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Code-Point®

  

Technical Information

  • Record attributes
  • Sample data
  • User guide The user guide contains information on the technical specification and product specification for Code-Point to help you understand how to use the data.(1.65mb PDF file)

 Specification

Code-Point®

 Coverage

Great Britain (England, Scotland & Wales) &  Northern Ireland

 Availability

Only available as Great Britain & Northern Ireland

 Data source

The source of the postcodes is the Royal Mail Group PAF® data, which has been continuously updated since 1974, and Postzon® data from 1999.

Code-Point is produced quarterly using updates from the Gridlink® dataset and Ordnance Survey field survey updates, creating the National Grid references (and associated attribution) for each postcode centroid in Code-Point to a resolution of 1 metre.

Data structure

Vector

Transfer format

National Transfer Format (NTF) v2.0 Level 2 - [BS 7567]

Comma Separated Values (CSV)

Storage volumes

NTF 259Mb        CSV  138Mb

Number of postcode units

GB & NI coverage                     1,746,614

GB coverage (Eng, Scot & Wales)      1,699,467

 

  • England            1,446,456
  • Scotland           156,456
  • Wales                96,555
  • NI coverage     47,147

February 2009 release

Supply media

CD

Coordinate resolution

1 metre

Update interval

Updates are quarterly-February, May, August and November

Styling

A separate symbol set is not supplied with this product 

Geometric types 

Point

Coordinate reference system

British National Grid (OSGB36®). Code-Point data is supplied to the British National Grid (OSGB36) and for (BT postcodes the Northern Ireland Grid configuration European Datum 1950 (ED50) 

Unique Identifier

The postcodes within Code-Point are the unique identifiers. As the postcode is the identifier it will be persistent for the lifetime of the postcode as determined by Royal Mail®.

 

Code-Point data structures

The Code-Point CD-ROM contains two folders in the root directory: DOC and DATA.

The DOC folder contains the following files:

  • CD_INFO- a file summarising  the content and file structure of the CD-ROM
  • Codelist.txt - a list of the ONS county, district and ward codes and their full text equvalents derived from Boundary-Line
  • DISCCARE.TXT- a file summarising recommendations on the handling and storage of CD-ROMS
  • metadata.txt - lists the number of postcode units in each postcode area and the date of the most recent version of the Royal Mail PAF that has been incorporated into the data
  • Readfirst.txt- a file summarising copyright and licensing information that must be read and understood before any of the DATA files are opened.

 The Data folder contains the following sub-folders:

  • CSV- Contains 121 postcode area files in CSV format
  • NTF- Contains 121 postcode area files in NTF

 

NHS is a registered trademark of Department of Health.

PAF, Postzon, and Royal Mail are registered trademarks of Royal Mail Group plc. 

Record attributes for Code-Point

  • Postcode unit (for example, SO16 4GU)
  • Positional quality indicator (providing information about the accuracy of the postcode location)
  • PO box indicator – a flag that indicates whether the postcode contains only PO Boxes
  • Total number of delivery points (addresses) in the postcode unit
  • Number of delivery points in  the addressing data with the same 'positional quality indicator' as that allocated to the Code-Point postcode record
  • Number of domestic delivery points in the postcode unit
  • Number of non-domestic delivery points in the postcode unit
  • Number of PO boxes in the postcode unit
  • Number of delivery points in the addressing data not allocated accurate coordinates
  • Ordnance Survey National Grid co-ordinates
  • Source currency indicator
  • Administrative and NHS area codes

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