This page details information about the new OS Functional Areas Collection in the OS NGD to give you early insight; the collection will be available from the end of March 2026. Data schema version 1.0 for the three feature types (Retail Area Aggregated, Retail Area Major and Retail Area Minor) in this new collection are currently not available through the live access services.
The information on this page is as accurate as possible, but is subject to change before launch.
The OS Functional Areas Collection gives you access to the most current and comprehensive functional areas defined by Ordnance Survey as a standalone collection. Functional Areas are algorithmically derived notional geographical extents; this distinguishes them from the OS Boundaries Collection which contains boundary extents specified by authoritative organisations.
The collection is currently comprised of three feature types:
These feature types define notional geographic extents of retail activity across Great Britain, identifying clusters of buildings with retail addresses. More detail is provided on the individual feature type pages.
Example showing Retail Area Aggregated, Retail Area Major and Retail Area Minor features in the centre of Southampton. A background map has been included for context.
Collection applications
The OS Functional Areas Collection allows you to:
Policy & planning
Improve decision making for economic areas at both local and national levels.
Create and refine plans for local areas.
Support future policy development.
Evaluate policy implementation and performance by performing counterfactual analysis to understand what interventions are working well.
Analysis & research
Provide consistent retail area definitions across local authorities.
Perform granular analysis and provide statistics based on structured layers and attribution.
Conduct academic research based on population-level behaviours.
Visualisation
Create data visualisations for communication and analysis (for example, local plans, differences between interventions).
Investment strategies
Support regeneration efforts and investment planning (for example, Towns Fund, Future High Streets Fund).
Improve transport provision planning (for example, bus routes).
Improve the decision making of retail chains when selecting new store locations.
Example showing a Retail Area Major feature in the centre of Edinburgh. The Address Count attribution against the feature allows you to calculate the address classification mix for the polygon, i.e. what percentage of the polygon is comprised of retail, residential, industrial, office and other addresses. A background map has been included for context.
Key elements
Attribution for the three retail area feature types includes, but is not limited to, the following:
Retail Setting which describes the type of retail area at the location or that the feature supports (available for the Retail Area Major Feature Type only).
Metadata about the retail area, such as address counts and residential density, allowing analysis of the makeup of areas.
Cross-references to other datasets, such as Government Statistical Service (GSS) codes, grid references and the Built Address Feature Type.
Coverage
Great Britain.
Default coordinate reference system
British National Grid (EPSG: 27700).
Temporal filtering
The earliest date on which you can request a one-off snapshot of a date in the past for data in this collection is noted at the top of the individual feature type pages.
Supply formats
GeoPackage or CSV (comma-separated values).
Supply mechanism
OS Functional Areas Collection data can be accessed through the OS Data Hub via OS Select+Build, the bespoke OS NGD download service. It can't be accessed through OS NGD API – Features or OS NGD API – Tiles.
