into PostgreSQL.

Using multiple shapefiles in PostGIS

It’s possible to load multiple 25 km² grid tiles of data into the same schema in PostgreSQL. As the shapefiles have the 5km grid letters as a prefix in the filename, these files will go into separate tables in the schema.

Data can then be viewed across tile edges using QGIS or other GI applications which support PostGIS.

The screenshot above shows the two tiles, TR15NE and TR15NW loaded into QGIS from the greenspace schema. It should be noted that duplicate features will exist across the tile edges as the data is supplied as ‘hairy tiles’ as previously indicated.

Removing duplicate features in PostGIS

As stated in the point above, if using multiple tiles of data in PostGIS, loading them as described, some features will be replicated across tile edges loaded in different tables of the same features, e.g. in the case of TR15NW and TR15NE. If the data is being used for contextual purposes only, this should not be an issue for the user. However, if the data is being used for any kind of analysis involving counts of features, these duplicates will need to be removed to avoid providing inaccurate results.

It is possible to remove these features using SQL commands in PostgreSQL itself.

Using SQL commands

Firstly, create a merged file containing the area required using the merge shapefile feature in QGIS documented earlier. In this example, we are going to use the merged shapefile for TR15NW and TR15NE that was made previously and then load it into PostgreSQL using the shapefile loader plugin.

In the example above, an additional table, greenspace area, has been added to the greenspace schema in PostgreSQL. Open the SQL window in PostgreSQL and type in the following command;

The command returns the following result:

This shows that the number of features detected is 34 031, in this example. The following command should now be typed into the SQL window:

The above command creates a new table in the schema with all the duplicate features removed. This can be verified by typing in the following command:

It can be seen from running this query that the number of features in the newly created table is less than in the original merged table. This indicates that the duplicate features along the tile edges have been removed. It will now be possible to load the dissolved table into QGIS and carry out the required analysis.

Using a graphical method in QGIS

An alternative way to do what has been described above would be to merge the required shapefiles together and de-duplicate using QGIS as described earlier in this document. The user will then have a set of de-duplicated shapefiles which can then be loaded into PostgreSQL/PostGIS and displayed in QGIS using the methods described previously.

Loading GML data into PostGIS

It is possible to load the GML supply data into PostgreSQL using sets of SQL commands, as there is no GUI PostGIS loader for GML data. These SQL commands would create the tables, indexes and load the data. As this data is supplied in shapefile format which can be loaded using the PostGIS shapefile loader plugin, the SQL method of loading the GML data will not be described in this guide.

All current commonly used versions of MapInfo Professional can open ESRI shapefiles without direct translation. However, for ease of use within MapInfo, it is recommended that users use the universal translator within MapInfo to convert the shapefile supply to MapInfo .TAB files prior to loading the data. This will be described in the procedures for loading the data.

Loading and displaying the Shapefile supply

In MapInfo Professional, start universal translator from the ‘Tools’ menu.

Select the ‘Translate’ button at the top left-hand side of the dialog box.

In the next dialog, the user will need to select the translation parameters required. These will include the format of the files being translated, the format to which the data is being translated and the location of the data.

In the example below, the two tiles of OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data, TR15NW and TR15NE have been selected and the MapInfo .TAB data will be stored in a separate folder from the source data to allow easier data management.

Once selected, click ‘OK’. The translation will then run.

A message box will appear when the process is complete. The user will now have a MapInfo .TAB file for the OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data. This procedure should be repeated for any extra tiles of OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer which are needed.

To load the created MapInfo .TAB files into MapInfo Professional, simply click ‘File – Open’ and navigate to where the files are located. Select the file to be opened. Select ‘New Mapper’ from the drop-down menu and click ‘OK’. A point to note is that MapInfo will open the data un-styled as shown in the screenshot below:

Styling the data

Data loaded into MapInfo Professional, unlike many other GI applications, is better styled at translation stage because the .TAB format used by MapInfo can retain all the styling information applied in the translation process – it does not use separate styling files to apply a style to the data. OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data at the current time is not supplied in MapInfo .TAB format. Therefore, there is no Ordnance Survey published styling information for use in MapInfo Professional. It is, however, possible to style the data manually in MapInfo and achieve a successful result.

To add a style to a layer which has been loaded, open the layer control window, and then select the ‘Style Override’ box.

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data tables contain all the elements of the data within one MapInfo table, as can be seen from the layers listing.

Therefore, to style an element of the OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data, it will be necessary to use SQL commands to query the original .TAB data, pick out the specific element to style and create a new

.TAB file for that element. This procedure will take some time to carry out for the whole dataset. An example is provided here for guidance, but a better option would be to use a more specialised translation software application to convert and style the data in one procedure.

From the toolbar menu, click ‘Query – Select’.

In the next window, the user will need to type in the parameters to query the data. In this example, we are going to set up a query to select all the private gardens in one of the two tiles that we have loaded. Click on the ‘Assist’ button and another window appears.

The above expression will extract the private gardens from the original .TAB file. Click on ‘Verify’ to check if the expression is correct. Once satisfied, click ‘OK’. Then click ‘OK’ in the next window and the query will run. The user should see something like the following.

This query will now need to be saved into a new table. Select ‘File – Save Query’.

In the next window give the query a name.

We are going to call this TR15NE_Private_Garden.

Click ‘Save’ and then close the query browser window. The user may need to close the query and any other private garden table open firstly by clicking ‘File – Close’ and selecting the open query table. Then, click on ‘File – Open’ and select the new Private Garden .TAB file just created. The user can open the table in a new mapper or add it to the one that is already open. For this example, it will be added to the one already open in MapInfo.

The data will now be loaded. To check to see if the table has been loaded, click on the layers button in MapInfo to display the loaded layers.

The new table has been loaded. It will now be possible to add a style override to the private garden table by clicking on the style override button and bringing up the following window:

Several style options can now be applied to the private gardens. Click ‘OK’ when finished. The style will now be applied to the data.

In this screenshot, the private gardens are now coloured with a green fill. As stated previously, this method is quite laborious, and is not recommended for anything other than styling small areas of data. The best alternative would be to use a specialised software package to translate the data and style it during translation.

Merging multiple Tab files in MapInfo Professional

In MapInfo, it is possible to merge the elements of two .TAB files together into one new table using the ‘append’ function. This only works for data tables of the same type and will only work for two .TAB files at a time. Please note that the file into which the new data is appended will need to be saved as a new table at the end of the process. This append process should be repeated if more than two .TAB files need to be merged. For OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data, all the data elements are contained within a single

.TAB file so the append process is simpler than if the data was made up of multiple elements, as with the open version of the product.

It is highly recommended to back up the original OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data tables before performing any append function, as the options for carrying out this procedure in MapInfo are limited. If multiple areas are required, it would be better to merge the original shapefiles together before translating the data into .TAB format for use in MapInfo Professional. A free open-source package called ‘GeoMerge’ can be used to merge shapefiles. This application is available from:

To append .TAB files together, select ‘Table - Append Rows to Table’ from the main menu.

Select the two tables to append together. Click ‘OK’. The data from TR15NE will now be inserted into TR15NW. The user will need to save the table at the end if the appended data is to be retained. Click ‘File – Save Table’ once the append process has completed. Once the table is saved, TR15NW will now contain the data for the whole area. This is verified if the new table is opened in MapInfo:

Deleting duplicate entries from the merged table

There are several ways of doing this in MapInfo Professional. One of the ways, using SQL queries, is described in the MapInfo knowledge base article which can be found here:

Loading GML data into MapInfo Professional

MapInfo Professional will convert OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data in .GML supply into un-styled MapInfo .TAB format, using the Universal Translator tool built into MapInfo Professional version 12.5 onwards. As previously described, select ‘Tools – Universal Translator’ from the main menu.

In the next window, click on the ‘Translate Data’ button.

In the next window, select ‘GML (Geography Mark-up Language)’ from the list of format options. Then, select the tiles which need to be translated and a destination folder for the data to be stored. Click ‘OK’ and the translation will begin. A message will appear at the end stating that the translation was successful if all the input parameters have been set correctly.

The data can now be loaded into MapInfo Professional as .TAB format in the normal way. A point to note is that the translation from .GML to .TAB can produce a single OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer table covering the whole area, avoiding the need for appending files.

Geometry

The geometry for OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer is inherited directly from OS MasterMap Topography Layer.

Selections have been made to ensure that OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer is comprised of relevant polygons from the Topography Layer, with a green space focus. This green space determination comes from the Topography Layer attribution itself, and green space-relevant sites, some of which can also be found in the OS Open Greenspace product.

The Topographic area geometries and green space site layer attribution are combined in an automated process to produce a consistent layer of green space areas across urban Great Britain.

Attributes

The feature identifying attribution (TOID and Version) are taken directly from OS MasterMap Topography Layer.

Green space attribution is populated through overlaying green space sites onto OS MasterMap Topographic Area features. A subset of these green space sites is used to produce OS Open Greenspace.

Data completeness

Ordnance Survey is committed to maintaining its products to the highest levels of accuracy and currency. The initial capture of data for OS MasterMap Greenspace used our existing topographic databases and aerial imagery. As such, the quality of the data will be constrained to what can be achieved with this approach. For example, where an access into a site is obscured (for example, under trees) it will not be captured. In addition, the use of our existing databases to identify the location of sites of interest means that we cannot guarantee that all relevant sites will be included in the data. However, where we are informed and can verify that a feature is missing or inaccurately depicted in the dataset, we will make the necessary amendments to the dataset within six months of such verification. You can inform OS of any missing or inaccurately depicted feature in this product via the Error Reporting Tool on the OS Data Hub.

Positional accuracy

Since OS MasterMap Greenspace is a subset of topographic areas from OS MasterMap Topography Layer, it will inherit the positional accuracy from that product.

For a full explanation on OS MasterMap Topography Layer accuracies, please see the technical specification.

Coordinate reference systems

The Geography Markup Language (GML), ESRI Shapefile, and GeoPackage formats use the British National Grid (BNG) spatial reference system. BNG 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.

Vector tile format is supplied in Web Mercator projection (EPSG:3857). Web Mercator projection uses WGS84 geodetic datum to render the vector tiles. For more detail, Please view our 'Guide to Coordinate Systems in Great Britain'.

A general introductory guide to BNG is provided at:

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/resources/maps-and-geographic-resources/the-national-grid.html

The green space specific attribution within this product consists of the form and function of the green space area.

Function

The functions included within OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer describe the purpose of the green space areas.

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer includes the following functions:

• Allotments or Community Growing Spaces

• Amenity – Residential or Business

• Amenity – Transport

• Land Use Changing

• Bowling Green

• Camping or Caravan Park

• Cemetery

• Golf Course

• Institutional Grounds

• Natural

• Other Sports Facility

• Religious Grounds

• Play Space

• Playing Field

• Private Garden

• Public Park or Garden

• School Grounds

• Tennis Court

Detail and description of these functions can be found in the product's technical specification, which is available on the OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer Product Support page of the OS website.

Function hierarchy

The population of Primary Function and Secondary Function attributes is driven by a hierarchy. This hierarchy is applied to the data to determine which function is primary and secondary in cases where more than one function is applicable for a single topographic area polygon. Not every polygon will have more than one function due to the nature of the primary function, for example, cemeteries and allotments are not likely to have secondary functions. This hierarchy only applies where more than one function exists.

The hierarchy has been developed to ensure the process applies the appropriate functions and does not imply any level of priority.

This hierarchy is as follows:

1. Public Park or Garden

2. School Grounds

3. Institutional Grounds

4. Golf Course

5. Amenity – Residential or Business*

6. Amenity – Transport

7. Camping or Caravan Park

8. Religious Grounds

9. Cemetery

10. Private Garden

11. Playing Field

12. Other Sports Facility

13. Tennis Court

14. Allotments or Community Growing Spaces

15. Play Space

16. Bowling Green

17. Land Use Changing

18. Natural

*Due to the way Amenity – Residential or Business function is applied, it would not be expected to ever have a secondary function.

Detail on the functional hierarchy can be found in the Technical Specification.

Form

The forms included within OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer are:

• Woodland

• Open Semi-Natural

• Inland Water

• Beach or Foreshore

• Manmade Surface

• Multi Surface*

*While most polygons with this form will have a primary function of Private Gardens, this will not always be the case due to the function hierarchy.

Form hierarchy

Where more than one form value is applicable for a single topographic area polygon, the population of Primary Form and Secondary Form attributes is driven by a hierarchy. Not all polygons will have a form and this hierarchy only applies where more than one form exists.

The hierarchy has been developed to ensure the process applies the appropriate forms and does not imply any level of priority.

The form hierarchy is as follows:

1. Open Semi-Natural

2. Inland Water

3. Woodland

4. Beach or Foreshore*

5. Manmade Surface

6. Multi Surface

*Due to the way beach and foreshore polygons are located, areas with this form would not be expected to have a secondary form.

Polygon defining the area of the feature

GreenspaceArea attributes

toid

The unique reference number of the feature in OS MasterMap Topography Layer. Combined with the version number, this enables joins with the Topography Layer dataset.

• Attribute Name: Toid (GML), Toid (ESRI Shapefile), toid (GeoPackage), Toid (Vector tiles)

• Type: CharacterString

• Length: 20

• Multiplicity: [1]

version

The version number of the feature in OS MasterMap Topography Layer. This identifies the specific version of Topography Layer feature this dataset was created from. Combined with the TOID, this enables joins with the Topography Layer dataset.

• Attribute Name: Version (GML), Version (ESRI Shapefile), version (GeoPackage), N/A (Vector tiles)

• Type: Integer

• Length: 3

• Multiplicity: [1]

primaryFunction

The main function of the greenspace area.

• Attribute Name: primaryFunction (GML), priFunc (ESRI Shapefile), primary_function (GeoPackage), primary_function (Vector tiles)

• Type: Function

• Length: 40

• Multiplicity: [1]

secondaryFunction

The secondary function of the greenspace area, if applicable.

• Attribute Name: secondaryFunction (GML), secFunc (ESRI Shapefile), secondary_function (GeoPackage), N/A (Vector tiles)

• Type: Function

• Length: 40

• Multiplicity: [0..1]

primaryForm

Type of land cover present.

• Attribute Name: primaryForm (GML), priForm (ESRI Shapefile), primary_form (GeoPackage), N/A (Vector tiles)

• Type: Form

• Length: 20

• Multiplicity: [0..1]

secondaryForm

Secondary type of land cover present, if applicable.

• Attribute Name: secondaryForm (GML), secForm (ESRI Shapefile), secondary_form (GeoPackage), N/A (Vector tiles)

• Type: Form

• Length: 20

• Multiplicity: [0..1]

geometry

The geometry of the greenspace area.

• Attribute Name: geometry

• Type: GM_Surface

• Multiplicity: [1]

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer classification scheme

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer consists of the following general classifications:

• Public parks or gardens

• Private gardens or grounds

• Amenity greenspace

• Play spaces

• Sports areas and playing fields

• Natural or semi-natural greenspaces

• Allotments or community growing spaces

• Churchyards or burial grounds

• Camping or caravan sites

• Areas undergoing land use change

A full list of the definitions of these classifications is included in the Code lists below.

Model overview

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer is constructed as per the following UML diagram:

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer gives a comprehensive view of the greenspaces within an urban area. The dataset consists of topographic areas published in OS MasterMap Topography Layer, with additional greenspace-specific attribution to describe their function. It includes both publicly accessible and private greenspaces. This product has been designed for Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA) customers.

Index

The OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer technical specification contains the following sections:

• Product classification and structure

• Feature types

• Code lists and Enumerations

• Function hierarchy

• Form hierarchy

• OS Open Greenspace lookup table

• GML overview

• ESRI shapefile overview

• GeoPackage overview

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer is a detailed dataset of the greenspaces within an urban area for Great Britain. It includes both publicly accessible and private green spaces, sports facilities and natural environment features, to give a comprehensive view of spaces that are important for applications such as environmental management, health, planning, or habitat mappings.

The OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer dataset has been designed for the public sector, it shows accessible and non-accessible greenspaces in urban areas, helping to support a wider set of government initiatives around health and the environment.

How to get this product

Access to this product is free for PSGA members. Find out if you are a PSGA member or dowload a sample of OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data by accessing the Greenspace layer product page with links to all of the relevant resources. Alternatively, you can try out the full product by applying for a Data Exploration license.

Visualise OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data online

CadCorp Map Modeller is a commercial GI application which can load a wide variety of data formats. It also comes with a free software viewer application called CadCorp Map Express.

Loading the data (GeoPackage format)

Loading the data (vector tiles format)

Styling the data

Predefined stylesheets for OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer are available to download from the Ordnance Survey GitHub page below:

It is assumed that the user will have already set the default co-ordinate reference system in QGIS to British National Grid (EPSG 27700).

The version of QGIS used in this guide is version 3.16.7. The latest long-term release of the application is 3.22.4 as of March 2022.

Loading and displaying the ESRI® Shapefile supply

Start QGIS and open a new or existing project. In the top ribbon, navigate to Layer > Add Layer > Add Vector Layer.

In the Data Source Manager window, click the ‘…’ button and navigate to the folder in which your Shapefile(s) are saved. Select which files need to be loaded and then click ‘Open’.

In the Data Source Manager window, click ‘Add’ and then ‘Close’. Your data should now appear in the map frame and in the Layers panel. The loaded data will be un-styled and will appear like the image below.

The data will be loaded by tile reference, as shown in the Layers panel. As features are not cut at the tile edges, there will be some duplicate polygons when loading more than one adjacent tile, which will overlay one another. For small volumes of data, this can be managed in QGIS. However, for larger data volumes, it will be more manageable to merge the data into a single file prior to loading.

When working with shapefiles, it is highly recommended that a spatial index be applied to the data, particularly if loading a large or national set of data. This will significantly improve performance when rendering the data.

Right-click the desired layer in the Layers Panel on the left-hand side of the screen and navigate to 'Properties'.

In the Properties window, navigate to the Source tab and click ‘Create Spatial Index’. Once complete a confirmation window will appear. Click ‘Ok’, then click ‘Ok’ in the Properties window. If working with large shapefiles, you should notice a distinct improvement in performance in rendering and panning the data.

Merging the ESRI Shapefile supply

You may need to load more than one 25 km² grid square of data to cover your required area. For ease, shapefiles are prefixed with their National Grid 5 km grid square reference, as shown below. It is recommended that you copy the data to be merged to a new ‘merged data’ folder before carrying out the following steps:

In the top ribbon of your QGIS window, navigate to Vector > Data Management Tools > Merge Vector Layer.

In the Merge Vector Layers window, click the ‘…’ button next to Input Layers to select the tiles to be merged.

Click ‘Add Files(s)’. Navigate to the folder in which your shapefiles are saved. Select which files need to be loaded and then click ‘Open’.

Click the blue return arrow to return to the main window. Click the ‘…’ button next to Merged and click ‘Save to File’. Navigate to the folder where you want to store your merged data and name it appropriately, then click ‘Save’.

In the Merge Vector Layers window, click ‘Run’. Once the process is complete, click ‘Close’. Your merged data should now appear in the map frame and in the Layers panel. The loaded data will be un-styled and will appear like the image below.

Removing duplicate features from merged data

As previously stated, OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data is supplied as ‘hairy tiles’; where features which cross a 25 km² tile edge are supplied in all tiles in which the feature appears. In many cases, you may wish to use the Greenspace data as merged tiles. In this case, duplicate features will overlay each other perfectly.

However, there may be instances where duplicate features need to be removed, such as when carrying out some form of analysis on the features (for example, when calculating area or conducting a feature count). In this case, the duplicate features will need to be removed.

There are several ways within QGIS to achieve this. There are also several plugins for QGIS which can be installed to carry out this function, in particular, one called ‘MMQGIS’. However, methods using these options are not described here.

The ‘Dissolve’ function in QGIS which is part of standard functionality will effectively carry out this procedure. In the example described below, we are going to removed duplicates from the merged data created in the previous section.

In the top ribbon of your QGIS window, navigate to Vector > Geoprocessing Tools > Dissolve.

In the Dissolve window, under Input Layer, select the data you wish to remove duplicates from. In this case, the merged data is already selected as it is the only vector layer in the workspace.

Click the ‘…’ button next to Dissolve field(s). In the new dialog, select ‘toid’ as the dissolve field. This is the field that will be used to search for and dissolve duplicate features.

Click the blue return arrow to return to the main window. Click the ‘…’ button next to Dissolved and click ‘Save to File’. Navigate to the folder where you want to store your dissolved data and name it appropriately, then click ‘Save’.

In the Dissolve window, click ‘Run’. Once the process is complete, click ‘Close’. Your dissolved data should now appear in the map frame and in the Layers panel. The loaded data will be un-styled and will appear like the image below.

As with the original merged data, it is highly recommended that the de-duplicated file be given a spatial index using the method previously described to improve rendering performance.

In comparison with the data which contains duplicates, the ‘dissolved’ data should contain fewer features. This can be confirmed by either running a COUNT query in an expression window or by simply opening the attribute table of the data and comparing the number of features.

For both the original and dissolved layers, right-click the desired layer in the Layers Panel on the left-hand side of the screen and navigate to Open Attribute Table.

At the top of each attribute table will be a total count of features. The original merged dataset (top) contains 134 753 features, whilst the dissolved dataset (bottom) contains 134 050; confirming that duplicate features have been removed.

Loading and displaying the GML supply

Start QGIS and open a new or existing project. In the top ribbon, navigate to Layer > Add Layer > Add Vector Layer.

In the Data Source Manager window, click the ‘…’ button and navigate to the folder in which your GML file(s) are saved. Select which files need to be loaded and then click ‘Open’.

In the Data Source Manager window, click ‘Add’ and then ‘Close’. Your data should now appear in the map frame and in the Layers panel. The loaded data will be un-styled and will appear like the image below.

The data can now be styled using a predefined style file (.QML file) as described previously or using the tools within QGIS. Please note that style files created for shapefile supplies of the data will not work with GML supplies without modifications. It is highly recommended that style files created specifically for the GML supply be used.

It should be noted that rendering performance of the data within QGIS will be much poorer than in the case of the shapefile format, as GML data cannot be spatially indexed. It should also be noted that multiple 25 km² tiles of OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer GML data cannot be merged easily, as with the shapefile option. Consequently, rendering performance will also be much slower.

In addition, it is not easy to de-duplicate features along tile edges using common spatial geoprocessing tools within QGIS. As a result, the GML data itself will have to be queried using code scripts to highlight and remove duplicate features within a text editor. Another approach would be to convert the GML data to shapefiles.

To do this in QGIS, right-click the desired layer in the Layers Panel on the left-hand side of the screen and navigate to Export > Save Features As.

In the next window, select the format to be ESRI shapefile. Click the ‘…’ button next to File Name and navigate to the folder where you want to store your exported data and name it appropriately, then click ‘Save’.

Click ‘OK’. A shapefile will now have been produced from the exported GML file. The shapefile can then be used in the merging and dissolving processes as described previously.

Styling the ESRI Shapefile and GML supply

Predefined stylesheets for OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer are available to download from the Ordnance Survey GitHub page below:

To style your OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data, first download the zip file from the above GitHub repository, then extract and save the extracted files to your preferred location. When styling ESRI shapefiles in QGIS, you will need to navigate to ESRI Shapefile Stylesheets > QGIS stylesheets (QML). When styling GML in QGIS, you will need to navigate to GML Stylesheets > QGIS stylesheets (QML).

Inside the respective subfolders for each stylesheet type, is a ‘Quick Start Guide’ that can be followed to style your OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer data.

Code List: Form

Value defining the land cover of the greenspace feature.

* While most polygons with this form will have a primary function of Private Gardens, this will not always be the case due to the .

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer is comprised of a subset of the TopographicArea polygons from OS MasterMap Topography Layer (which represent topographic objects that have a polygon-based geometry). Only polygons which have been classified as a type of greenspace will be supplied. This subset of polygons will have the Topographic Identifier (TOID) and version number from OS MasterMap Topography Layer (to enable the datasets to be used in conjunction) plus additional attributes providing the greenspace-specific information.

The attribute information for the Greenspace Area feature is included below.

All features will have a primary function. Where appropriate for the feature, a secondary function may also be recorded.

Code List: Function

Value defining the function of the greenspace feature.

OS has published two related products on greenspaces, OS Open Greenspace and OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer. For some applications, it is intended that these products are used together as they contain different information.

OS Open Greenspace is part of Ordnance Survey’s Open Data portfolio and depicts the location and extent of exercise and recreation facilities likely to be open to the public. It includes access points locating entrances and exits from greenspace sites and proper names. Full information regarding OS Open Greenspace can be found in the technical specification.

A lookup table exists to link between the two products. Where an OS Open Greenspace polygon and an OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer polygon exist in the same location, the lookup table provides this information. This can be used to join the two products together, where appropriate, if the user wishes to use both datasets. OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer and OS Open Greenspace will be maintained and released with the same currency to ensure that these datasets are synchronised, allowing them to be easily used together.

Records will only be included in the lookup file where an appropriate match between an OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer TOID and OS Open Greenspace ID can be made.

Format

The lookup table is provided as a comma-separated value (.csv) file. The file will be supplied with headers and the information contained is detailed in the attributes above. It will only be supplied to customers taking full Great Britain (GB) supply of OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer. If you are taking AOI supply and would like access to the lookup table, please contact the customer service centre (CustomerServices@os.uk) to request this. Please note that as the Lookup Table is only generated for full GB supply, there will be additional records within the table that won't match-up with an AOI data supply – these additional records exist outside your AOI and should be ignored.

Attributes

TOID

The OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer TOID.

GREENSPACESITEID

The OS Open Greenspace ID for a polygon which intersects with the relevant TOID.

The OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer product is supplied in Geography Markup Language (GML) version 3.2.1. This section describes how OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer is defined in GML. An understanding of XML (eXtensible Mark-up Language) and XML schemas is required.

GML

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 Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/gml.

The XML specifications that GML is based on are available from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): http://www.w3.org.

Information about Unicode and UTF-8, the character encoding we have chosen, is available on the Unicode Consortium website: http://www.unicode.org.

Use of examples

Any use of examples in this chapter that mention specific data content are to be taken as examples only.

Schema overview and location

XML schemas are used to define and validate the format and content of the GML. The GML v3.2.1 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, which define the data content.

The schema document defines the namespace, http://namespaces.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/OSMM/Greenspace/1.0, this is defined in the XSD at: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/xml/open/ogsp/1.0/OSMMGreenspace.xsd.

Code list dictionaries

The code list dictionaries for the OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer can be found at the following URLs: http://www.os.uk/xml/codelists/GreenspaceFunctionValue.xml http://www.os.uk/xml/codelists/FormValue.xml

Where more than one Form value applies for a single topographic area polygon, the population of Primary Form and Secondary Form attributes is driven by a hierarchy. This hierarchy is applied to the data to determine which form is primary and secondary in cases where more than one form applies for a single topographic area polygon. Not all polygons will have a form and this hierarchy only applies where more than one form exists.

The hierarchy has been developed to ensure the process applies the appropriate forms consistently and does not imply any level of priority.

The following table declares this hierarchy:

*Due to the way beach and foreshore polygons are located, areas with this form would not be expected to have a secondary form.

The population of Primary Function and Secondary Function attributes is driven by a hierarchy. This hierarchy is applied to the data to determine which function is primary and secondary in cases where more than one function applies for a single topographic area polygon. Not every polygon will have more than one function due to the nature of the primary function, for example, cemeteries and bowling greens are not likely to have secondary functions. This hierarchy only applies where more than one function exists.

The hierarchy has been developed to ensure the process applies the appropriate functions and does not imply any level of priority.

The following table declares this hierarchy:

*Due to the way Amenity – Residential or Business function is defined (see Code lists), features classified as this primary function would not be expected to have a secondary function.

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer is supplied as a single GeoPackage for the whole of Great Britain. GeoPackage (*.gpkg) is an open, non-proprietary, platform-independent, standards-based data format for geographic information systems (GIS), as defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). 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.

OS MasterMap Greenspace Layer is supplied as a national vector tiles set in a single MBTiles file. This is a lightweight set of tiles that is efficient and fast to render in your software, and which provides high resolution data and gives a seamless experience when zooming in and out. The data is supplied in Web Mercator projection (ESPG:3857).

Vector tiles schema

The vector tiles schema is detailed in the following table. In the zoom levels columns within the table, the letter N indicates that the specified layer and attribute are not mapped within that zoom level, whereas the letter Y indicates that the specified layer and attribute are mapped within that zoom level.

Greenspace_area Attributes

A code list or enumeration is a controlled set of values which can be used to populate a specific column.

Greenspace area

<os:featureMember>
<gsp:GreenspaceArea gml:id="osgb1000000171855396">
<gsp:toid>osgb1000000171855396</gsp:toid>
<gsp:version>2</gsp:version>
<gsp:primaryFunction codeSpace="
http://www.os.uk/xml/codelists/GreenspaceFunctionValue
">Public Park Or Garden</gsp:primaryFunction>
<gsp:secondaryFunction codeSpace="
http://www.os.uk/xml/codelists/GreenspaceFunctionValue"
>Institutional Grounds</gsp:secondaryFunction>
<gsp:primaryForm codeSpace="
http://www.os.uk/xml/codelists/FormValue
">Open Semi-Natural</gsp:primaryForm>
<gsp:secondaryForm codeSpace="
http://www.os.uk/xml/codelists/FormValue
">Woodland</gsp:secondaryForm>
<gsp:geometry>
<gml:Surface gml:id="osgb1000000171855396-0" srsName="urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::27700" srsDimension="2">
<gml:patches>
<gml:PolygonPatch>
<gml:exterior>
<gml:LinearRing>
<gml:posList>393705.6 808506.55
393705.85 808519.5 393705.85 808525.3 393705.9 808525.85 393706.37 808532.46 393706.6 808535.75
393706.7 808536.6 393706.8 808538.6 393706.75 808539.65 393706.2 808541.65 393706 808542.2
393705.7 808542.95 393705.6 808543.55 393705.7 808544.75 393705.7 808549.35 393705.3 808554.25
393705.25 808554.75 393704.9 808559.75 393704.55 808562.9 393703.9 808566.2 393703.4 808568.3
393702.25 808577.95 393696.05 808582.35 393694.4 808580.3 393692.87 808579.97 393692 808579.79
393694.05 808567.55 393693.54 808567.45 393692.63 808567.28 393691.7 808567.1 393696.9 808536.55
393694.26 808521.44 393698.98 808520.59 393698.8 808519.55 393698.4 808517.1 393697.6 808513.25
393697.18 808510.73 393696.95 808509.35 393700.1 808508.6 393699.75 808507.08 393705.6
808506.55</gml:posList>
</gml:LinearRing>
</gml:exterior>
</gml:PolygonPatch>
</gml:patches>
</gml:Surface>
</gsp:geometry>
</gsp:GreenspaceArea>
</os:featureMember>

ESRI Shapefile is a simple, non-topological format for storing the geometric location and attribute information of geographic features. A Shapefile is one of the spatial data formats that can be utilised in ArcGIS.

The Shapefile format defines the geometry and attributes of geographically referenced features in as many as six files with specific file extensions that should be stored in the same project workspace.

They are:

• .shp – the file that stores the feature geometry.

• .shx – the file that stores the index of the feature geometry.

• .dbf – the dBASE file that stores the attribute information of features.

• .prj – the projection file that provides the information on the coordinate reference system.*

• .sbn and .sbx – the files that store the spatial index of the features.**

*When a Shapefile is added as a theme to a view, this file is displayed as a feature table.

**These two files will only exist if you perform theme on theme selection, spatial joins, or create an index on a theme's SHAPE field.

Attribute mapping

The naming of attributes will be different between the various formats due to the differing naming conventions associated with each format (for example, the presence of underscores, character limitations and capitalisation). Therefore, the following table maps the differing format attribute names to one another.

Greenspace area