Ordnance Survey – Great Britain's national mapping agency
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All of these resources are provided free by Ordnance Survey. Some of these are online, some are printed. Not all are designed specifically with education in mind but have been found to be useful by teachers.
Map Work
All of these resources are based around the use of Ordnance Survey maps, and were devised by educational experts. Some of these resources originally appeared in previous editions of Mapping news
Copyright for education
Clink the link below for a guide for each educational establishment on how they can obtain a licence to reproduce Ordnance Survey mapping.
Election maps
Ordnance Survey Election maps – designed to help the understanding of the electoral geography of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Users can see the extent of electoral constituencies by selecting and overlaying administrative and electoral boundaries onto various scales of mapping background.
Election maps web site >>> | Election map resources >>>
National Grid
This is our interactive presentation on using the national grid.
GB Coastline and Administrative Areas map
We know that teachers find lots of uses for this free outline map of Great Britain. Print it out from the pdf version to provide a useful, and up-to-date, resource for class work.
Find out more about Outline maps>>>
Get-a-map™
Free search and download service, for mapping of Britain.
Check out the Get-a-map web site
Map reading made easy peasy
Free while stocks last – class sets of this free leaflet can be ordered through our Customer Service Centre.
Make an order >>>
Using the links below, download and print out a copy in English or Welsh as a useful resource for class work and projects.
- View/download the english version of this leaflet (PDF 746KB)
- View/download the welsh version of this leaflet (PDF 690KB)
Map symbol sheets
A4 copies of map symbol sheets are available free to download now.
- 1:25 000 scale Explorer™ England & Scotland (PDF 1MB)
- 1:25 000 scale Explorer™ Welsh version (PDF 390KB)
- 1:50 000 scale Landranger® English version (PDF 321KB)
- 1:50 000 scale Landranger® Welsh version (PDF 433KB)
- Abbreviations used on 1:25 000 and 1:50 scale maps (PDF 45KB)
Map symbol flashcards
A fun way of learning map-reading skills, the ExplorerTM and Landranger® flashcards are available free to download now.
Find out more about flashcards >>>
- View/download 1:25 000 scale Explorer English Flashcards (PDF 993 KB)
- View/download 1:25 000 scale Explorer Welsh Flashcards (PDF 1.21 MB)
- View/download 1:50 000 scale Landranger English Flashcards (PDF 398 KB)
- View/download the Flashcards games English version (PDF 770 KB)
- View/download the Flashcards games Welsh version (PDF 744 KB)
Useful Links
Click below for a list of educational bodies and organisations.