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Addressing Portfolio
Gaining positive impact from Ordnance Survey addressing products
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To use this demonstrator you agree to the terms of this Licence
Introduction
Through collaborative working between Ordnance Survey , GeoPlace , Improvement Service and the Local Government Association a single definitive spatial address database for Great Britain has been created and maintained since September 2011 for England and Wales, and April 2012 for Scotland.
The creation of AddressBase products brings together the best parts of:
- Local Government’s National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) - managed by GeoPlace (a joint venture between Ordnance Survey and the Local Government Association)
- The One Scotland Address Gazetteer (OSG) - managed by Improvement Service
- Royal Mail® Postcode Address File (PAF®)
- Ordnance Survey owned large scale data and coordinates
- Valuation Office Agency descriptions
This resource will cover our addressing portfolio which includes AddressBase, AddressBase Core, AddressBase Plus, AddressBase Premium, our two AddressBase Island products, OS addressing APIs and OS NGD Address. We will end with examples of how best to optimise your address searches and guarantee you understand the results being returned.
Address Products
AddressBase
AddressBase contains 29 million Royal Mail PAF addresses (both commercial and residential) matched to the local authority Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) and structured in a flat file model. This allows users to link additional information about an address to a single delivery point. Each address has been assigned an X and Y coordinate allowing it to be located on a map.
Click on a property opposite to view the attributes associated with AddressBase - see how information such as commercial (Class: C) and residential (Class: R) addresses are displayed or how address and organisation names are structured.
For more documentation and support click the button below
AddressBase Core
AddressBase Core takes many of the important items from the other AddressBase products, such as coordinates, classifications and links to products via key identifiers.
AddressBase Core's primary source of addressing information is Local Authority data from the NLPG and OSG and providing access to over 33 million addresses. They have the legal responsibility to capture and maintain address data for Great Britain, so you can be sure of its authenticity and legal nature.
Address information is provided in an easy to use format alongside a single line attribute which concatenates all the address elements into what you would expect to see on an envelope. It is updated weekly, and is offered in an easier to digest format to make the product as easy to access and use as possible.
Customers have asked for easy file formats, so CSV and GeoPackage are available for this product, with headers included – removing the need for any post-processing. Simply load, or drag and drop within a GIS package to start analysing.
Select a property from the map opposite and see the available attribute information, especially the new single line address.
Feedback from Sunderland City Council:
"We have recently downloaded the new OS AddressBase Core product for testing purposes and we believe this has great potential for us as an organisation. The data itself is very easy to convert and load into our GIS application in comparison to the other AddressBase products which require a small level of processing first"
"The simplicity of the data structure, whilst still containing all of the key attributes we need, makes this a very useful dataset. Finally the use of a single line address field, coupled with still having the option to use split address fields, makes potential integration with other systems more straightforward with no data manipulation required. Overall we believe this new dataset could hold great value to the organisation"
For more documentation and support click the button below
AddressBase Plus
AddressBase Plus contains current properties and addresses sourced from local authorities (LLPG), Ordnance Survey, and Royal Mail (PAF) matched to the UPRN and structured in a flat file model.
You can see that it has more records than AddressBase, with approx. 36.5 million records, as it includes more granular address information for buildings with multiple addresses served by a single delivery point, as well as objects without postal addresses, such as places of worship, community centres and utilities.
It also enables the end user to locate an address or property on a map through the assigned X and Y coordinates, but crucially cross referencing the information with OS MasterMap products via the OS MasterMap Topography Identifier (TOID) and OS MasterMap Highways Layer Unique Street Reference Number (USRN) allows the address data to be viewed within a wider geographic context. VOA Record and ONS Parish/Ward Codes are other examples of being able to linkup with additional datasets.
For more documentation and support click the button below
AddressBase Premium
AddressBase Premium provides the most detailed view of an address. It contains approximately 42 million addresses and a range of information relating to the lifecycle of an address.
As well as providing all the approved addresses within AddressBase Plus, AddressBase Premium contains provisional address (proposed planning developments), historic address (demolished properties or properties where the address has changed) and alternate forms of an address are also supplied to include alternate languages and variations on the official address to provide a comprehensive view of addresses with Great Britain.
The product is provided in a relational database model which can all be linked via the UPRN and USRN. The Basic Land and Property Unit (BLPU) table contains key information about the address such as the coordinate values and lifecycle. Links can be made for each BLPU to the classification of the address, information about the street the address resides on and cross reference to multiple OS products and third-party datasets.
This diagram shows the relationships between each of the record types and their foreign keys.
Selecting a property on the map opposite will allow you to examine these relationships in more detail. Scroll to the bottom of the pop-up box to view the related table links.
When you click on a property you are viewing the BLPU table which includes information such as the Logical Status column - useful to identify if an address is currently approved (value = 1), provisional (6) or historic (8).
Click below to zoom to an example of a historic record in our data (UPRN: 10013050691): just northeast of St Nicholas Roman Catholic Primary School between the road leading to the school and Ringswell Avenue. The LPI and Classification tables tell us that an Education Centre closed in 2020.
The UPRN allows access to all the related information such as whether a property receives deliveries from the Royal Mail (DPA table) or has multiple entries to describe itself (LPI table). A Logical Status value of '3' within the LPI table will indicate alternative names. The Organisation table displays the name of the current non-domestic occupier, whilst the Cross Reference table contains reference links to third party identifiers allowing you to include additional information to the dataset e.g. Building Height Attribute.
Use the Classification Code information found here to determine the class type from the Classification table. If you click below to zoom to St Nicholas Roman Catholic Primary School and then click the point for attribution. Scroll down to the Classification table, you can 'Show all' to identify three separate codes. 'EL' is 'School & Premises' related to the VOA Primary Description and '159' is 'Local Authority Schools' related to the VOA Special Category. 'CE03PS' is Ordnance Survey's four-level code and is broken down to 'Commercial(C), Education(E), Primary School(03), Primary School(PS)'.
For more documentation, support and case studies click the buttons below
AddressBase Plus/Premium Islands
For major businesses offering household services across the UK, taking AddressBase Islands means you have consistent property information for Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. The data is available in two versions; AddressBase Islands Plus and AddressBase Islands Premium. Both can be combined with the respective GB product to create an addressing database of UK addresses.
For more documentation and support click the button below
OS NGD Address
The OS National Geographic Database (NGD) Address theme provides a complete and definitive view of the UK. It is made up of two collections; GB Address (England, Wales and Scotland) and Islands Address (Northern Ireland, Channel Islands and Ise of Man).
The OS NGD Address Theme contains all of the address data from in the AddressBase Premium product:
- Local Authority and Royal Mail postal addresses
- Lifecycle data
- Addresses for features that are not conventually addressable (warehouses, car parks etc.)
- Multi-lingual addreses
- Alternative addresses
However with the OS NGD Address theme, you can:
- Keep your address data current with up-to-daily updates
- Easily identify and download addresses by pre-build, built, and historic lifecycle stages
- Use the UPRN to easily link different data sets right down to a single address
- Utilise the richness of Local Authority data and analyse addresses by their classification, postal status and build status.
Built Address
The Built Address Feature Type represents local authority addresses that are currently built and live and can typically receive mail, deliveries, or services. For example, homes, shops, schools, and hospitals.
Click on a property in the map opposite and look at the attribution, the Address Status and Build Status could indicate if the property is 'Approved' or occupied by 'Built in Use' for example.
Furthermore, if it is postally addressable, you can scroll down the attribute table to the related tables to Postal Address to view the Royal Mail postal address information.
Historic Address
The Historic Address Feature Type represents local authority addresses that are no longer in existence. This can occur as a result of the demolition or merging of two built properties to become one new single address.
Or in the case of splitting a single property into multiple flats, there would be evidence of a Parent-Child relationship, the Parent UPRN would be populated and the Hierarchy Level would indicate where the given UPRN sits in a hierarchy.
Click on a property in the map opposite and look at the attribution, the Address Status Value will identify if it's 'Historical' and the Build Status Value will be 'Historic'.
Pre-Build Address
The Pre-Build Address Feature Type represents local authority addresses that will be able to receive mail, deliveries, or services. It represents properties either yet to be built but have been granted planning permission, or are under construction,
Pre-Build addresses can take the format of a development site, a plot number, or a definitive address for property units.
Click on a property in the map opposite and look at the attribution, the Address Status Value will identify if it is 'Approved' or 'Provisional', and/or the Build Status Value will be 'Prebuild'.
Non-Addressable Object
The Non-Addressable Object Feature Type represents local authority and Ordnance Survey captured features that are currently live but are objects that would not be expected to be able to receive mail or deliveries.
These objects typically represent structures or sites rather than buildings where somebody could conceivably live, work, or engage in leisure activities within.
For example, there is an Electricity Sub Station on the map, head south near the corner of Sidmouth Road and Byron Road. Click on the attribution, where the Postcode Source identifies it as 'Not Postal Address'.
There is also a Play Area towards the East, off Wilton Way, if you click on the attribution and scroll to the Related Entity Table, you can see there is a 'Cross Reference Feature' to OS NGD Land Cover. Therefore this could be linked to a Land Cover polygon using the UPRN.
Street Address
The Street Address Feature Type provides street address information for any road, footpath, cycleway, byway, or bridleway that has been uniquely identified by the Local Highway Authority, or Street Naming and Numbering (SNN) Authority and provide access to an address.
Click on a street address on the map opposite and look at the attribute table, you can see useful information like Classification and Operational State.
Product Comparison
AddressBase
As you have seen, each product has specific attributes based on customer requirements. Below is a comparison table to allow a quick reference between the different AddressBase products.
NGD Address
Key Differences to AddressBase
- Easier to implement with plug and play
- Up to daily updates to the data
- Rich attribution ensures the data is straightforward to navigate and query
- Split by lifecycle and Address status to give users a choice of how they want to take the data without taking the full dataset
- New simplified data model means there's no need for an addressing expert to use the data
- New cross-references make it easy to link data in this collection with data from other OS NGD collections.
APIs
Application Program Interfaces, otherwise known as APIs, allow organisations to offer services that customers can consume based on their required needs. Ordnance Survey host and maintain a range of APIs allowing users to easily access trusted datasets and use them in innovative ways. Using an API brings numerous advantages such as:
- Efficiency: access to latest up-to-date data - no need to process update files
- Reduced costs in hosting and maintaining on-site databases
- Increasing access/flexibility to data as API can be shared around the organisation into various departments for different uses e.g. from an online form capturing a customer's address, to a call centre dealing with a query. This benefit allows for possible new audiences to interact with the data therfore increasing its value.
- Ability to interact with scripts allowing automation and more efficient work processes
- Personalisation: users can decide how best to consume the data
Sample API query - results in JSON format
OS Places API, OS Names API and OS Linked Identifiers API are address related APIs that Ordnance Survey offer and their different uses are discussed on the next few slides. Although not specifically related to addresses, OS Names API also gets a mention as it can be used it to search for locations. So for those users who are interested in configuring their online web application search box, or simply do not want to host their own address data, read on. If not, feel free to skip the next section and head down to learn about some tips and tricks when searching for addresses.
OS Places API
OS Places API is our secure, scalable, and resilient address look-up service - allowing you to search the UK's most comprehensive online address database. OS Places API is derived from our AddressBase Premium dataset, therefore containing:
- Local Land and Property Gazetteer
- One Scotland Gazetteer, which includes information captured under statutory obligation through the SNN process
- Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail addresses. The Royal Mail’s data, providing a Postcode Address File (PAF) containing the UDPRN and the delivery point address record
- Objects Without Postal Addresses (OWPAs)
- Cross references to the OS MasterMap TOIDs
- The Valuation Office Agency, which provides cross references to council tax and non-domestic rates data.
Requests can be made using a full or partial address, a postcode, or a unique property ID. Searches can also find addresses closest to a given point or all the addresses known within a user-defined area. A full list of search queries includes: Find, Postcode, UPRN, Nearest, Bounding Box, Radius and Polygon. More information about these queries can be found on this resources page .
In summary, you can:
- Find a specific address accurately
- Reverse geocode an address from its location
- Search both Royal Mail and Local Authority address datasets
You can't:
- Find addresses outside the United Kingdom (the data does include Isle of Man and Channel Islands)
- Locate general areas such as cities or forests
- Carry out bulk matching queries
Click the button below to find out more, including our getting started guide and technical specification
OS Names API
OS Names API is a directory containing basic information about identifiable places. The service provides two resources: 'Find' and 'Nearest'. Find is a string based (ambiguous/fuzzy search) lookup service, while Nearest uses a pair of British National Grid coordinates to return the nearest feature.
Within OS Names API, place names aren’t unique, therefore extra location details are provided to help users refine their queries and accurately identify the named place they’re interested in. These details include postcode district, populated place, district/borough, county/unitary authority, European region and country. We also recognise that a place may have more than one name: one, such as Cardiff (in English) and then another, Caerdydd (in Welsh).
It is also possible to filter your search results as all entries have been categorised into types, ranging from Bus Station or Urban Greenspace, to Town and Island.
In Summary, you can search for features such as:
- Areas, cities and roads
- Postcodes
- Named woodland and forests
But you can't:
- Search for specific addresses e.g. 21 Croxton Road
- Bulk-search for addresses
Click the button below to find out more, including our getting started guide and technical specification
OS Linked Identifiers API
The OS Linked Identifiers API allows you to access the valuable relationships between properties, streets and OS MasterMap identifiers for free. It's as easy as providing the identifier you are interested in and the API will return the related feature identifiers. This allows you to find what addresses exist on a given street, or the UPRN for a building on a map, or the USRN for a road and more.
An identifier is a unique reference assigned to a specific thing, so when you are talking to someone else you can use it to ensure you’re talking about the same thing. They are used all the time, such as telephone numbers, postcodes and customer reference numbers. OS is striving to make its identifiers more accessible and useful for its customers.
The OS Linked Identifiers API gives you direct access to an authoritative source for all of the relationships it publishes and removes the need for you to manage and manipulate large datasets.
In summary, you can:
- Create clickable interactive web app maps for a selection of road or building features and display their USRN or UPRN.
- Search for a street name and highlight all the properties that are on it.
- Visualise accident counts, pollution levels, or average vehicle speed data using Open Roads.
You can't:
- Access geometry or other attribution linked to the identifier. The OS Linked Identifier API only provides details of the related identifiers. Once you have the related identifiers, you can retrieve geometry and attribution via the OS Features API from either our OS Open Identifier or Premium product.
Click the button below to find out more, including a table showing all the features types we have included (such as address records, buildings outlines, road surface area, road names and street records) and the relationships between them.
Tips & Tricks
AddressBase
- View this as a product showing accessible letter boxes. If you want to know all the granularity, for example, the flats within a block – consider one of our more detailed products
AddressBase Core
- Take note of the classification field to help refine your implementation
- Contains all current addresses (e.g. not in development or demolished) where you can work, rest or play
- Single line address means this product can be plugged straight into an address look-up service or CRM without the need to combine all address elements
- GeoPackage format makes it ideal to load the product into a GIS system by simply dragging and dropping to display coordinate geometry – use alongside our OS Maps API to provide contextual information
- Link addresses to other OS Products via the TOID and USRN, or link to statistical datasets via GSS Codes
AddressBase Plus
- Great if you don’t want to build a relational database
- Contains all current addresses (e.g. not in development or demolished) and contains all the additional granularity e.g. Flats and Village halls
- Take note of some of the rich attribution to refine your search/filters – our favourites are:
- Classification Code: There is a rich level of classification in AddressBase Plus allowing you to select only addresses with a use/function you are interested in e.g. detached houses or offices
- Representative Point Code (RPC): This code tells you how accurate the coordinate allocated to the address is – vital when looking at decisions to automate or preapprove customer journeys
- AddressBase Postal: A great column with a lot of heavy lifting already done for you - if you want to quickly see which addresses are matched to Royal Mail (filter value = D) or if you want to quickly remove (or select) objects without a postal address (filter value = N)
- Lastly don’t forget the identifiers! AddressBase Plus has a rich set of identifiers allowing you to append and attach other valuable data. These include, UPRN, USRN, TOID, UDPRN
AddressBase Premium
- Don’t only use the DPA table, if you do you are missing out on over 12 million records. The LPI table is full of additional local authority records and a wealth of data
- Its all about the lifecycle! AddressBase Premium is the only GB address product which includes pre-build (being built), live (in existence) and demolished properties – so you really do understand the entire addressing landscape
- Make the BLPU State and Logical Status attributes your friends! These attributes allow you to quickly filter and analyse the powerful lifecycle information
- AddressBase Premium also contains “vanity”/alternative addresses so even if an occupier or customer uses a non-official address you should be able to find it
- Don’t forget about the multiple tables…it's easy to focus on the LPI and DPA tables as this is where the address information is primarily contained but don’t forget about the below:
- Classification table: giving you not only one, but three different classification schemes to really show detail about the use of the property, this includes the matched data from VOA
- Cross Reference table: in here you will find references to OS Mastermap Topography Layer, OS Mastermap Highways Network, which ward and (if applicable) parish the address falls within
Address Searches
- Make sure to provide enough information when searching for an address. Remember that postcodes can cover up to 99 properties, therefore including a street name and building name/number will narrow down the search results
- Don't over complicate as too much information can confuse search algorithms. "Room 301, Level 3, Organisation Name, Building Name, Street, Postcode" includes information that is not held in the database (Room 301, Level 3) and could be removed from the search
- Remember that organisations move or change names, therefore if your results are not satisfactory, consider only searching on Building Name, Street and Postcode instead
This StoryMap has been created using the following data:
- AddressBase
- AddressBase Core
- AddressBase Plus
- AddressBase Premium
- OS NGD Address - Built Address, Pre-Build Address, Historic Address, Non-Addressable Objects, Street Address
Further detalis can be found from OS Data Products.
More StoryMaps can be found on our More Than Maps platform.