Postcode area and district polygons derived from Ordnance Survey Open Data using R and GRASS. Method used was creating voronoi polygons from point postcode data and dissolving boundaries based on postcode area and district attributes.Contains OS data © Crown Copyright and database rightFile descriptions:postcode_polygons.gpkg: geopackage file containing two polygon layers: postcode_area and postcode_district.postcode_aggregator.R: R script to extract area and district from full postcode.postcode_aggregator.sh: GRASS/Bash script to convert point postcode data into polygons.postcode_overview.png: image of polygons available.

1,572,685 polygon records with EASTING,NORTHING and PAREA (postcode area) fields. Individual polygons could be aggregated using PAREA field and entire coverage clipped to a coastline dataset to give a GB Postcode Area dataset. Dataset created by reducing all records in Code-Point Open to a unique point set based on Easting & Northing, allocating the most frequently occurring postcode area at each unique location by sub-stringing unit postcode labels and then creating a thiessen polygon coverage from the pointset in arcinfo workstation. GIS vector data. This dataset was first accessioned in the EDINA ShareGeo Open repository on 2010-09-13 and migrated to Edinburgh DataShare on 2017-02-21.

This is the ONS Postcode Directory (ONSPD) for the United Kingdom as at February 2024 in Comma Separated Variable (CSV) and ASCII text (TXT) formats. This file contains the multi CSVs so that postcode areas can be opened in MS Excel. To download the zip file click the Download button. The ONSPD relates both current and terminated postcodes in the United Kingdom to a range of current statutory administrative, electoral, health and other area geographies. It also links postcodes to pre-2002 health areas, 1991 Census enumeration districts for England and Wales, 2001 Census Output Areas (OA) and Super Output Areas (SOA) for England and Wales, 2001 Census OAs and SOAs for Northern Ireland and 2001 Census OAs and Data Zones (DZ) for Scotland. It now contains 2021 Census OAs and SOAs for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It helps support the production of area-based statistics from postcoded data. The ONSPD is produced by ONS Geography, who provide geographic support to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and geographic services used by other organisations. The ONSPD is issued quarterly. (File size - 231 MB) Please note that this product contains Royal Mail, Gridlink, LPS (Northern Ireland), Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

Code-Point® with polygons shows the notional shape of every postcode unit in Great Britain, and includes major buildings with multiple postcodes. For compelling visuals, Code-Point with polygons lets you apply shading to individual postcodes on a map. This means you can analyse location data at the most granular level and bring your results vividly to life. We give you every single postcode in Great Britain and Northern Ireland – including those for different floors of high-rise buildings. For accuracy, we give every postcode a positional quality rating and map out the boundaries of only the postcodes we can locate most precisely. Code-Point® with polygons contains postcode boundaries for Great Britain. These show the extent of each postcode unit, enabling you to analyse information by postcode. Ideal for activities such as sales targeting or market profiling, as well as any statistical work. Includes notional polygons; vertical streets data; postcode units; eastings and northings; NHS® health authority codes; administrative codes; PO box indicator; and types of delivery points.

This dataset contains 2022 frozen Postcode boundaries Postcode unit boundaries are created and maintained by National Records of Scotland (NRS) for every live small user Postcode so that the entire land surface of Scotland is covered by Postcode polygons. The dataset represents the smallest plotted unit in Scotland which supports the production of high quality statistics. The Postcode dataset used for 2022 Census outputs is based on the April Postcode Address File (PAF®) received from Royal Mail®. The dataset contains 153,192 Postcode polygons.

Dataset contains polygons corresponding to the top level (Postcode Area) of the GB Postcode Hierarchy. Thiessen polygons were generated from all records in OS OpenData Code-Point Open. Resulting coverage was dissolved up to postcode area level and then clipped to GB extent of the realm using OS OpenData Boundary-Line. Names of postcode areas were added from Wikipedia. GIS vector data. This dataset was first accessioned in the EDINA ShareGeo Open repository on 2010-07-22 and migrated to Edinburgh DataShare on 2017-02-21.

This dataset includes a series of modified UK administrative boundary shapefiles based on the 2011 census which are intended for use in more accurate visualisation of UK geospatial data analysis. There are two key features of these shapefiles: (1) administrative shapes have been clipped to the Ordnance Survey buildings shapefile, so that in choropleth visualisations relating to demographic data filled spaces represent populated areas of the UK rather than large undifferentiated blocks. (2) Shapefiles have been simplified to reduce loading and processing time, in the case of this repository at 100m. After testing, we have settled on a procedure to render buildings layer visually comprehensible at high zoom levels, by adding a small buffer, dissolving (so that individual overlapping shapes combine into a single more easily visualised shape) and then simplifying at 150m. It is important to emphasise that because of the use of simplification (using a Ramer–Douglas–Peucker algorithm), these shapefiles are not suitable for analysis as boundaries may not be suitably precise or accurate. For users interested in the process used to generate these files you can consult the codebase deposited on github.

Many thanks to colleagues including Alasdair Rae for recommendations on technique used here. Computations were performed using the University of Birmingham's BEAR Cloud service, which provides flexible resource for intensive computational work to the University's research community. See http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/bear for more details. Given the massive size of datasets involved (including the district buildings vector shapefile which is 1.4gb and consists of hundreds of thousands of individual shapes), this work would have been impossible without this invaluable resource. I hope that these files will be of use to colleagues who may not have access to similar large computational arrays and make the process of visualising UK boundary and census data more accurate and efficient.

Original files are under OGLv3 licenses. Derived data files, where possible are licensed for use under CC BY 4.0.

Files include the following:

Original unmodified data:

infuse_ctry_2011.zip - original country level shapes, based on 2011 census, downloaded from https://borders.ukdataservice.ac.uk/ukborders/easy_download

infuse_dist_lyr_2011.zip - original local authority shapes, based on 2011 census, downloaded from https://borders.ukdataservice.ac.uk/ukborders/easy_download

TermsAndConditions.html - UK Data Service license details (OGLv3), applies to all the above

GB_Postcodes.zip - UK postcode district shapes, prepared by Addy Pope, https://datashare.ed.ac.uk/handle/10283/2597

Derived data files:

OS_Open_Zoomstack_district_buildings.zip - buildings layer extracted from Ordnance Survey Zoomstack package, licensed under OGLv3 and exported to gpkg format.

*_simplified_100m.gpkg - Administrative shapes from above, simplified in R at a resolution of 100 metres.

*_simplified_100m_buildings_overlay_simplified.gpkg - Administrative shapes from above, simplified in R at a resolution of 100 metres, and then clipped to the buildings layer.

*_simplified_100m_buildings_overlay_simplified.gpkg - Administrative shapes from above, simplified in R at a resolution of 100 metres, and then run against the buildings layer as a difference layer. Suitable for using as an overlay as the shapes are inverse.

Users who wish to use these shapefiles in a reproducible research context may want to download individual files directly from this repository. To do so, you could use the following R code:

load packages

require(sf) # load simplefeature data class, supercedes sp() and used for st_read

given the size and complexity even of simplified files here, ragg is highly recommended

for users on macos given inefficiencies in default R graphics device

require(ragg)

create paths as needed

if (dir.exists("data") == FALSE) { dir.create("data") }

download data files only if they aren't already present

if (file.exists("data/infuse_dist_lyr_2011.shp") == FALSE) { download.file("https://borders.ukdataservice.ac.uk/ukborders/easy_download/prebuilt/shape/infuse_dist_lyr_2011.zip", destfile = "data/infuse_dist_lyr_2011.zip") unzip("infuse_dist_lyr_2011.zip", exdir = "data")} local_authorities <- st_read("data/infuse_dist_lyr_2011.shp")

Postcode unit boundaries are created and maintained by National Records of Scotland (NRS) for every live small user postcode so that the entire land surface of Scotland is covered by postcode polygons. This is the set of postcode boundaries used for 2011 census outputs. The dataset contains 145,690 postcode polygons.

A lookup between postcodes and postcode sectors, postcode districts and postcode areas as at March 2021 in England and Wales (File size 5MB).

This dataset is part of the Geographical repository maintained by Opendatasoft. This dataset contains 'Code-Point Open': free and open postcode location data of Great Britain. They can be used for geographical analysis, simple route planning, asset management and much more.This dataset does not contain postcodes of Northern Ireland.Description of numeric values for the 'Positional Quality Indicator'10: Within the building of the matched address closest to the postcode mean determined automatically by Ordnance Survey20: As above but determined by visual inspection by National Records of Scotland (NRS).30: Approximate to within 50m of the true position (postcodes relating to developing sites may be within 100m of true position).40: The mean of the positions of addresses previously matched in PALF but which have subsequently been deleted or recoded (very rarely used).50:Estimated position based on surrounding postcode coordinates, usually to 100m resolution, but 10m in Scotland60: Postcode sector mean.90: No coordinates available.

The United Kingdom's (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) postcodes represented as points and polygons. This data is often used for service delivery and statistical analysis. OS Postcodes Data is made available in a number of Ordnance Survey Products: Codepoint (point geometry), Codepoint Open (point geometry) and Codepoint with Polygons (polygon geometry). The postcode is sourced from Royal Mail. The polygon geometry is calculated using address geometry provided by Local Authority Land and Property Gazetteer custodians as a base.

This is the set of postcode boundaries used for 2001 census outputs. The postcode boundaries for census were originally frozen in January 2001 for the purposes of producing census outputs.

The dataset contains 139,045 postcode polygons.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The UK censuses took place on 29th April 2001. They were run by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency (NISRA), General Register Office for Scotland (GROS), and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for both England and Wales. The UK comprises the countries of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.Statistics from the UK censuses help paint a picture of the nation and how we live. They provide a detailed snapshot of the population and its characteristics, and underpin funding allocation to provide public services. Census Support provides digitised boundary datasets of the UK, available in many Geographic Information System (GIS) formats. Most of these data are available as Open data under OGL v3 license. Postcode directories are also available although some of these are restricted to members of the academic community under 'Special Conditions'. There are many digitised boundaries available. The main group of boundaries correspond to the various levels of 2011, 2001, 1991, 1981 and 1971 census geography which are designed to be used for spatial visualisation and analysis of census statistics. Also available are historic boundaries created by the Great Britain Historical GIS Project, held at the UK Data Archive under GN 33288 Great Britain Historical Database, 1841-1939. Main Topics:Accommodation type (brief)Accommodation type (detailed)Adults, Number Employed in HouseholdAdults, Number in HouseholdAgeAge of Family Reference Person (FRP)Age of Household Reference Person (HRP)Age of Students and SchoolchildrenAmenitiesArmed ForcesBath/Shower and Toilet, use ofCare (unpaid), Provision ofCare, Provision ofCarers and their Economic Activity, Number ofCars and vansCentral heatingChildrenChildren, dependentCommunal Establishment ResidentsCommunal establishment, combined type and managementConcealed familiesCountry of birthCountry of Birth (additional categories)Daytime PopulationDwelling TypeEconomic ActivityEconomic Activity of Associated People Resident in HouseholdsEconomic Activity of Full-time studentsEconomic Activity of Household Reference Person (HRP)Ethnic group (England and Wales)Ethnic group (England and Wales) of Household Reference PersonFamily compositionFamily statusFamily typeHealth, GeneralHours workedHousehold compositionHousehold composition (alternative classification)Household dependent childrenHousehold deprivationHousehold Reference Person indicatorHousehold sizeHousehold Space TypeHousehold TypeHouseholds with students away during term-timeIndustryIndustry, formerLimiting long-term illnessLimiting Long-Term Illness (LLTI), Household residents withLimiting long-Term Illness, number of people with in householdLiving arrangementsLiving arrangements of Household Reference Person (HRP)Lowest floor levelMarital statusMigration (armed forces)Migration (Communal establishment)Migration (People)Multiple ethnic identifierOccupancy RatingOccupation (brief)Occupation (detailed)Occupation, formerPensioner householdPeople aged 17 or over in household, Number ofPopulation TypePublic transport users in householdsQualifications (England and Wales)Qualifications, highest level of (England and Wales)Qualifications, professionalReligion (England and Wales)Religion (England and Wales) of Household Reference PersonResident BasisResident TypeRooms in a dwelling, number ofRooms, Number ofRooms, Persons perSexSex of Household Reference Person (HRP)Single Adult HouseholdsSocial Grade of Household Reference Person (HRP), approximatedSocial Grade, approximatedSocio-economic Classification (NS-SeC)Socio-economic Classification (NS-SeC) of Household Reference Person (HRP)Socio-economic Classification (NS-SeC) of Household Reference Person (HRP), Main categories ofStudent accommodation (Standard Output)Student accommodation TypeStudent statusTenureTenure, dwellingTime Since Last WorkedTravel to Work, distanceTravel to work, Means ofTravel to Work, Method of and Number of Employed PeopleWorking ParentsYear last worked Census Support provides the following facilities: • Easy Download The most regularly requested Census Support boundaries available as ready to use national datasets. The key 2011 and 2001 census boundary datasets and look-up tables for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are available through this facility • Boundary Data Selector This facility allows selection of boundaries, for the area required, in the format required. For example, Census Output Areas for several counties could be downloaded, or for a specific ward or district. The selection can be previewed over an Ordnance Survey back-drop map and then extracted from the Census Support database in one of several GIS formats. • Postcode Directory Download This facility allows the download of complete versions of current and historical postcode directories (sometimes referred to as look-up tables). These directories provide details of current and historical postcodes along with details of other geographies (e.g. electoral ward, health authority etc.) in which that postcode is located. As they contain a grid reference for the postcode they provide a convenient means to geo-reference the researchers' own datasets • Postcode Data Selector Provides more user control in terms of geographical coverage, number and range of fields selected and output options. Allows users to filter and subset data based on their needs so they only need to take small portions of the (large) directories as needed. No sampling (total universe)

Postcode unit boundaries are created and maintained by National Records of Scotland (NRS) for every live small user postcode so that the entire land surface of Scotland is covered by postcode polygons. The dataset represents the smallest plotted unit in Scotland which supports the production of high quality statistics. NRS publish these boundaries twice a year as part of the Scottish Postcode Directory (SPD) which should be considered the definitive source for postcode geographies in Scotland. Note the published version of the SPD does not include Royal Mail information on Delivery Point Count (DPC), Delivery Point Count Non-Residential (DPCNR) or Household Count (HC). Those interested in this information should enquire with geographycustomerservices@nrscotland.gov.uk.

This dataset contains grid references for the 2022 frozen Postcode boundaries. Each individual Postcode polygon holds a grid reference. Grid references have been assigned by NRS, choosing the building nearest to the centre of the most populous part of the Postcode, or the grid reference is from Gridlink®.

Spotzi’s premium postcode boundary data for the United Kingdom (GBR) gives marketers, retailers, and OOH professionals everything they need to understand and reach their audience more effectively. Our high-quality boundary data lets you visualize every postal code area, build precise targeting strategies, create sales territories, and uncover valuable demographic and campaign insights—all in one easy-to-use dashboard.

With a Spotzi Premium account, you can explore, customize, and export Britsh postcode boundaries for activation across your channels. Whether you're planning a national campaign or analyzing store visitors by location, Spotzi eliminates the hassle of complex data management so you can focus on driving results.

This dataset represents the Postal Boundaries for 2012. Included in the zip file are postcode Areas (AB, EH,..), districts (AB1, AB2,..) and sectors (AB1 1, AB1 2, ..). This data was sourced from Geolytix (https://blog.geolytix.net/2012-11-20-postal-sector-boundaries-by-geolytix/). The source data is released under a OGL licence which allows users to use the data without charge but requires them to attribute the following: Postal Boundaries (c) GeoLytix copyright and database right 2012 Contains Ordnance Survey data (c) Crown copyright and database right 2012 Contains Royal Mail data (c) Royal Mail copyright and database right 2012 Contains National Statistics data (c) Crown copyright and database right 2012. GIS vector data. This dataset was first accessioned in the EDINA ShareGeo Open repository on 2014-03-14 and migrated to Edinburgh DataShare on 2017-02-22.

This dataset contains grid references for the 2001 frozen postcode boundaries. Each individual postcode polygon holds a grid reference. Grid references have been assigned by NRS, choosing the building nearest to the centre of the most populous part of the postcode, or the grid reference is from Gridlink®.

This data set is a collection of estimated daily mean and maximum values for a range of air quality and meterological measurements and model forecasts for the UK and crown dependencies postcode districts (e.g. 'AB') for the years 2016-2019, inclusive.

The paper describing this dataset is available here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-022-01135-6

The data uses a 'concentric regions' method to estimate the measurement for all regions, as follows. If measurements exist within the region, the mean of those measurements is used, if not, then a ring of neighbouring postcode regions are selected, and the mean of their measurement values used. If no measurement sites/data are found in the first ring, the process continues, taking the next ring of postcode district regions, working outwards until one or more sensors are found in a ring. As well as the measurement estimations, the number of rings required to find site data and make the estimations is also published. As a result, please note that estimations with higher ring counts ('rings') are likely to be calculated from more distant sensors. This distance depends upon the size of the postcode regions surrounding the location being estimated. Please use the ring count ('rings') to limit/filter estimations based on your required level of confidence.

The meteorological, pollen and air quality measurement data used to make the regional estimations can be found at this Zenodo archive. The data there contains Temperature, Relative Humidity, and Pressure data, downloaded from the Met Office MIDAS archives via the MEDMI server (https://www.data-mashup.org.uk/). Also downloaded from the MEDMI server are daily pollen measurements for the UK. PM10, PM2.5, NO2, NOx (as NO2), O3, and SO2 measurements from the DEFRA AURN network, and also model forecasts of the same made using the EMEP model.

The code used to make the estimations is available at this Zenodo archive.

The postcode data in postcode_district_data.csv are collated from several sources:

https://www.doogal.co.uk/UKPostcodes.php (population figures for the UK (UK Census 2011))

https://www.freemaptools.com/download-uk-postcode-outcode-boundaries.htm (postcode boundary polygons for UK and crown dependancies)

https://www.gov.gg/population (Guernsey (GY) population data for end June 2020)

https://www.gov.je/Government/JerseyInFigures/Population/Pages/Population.aspx (Jersey (JE) population data for end 2019)

https://www.gov.im/media/1369690/isle-of-man-in-numbers-july-2020.pdf (Isle of Man (IM) population data for April 2016)

The data-set is presented in CSV format, as six files:

postcode_district_data.csv: location metadata (region_id, geometry, description, population, country)

regional_site_counts.csv: a table showing the number of sites for each measurement (columns), for each region_id (rows). region_id's match those in the postcode_district_data.csv file.

turing_regional_estimates_aq_daily_met_pollen_pollution_imputed_data.csv: uses imputed site data (timestamp, region_id, ...[measurement name, rings]) ('rings' is the number of rings required to make the estimation)

turing_regional_estimates_aq_daily_met_pollen_pollution_original_data.csv: uses original site data (timestamp, region_id, ...[measurement name, rings]) ('rings' is the number of rings required to make the estimation)

turing_regional_estimates_aq_loc_type_daily_imputed_data.csv: uses imputed site data. Air quality regional estimates are calculated using specific AQ site location types* separately. (To prevent, for example, 'Traffic Urban' type sites being used to estimate 'non-traffic' or rural regions.)

turing_regional_estimates_aq_loc_type_daily_original_data.csv: uses original data. Air quality regional estimates are calculated using specific AQ site location types* separately. (To prevent, for example, 'Traffic Urban' type sites being used to estimate 'non-traffic' or rural regions.)

• Air quality site types:

Industrial: comprises 'urban industrial' (9 sites) and suburban industrial (2 sites)

'Rural background' (14 sites)

'Urban background' (48 sites)

'Urban traffic' (47 sites)

A lookup between 2011 Census enumeration postcodes for England and Wales, and the parishes / communities, wards and local authority districts as at 31 December 2011. Enumeration postcodes are a sub-Output Area (OA) geography used only for the publication of estimates of males, females and households in the 2011 Census. The enumeration postcodes are defined as only those valid unit postcodes that were recorded during the 2011 Census as containing usually resident population. Postcodes have been assigned using a ‘point-in-polygon’ methodology that plots each postcode's mean address (centroid) into the areas of each of the parishes / communities, wards and local authority districts (LAD). In England there is not a full coverage of parishes, so the 2011 Census enumeration postcodes that do not fall into a parish will have no parish allocation. There are also 23 parishes (0.2%) that do not contain any enumeration postcode centroids. This occurs where a parish contains population, but the centroid of the postcode falls outside the parish. In these instances it is not possible to allocate a postcode to the parish.