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Ordnance Survey – Great Britain's national mapping agency

OS MasterMap® Address Layer 2 technical information

  • User guide (3.5 Mb)
    The user guide is an introduction to the OS MasterMap Address Layers that offers guidance and advice on how to derive the maximum value from the product.
  • Technical specification (1.5 Mb)
    The technical specification provides specific details of the structure, content and format of OS MasterMap Address Layer 2 for customers using the data in a geographical information system (GIS) or other computer systems. The technical specification should be used in conjunction with the user guide.
  • Classifications spreadsheet (378 Kb)
    The classifications spreadsheet lists all the Ordnance Survey base function descriptions, Valuation Office Agency classifications and NLUD Land Use Groups that are used in OS MasterMap Address Layer 2, and can be used as a look-up table.
  • CSV file column headers spreadsheet (30 Kb)
    For users of the CSV file format who wish to look at the data in a tabular structure here is a spreadsheet containing the attribute names in order that can be easily cut and pasted into that structure.


Specification

OS MasterMap Address Layer 2

Coverage

Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales)

Availability

Order by;

  • Great Britain
  • England
  • Scotland
  • Wales
  • User defined areas:
    • specific identities of National Grid tiles;
    • administrative region;
    • Government office region
    • bounding box; or
    • irregular shape drawn within the service using the tools provided or imported into the service.

Data Source

The address features originate as follows:

  • Address Theme: from PAF delivery points maintained by Royal Mail daily for mail delivery purposes since 1974.
  • Objects without Postal Address (OWPA) Theme: from topographic features captured at large scale and maintained in digital form daily by Ordnance Survey since the 1980s.
  • Multiple Occupancy without Postal Address (MOWPA) Theme: from Multiple Residence (MR) records maintained by Royal Mail since 2005.

Data structure

Vector

Scale

For Urban areas the data has been captured and maintained at a base scale of 1:1250 and is cartographically suitable for display at this scale.

For Rural areas the data has been captured and maintained at a base scale of 1:2500 and is cartographically suitable for display at this scale.

For Remote (mountain and moorland) areas the data has been captured and maintained at a base scale of 1:10 000 and is cartographically suitable for display at this scale.

Transfer format

GML 2.1.2 and Comma Separated Variable (CSV) text file.

Storage volumes

2.0 Gb (compressed GML) for national coverage

2.7 Gb (compressed CSV) for national coverage

Supply media

CD, DVD and FTP (for orders under 400mb)

Coordinate precision

Location coordinates for all address features in OS MasterMap Address Layer are stored in metres to a coordinate precision of a decimetre.

Update interval

  • Annual re-supply is available.
  • Change only update is available every six weeks
  • Complete resupply is available every six weeks

Styling

A default style set and the mapping of features to these styles are provided in the Technical Specification.

Geometry type

Point

Coordinate reference system

British National Grid (OSGB36)

Unique ID

Unique IDs (TOIDs) are provided for each feature.

 

 

 

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