Talk:List of postcode areas in the United Kingdom

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Postcode area sizes by number of postcodes

I know I'm being lazy here but could I state that the postcode table would be more interesting (and less bleak) if a column were added giving the number of (say) active postcodes as of a certain date. This information is contained in each postcode's sub article but an overall picture would be useful. I'd do it but have neither the status or knowledge to tackle it.

It's funny, the article lead-text mentions "largest geographical unit", and talks about geographic sizing a further twice in the Scope section. I would have thought a column for the area covered by each postcode area would be of use. See also List of English counties by area and List of countries and outlying territories by total area. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.18.153 (talk) 00:25, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Postal counties

There's lots of mention of counties in this article, but I believe that county's aren't actually part of offical addresses any more: check any address on http://pol.royalmail.com/dda/txt/af.asp

Anyone want to correct me? ~ Scurra 17:16, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Since about 2000 the Royal Mail has not required a county in an address, and have removed their 'postal counties' from the Postcode Address File. They now have traditional counties and administrative counties for each postcode in a separate database. However, some resellers of PAF data re-bundle the old postal counties in to their products which is what perpetuates their usage. In fact, if you do a search for a postcode on the Royal Mail's own site you can see they even appear there - contrary to their own guidelines! http://pol.royalmail.com/dda/txt/pf.asp Owain 19:10, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

KA

I can't substantiate this, but I believe KA, which covers the former county of Ayrshire and parts of Bute, actually stands for Kilmarnock and Ayr, as opposed to simply Kilmarnock. If it were only Kilmarnock, then the unused KK would make more sense (that being the local abbreviation for the town).

Fictional postcodes

AM - Ambridge, Borsetshire, (The Archers)

I doubt this has ever been used, even in fiction. "Ambridge" is a small village -- would not have its own postcode. I propose deletion of this fun, but doubly mythical "fact". -- Picapica 20:06, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I would have to really hunt for a source on this one, but I am a Royal Mail employee, and I can distinctly recall that the allocation of AM for use in the Archers was officially documented by Royal Mail in the 1990s Mayalld 22:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Royal mail have - I'm told but have no original source for - also been know to use the following as an example address:
12 Oak Lane
Flat 12
Ambridge
Borsetshire
FX5 7HQ

FX for Felpersham, which makes more sense than using AM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.40.144.68 (talk) 16:55, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

IG Ilford and Barking ??

IG is listed here as <<Ilford and Gants Hill>>.. Can anyone confirm that IG actually stands for I lford and barkin G ??IsarSteve 16:04, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This has come up before somewhere. It stands for Ilford, the location of the sorting office. But for some reason to do with characters getting mixed up with others, G was chosen instead of any of the other characters from "Ilford". MRSC 16:11, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I thought maybe the reason for not using IF was the reluctance to use codes that were two letter words:- at, by, he, if, is, on, etc; etc; but after checking the list again I came across SO ... so there goes that theory.......IsarSteve 12:45, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One and two letter postal areas

Can anyone explain why most postal areas are designated two letters, such as BA Bath, BS Bristol, but a few only have one letter such as B Birmingham and E East (London)? Such irregularity would seem highly undesireable in a postcode, most of which internationally are a fixed number of characters so that mistakes are easier to spot.

Historically, London was split into geographical areas N (North), S (South), E (East), W (West), NW (North West), NE (North East), SW (South West), and SE (South East) North East was merged with East, South was split. It would also be desirable to have a standard length for the digits - hence East London E6 2MA could become EL06 2MA - but the present system works OK. Australian postal abbreviations aren't a standard length either - NSW, VIC, QLD, ACT, TAS, WA, SA, NT Quiensabe 19:02, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Turks and Caicos?

I don't think the Turks and Caicos has a UK post code - I've done a search on the post code TKCA 1ZZ and all the entries are either from Wikipedia or information taken from it- [1] Quiensabe 18:49, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

KW postcode

In nearly everything I see, including here, KW is listed as Orkney (Kirkwall) but only about 2 or 3 of the KW postcodes are on Orkney, the rest are on the mainland of Scotland and cover Caithness and Sutherland. KW1 and KW2 are in Wick one of the two main towns in Caithness. Can anyone confirm that KW is taken from Kirkwall or more likely a reversal of the letters in Wick

According to the Royal Mail the KW postal area is called Kirkwall. MRSC 08:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Derivations

I think we ought to have the derivations of the Fylde and Medway postcodes, at least. They do seem a bit random otherwise - and probably also Galashiels and Lerwick. Morwen - Talk 09:04, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm thinking of maybe turning it into a table with a column for broad coverage and another for notes/derivation as these tend to get edited in/replace the names. MRSC 09:08, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It would seem to me far more likely that SM is formed just from "Sutton and Morden". Morwen - Talk 11:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Most definitely. I would hesitate at adding that to the article as there is no evidence to support it. SM and IG seem to have been victims of a lack of suitable characters for Sutton and Ilford. MRSC • Talk 16:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Postal area > Postcode area

Royal Mail literature refers to these as 'postcode area' rather than postal areas. [2] The National Statistics page on postal geography also confirms this. [3] I can't find any usage of 'postal area' other than Wikipedia and its mirrors. Unless anyone objects, I will rename the various articles. MRSC • Talk 12:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No comments in the last week. I will update. MRSC • Talk 15:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Priority sub articles

A note of some sub-articles which need attention. MRSC • Talk 17:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BA postcode area - very stubby
DE postcode area - very stubby
BN postcode area - very stubby
DY postcode area - needs table, check out data
EH postcode area - needs good clean up and checked against Royal Mail data
GU postcode area - needs completing
LN postcode area - very stubby
LU postcode area - convert to table
ML postcode area - needs intro and covert to table
SG postcode area - convert to table
SS postcode area - convert to table

Letter articles

I added B postcode area to B (the article about the letter 'B'. Does anyone have the time, or a bot, to add all the one- and two- letter postcode area articles to the respective letter articles? Andy Mabbett 23:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Father Christmas

Isn't there a special code - advertised by Royal Mail - for letters to Father Christmas? Something like SAN TA1? Andy Mabbett 23:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Found it on UK postcodes and added it to article. Andy Mabbett 23:40, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The former S (South London) area

If the area had been split to create new areas then dividing would be an appropriate description. However, in actual fact, the former South area was divided and merged into existing SE and SW districts. The subsuming of the district into the surrounding areas is best described as merge Mayalld (talk) 20:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Postcodes as gang markers etc.

Maybe something could be put in about the use of postcodes as 'territory markers'.

Here in Birmingham there's postcode graffiti literally all over the city, which is something that's increased a lot these past few years. They're often just the postcode, or something along the lines of 'B14 shit on B13' etc. Funnily enough it means soemthing, as postcodes tie in closely with areas/districts and most areas have a distinctive character (e.g. B11 is Sparkhill, an Asian area; just up from that is B12 Saprkbrook, a Somali area). Also, rival gangs have apparently 'divided' Lozells/Aston/Handsworth (the roughest parts of the city - where the riots were in the 80s and 2005) by postcodes. Is this kind of thing common elsewhere in the country? 81.132.29.194 (talk) 22:17, 19 April 2008 (UTC)sdrawkcab[reply]

Duplicate lists of postcode districts

See Talk:List of postcode districts in the United Kingdom#Duplicate lists of postcode districts for a discussion of issues relating to this and other postcode-related lists. To keep the discussion in one place, please make any contributions relating to it on that talk page and not in this section.

Zangar (talk) 16:59, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Distribution centres

Centre	Location	Areas
Essex	Chelmsford	CM, CO, SS
National	Northampton	B, CB, CV, DE, DY, GY, IP, JE, LD, LE, LU, MK, NG, NN, NR, OX, PE, ST, SY, TF, WS, WV
North Western	Warrington	BB, BL, CA, CH, CW, DG, FY, IM, L, LA, LL, M, OL, PR, SK, WA, WN
Northern Home Counties	Hatfield	AL, DA, E, EC, EN, HA, HP, IG, N, NW, RM, SE, SG, SW, UB, W, WC, WD
Northern Ireland	Newtownabbey	BT
Scottish	Wishaw	AB, DD, EH, FK, G, HS, IV, KA, KW, KY, ML, PA, PH, TD, ZE
South East WBC	Rochester	BR, CT, ME, TN
South Western	Bristol	BA, BH, BS, CF, DT, EX, GL, HR, NP, PL, RG, SA, SN, SO, SP, TA, TQ, TR, WR
Woking	Woking	BN, CR, GU, KT, PO, RH, SL, SM, TW
Yorkshire	Normanton	BD, DH, DL, DN, HD, HG, HU, HX, LN, LS, NE, S, SR, TS, WF, YO

Source [4] MRSC (talk) 18:28, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Are you saving this here for a rainy day, ie for no specific purpose at present? Mailsort codes and delivery offices (and post towns as a loose approximation of delivery offices) represent further aspects of the logistic hierarchy. Though not sure how much can usefully be said about internal distribution patterns without the information becoming unmaintainable and indigestible. Maybe your list is just the thing.

I had been wondering whether to add distribution offices to the list of postcode districts. In case you hadn't found it already, an FOI request from a year ago[5] resulted in publication of UK delivery offices by postcode sector.[6] I've normalised the PDF contents so let me know if you think the data would be useful in some way.

— Richardguk (talk) 23:38, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Found it whilst looking for something else. Not sure what to do with it, so leaving it here for now. MRSC (talk) 09:22, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Added Northern Ireland; moved location into separate column; sorted by centre name. — Richardguk (talk) 21:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What about PRDC, NDC and MDEC? ;)

Xteejx (talk) 13:20, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an updated list after the Essex closure, taken from www.royalmailtechnical.com:

Centre	Location	Areas
National (NDC)	Northampton	B, CB, CV, DE, DY, GY, JE, LD, LE, MK, NN, NR, OX, PE, ST, SY, TF, WS, WV
Northern Home Counties (NHCDC)	Hatfield	AL, CM, CO, E, EC, EN, HP, IG, IP, LU, N, NW, RM, SE, SG, SS, SW, W, WC, WD
Northern Ireland (NIDC)	Newtownabbey	BT
North West (NWDC)	Warrington	BB, BL, CA, CH, CW, DG, FY, IM, L, LA, LL, M, OL, PR, SK, WA, WN
Scottish (SDC)	Wishaw	AB, DD, EH, FK, G, HS, IV, KA, KW, KY, ML, PA, PH, TD, ZE
South East (SEDC)	Rochester	BR, CT, DA, ME, TN
South West (SWDC)	Bristol	BA, BH, BS, CF, DT, EX, GL, HR, NP, PL, RG, SA, SN, SP, TA, TQ, TR, WR
Woking (WDC)	Woking	BN, CR, GU, HA, KT, PO, RH, SL, SM, SO, TW, UB
Yorkshire (YDC)	Normanton	BD, DH, DL, DN, HD, HG, HU, HX, LN, LS, NE, NG, S, SR, TS, WF, YO

That's not quite the same as the published cage breaks table. It looks like some routes depend on the mailing class.

You'll have to explain about PRDC and MDEC. :)

— Richardguk (talk) 16:42, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ME area

As a Royal Mail employee, I can confirm that ME is officially Maidstone, not Medway. Many make this mistake (including RM).

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Xteejx (talk • contribs) 13:20, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, even though you have inside knowledge, Wikipedia requires articles to cite published reliable sources, which means finding a printed work or an authoritative website. (The guidance at Wikipedia:Verifiability explains more about the need to have verificable sources, even when we know a fact from personal experience.)

According to the latest printed Address Management Guide (5th ed., 2007), ME is named "Rochester".
According to Royal Mail's Post Town Gazetteer file (2009, digital only, no longer sold) and the ONS Official Yearbook of the United Kingdom (2000 ed., 1999), ME is "Medway".

(UB is another odd example, as it is offically named "Southall" in all three of the above sources, not "Uxbridge", so the code can definitely be misleading.)

The Gazetteer is official but unprinted and intended only for postcode lookups, so might not be reliable for area names. The Yearbook is relatively old and published by the Government, not Royal Mail. AMG5 is the most recent edition of a printed work, is published by Royal Mail, and contains a section devoted to listing area names, so I think it is the most reliable published source.

Is it possible that "Maidstone" is used internally as an informal name? Alternatively, is there a published source that is more authoritative than the current Address Management Guide?

— Richardguk (talk) 16:09, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TN

Since the sorting office in this region is located in Tonbridge, I always assumed that TN is for Tonbridge and not Tunbridge Wells. The reference that is cited it only accessible via registered log in. Can this be confirmed anywhere else? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tehben1 (talk • contribs) 07:31, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

TN1 is Tunbridge Wells while Tonbridge starts at TN9 which is suggestive and also ties in with ME being Rochester in the section above. Cavrdg (talk) 08:31, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have checked https://www.gbmaps.com/downloadpostcodemap.htm https://postal-code.co.uk/images/uk-map-big.png https://postcodebyaddress.co.uk/areas https://www.doogal.co.uk/UKPostcodes - all these use Tonbridge instead of Tunbridge Wells (RickBeton) 2nd Nov 2022

english

good Brightnaomi (talk) 23:31, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

BB

The article states that the BB code is formed from Blackburn and Burnley, however it's probably more likely to just be formed from Blackburn. There's no reference, and nothing in the BB postcode area article, so I've tagged it as being dubious. Bazonka (talk) 19:45, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find any evidence for "Blackburn and Burnley", and no-one has responded here for 3 months, so I've deleted it. -- Dr Greg talk 19:46, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

XX70

XX70 is missing. It is for sending used coffee pods for recycling. (No, I am not going to add it to the XX entries.) 31.94.0.71 (talk) 17:27, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Detailed Post code maps

I am looking for detailed maps of British postcodes.

This article offers links to commercial organisations that provide postcode maps, free at a very coarse level, but requiring payment usually below the main areas, eg NR1.

There is a reference to openstreetmaps. Sadly, I failed to find their postcode maps.

I would hope someone provides limited free access to detailed postcode maos for personal use. It would be good to have a link to such an organisations website. CuriousMarkE (talk) 10:42, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Update, I tried the local studies section in the Norwich library. They couldn’t help me! I was very surprised. CuriousMarkE (talk) 11:25, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Update:

I found a website which appears to be a personal project offering more detail, freely, than the commercial sites I have found. What is the etiquette / process for including a link to their website?

I believe the person offering this service would be interested in having a link to their website.

My interest and concern is also how this relates to Wikipedia policies etc around links to external websites. I don’t really want to encourage inappropriate or unnecessarily controversial linking to external websites.

Clearly, Wikipedia encourages links to websites to help validate information provided on Wikipedia pages and is intended to help ensure the integrity of the information Wikipedia offers and reduce conflicts over what is true and accurate.

There is also a role for directing people to information that gives more practical details than Wikipedia offers.

I see this can be controversial, especially when commercial interests are threatened by free information. Clearly there are other parts of the web, including search engines, where this is normal and commercial consideration are significant. Wikipedia is operating in a different context and I want to respect these conflicting considerations.

At a more general level, there are issues around exploitation of free or low priced resources. Providing good quality information takes time and effort and that needs to be respected. Money, with its many facets, is one important, but problematic way of addressing this issue.

To speed up up concrete consideration of this issue, the specific website I think could usefully be put in the ‘see also’ section is:

https://www.doogal.co.uk/MultiplePostcodes?postcodes=NR&type=polygons#disqus_thread

or the more general reference:

https://www.doogal.co.uk

Regards

Mark CuriousMarkE (talk) 05:01, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]