The Geoplan Postcode Boundary file is absolutely unique, it is the only one of its type in both its source, its method of creation and the maintenance cycle.
Geoplan has provided organisations such as Royal Mail and Google with the de facto UK Postcode data sets they need for mission critical processes, since 1984 and 2009 respectively. The Geoplan Postcode file has been used in the creation of Ordnance Survey Address Base and, since 1999, Geoplan has been contracted to innovate and maintain product for OS, on a quarterly basis (OS Code-Point with Polygons product).
Data
Source - Geoplan/OSNI
Recency – Updated quarterly
Geographical Coverage and Accuracy – Northern Ireland
Projection – EPSG 29903(Irish National Grid)
Available Formats – Shapefile
Data health
Most up to date Postcode data
Updated each quarter
Based upon OSNI pointer, boundary & transport data alongside OSM roads - premium sources of information for Northern Ireland geography
License type
License type - Annual
Updated - Quarterly
Content information
Overview
The Geoplan Postcode Boundary file is absolutely unique, it is the only one of its type in both its source, its method of creation and the maintenance cycle. Geoplan has provided organisations such as Royal Mail and Google with the de facto UK Postcode data sets they need for mission critical processes, since 1984 and 2009 respectively. The Geoplan Postcode file has been used in the creation of Ordnance Survey Address Base and, since 1999, Geoplan has been contracted to innovate and maintain product for OS, on a quarterly basis (OS Code-Point with Polygons product).
Waterbodies
27 waterbodies have been removed from the data.These are highlighted in yellow.
Vertical streets
Pointer addresses that exist at a location, shared by other addresseswith differing postcodes are termed VerticalStreets (Vstreets) and are represented by a square in the postcode units, with an identifier of “VBTnnnnn”. AVstreet lookup is provided to cross-reference these with the postcodes that are in these locations.
Bounding geography
The valid addresses are tessellated by counties, within town/land boundaries. These polygons are post processed to align with OSM roads for Northern Ireland, which are filtered to Geoplan’s standard classifications, combined with the Railway feature from OSNI Open Data 50k transport layer. Natural features like waterways are deemed to be captured within the town/land boundary/
Discards & Base maps
Discards
Addresses that do not fall within the OSNILarge Scale Townland boundaries, are not used to generate Unit Postcode Polygons. If this will result in a full postcode not being represented in the polygon file, then the postcode will be supplied in the discards
Base maps
For visualisation, the polygons can be overlaid over a variety of base maps including Open Street Map and Google Satellite view.
Key features
Full Coverage: Northern Ireland coverage
Postcode Points: Postcode Area (BT), District (e.g. BT1), and Sector (e.g. BT11) Boundaries
Postcode Unit Boundaries: Highest level of Postcode Unit boundary accuracy
Updates: Quarterly updated data included in the annual licence
Postcode Unit Points: Address weighted location centroids for NI Postcode Points
Format available: GeoJSON
Postcode Boundaries: Postcode Area(BT), District (e.g. BT1), and Sector (e.g. BT1 1) Boundaries
Map Projection: Irish National Grid or LL WGS84