Specifications

General information

Number of records:49,222
Last updated:
Update frequency:Quarterly (January, April, July and October)
Geographic coverage:England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales
Language and Encoding:en-GB, UTF-8
Supply:Direct online download (8.2MB zipped file)

Data formats

Format File name Description
Excel uk-towns.xlsx Suitable for use with Microsoft Excel and other spreadsheet applications including Open Office and Libre Office Calc.
CSV (comma-separated values) uk-towns.csv Plain text data file suitable for use with most GIS systems, programming languages and text editors.
SQL uk-towns.sql ANSI-standard SQL suitable for importing to MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Microsoft SQL Server, PHPMyAdmin and other SQL databases.

Data fields

Field Example Type Description
id 29930 INTEGER A unique numeric identifier for the settlement.
name Newark-on-Trent TEXT(46) The full name of the settlement. Please see the naming conventions below for more information.
county Nottinghamshire TEXT(32) The ceremonial county (as defined by Ordnance Survey) that the centre point of the settlement falls in.
country England TEXT(16) The country that the centre point of the settlement falls in. England, the Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are fully covered, including outlying islands.
grid_reference SK799538 TEXT(8) The grid reference for the centre point of the settlement. All grid references use the OSGB36 British National Grid, apart from records for Northern Ireland which use the TM75 Irish Grid.
easting 479972 INTEGER The easting coordinate for the centre point of the settlement. All easting coordinates use the OSGB36 British National Grid, apart from records for Northern Ireland which use the TM75 Irish Grid.
northing 353841 INTEGER The northing coordinate for the centre point of the settlement. All northing coordinates use the OSGB36 British National Grid, apart from records for Northern Ireland which use the TM75 Irish Grid.
latitude 53.07582 NUMERIC(8,5) The WGS83 latitude coordinate for the centre point of the settlement.
longitude -0.80772 NUMERIC(8,5) The WGS83 longitude coordinate for the centre point of the settlement.
elevation 24 INTEGER The elevation above sea-level for the centre point of the settlement in meters.
postcode_sector NG24 1 TEXT(6) The postcode sector that the centre point of the settlement falls in.
local_government_area Newark and Sherwood District TEXT(44) The local government area that the centre point of the settlement falls in (i.e. the name of the relevant unitary authority, borough or district council, or London borough).
nuts_region East Midlands TEXT(24) The first-level NUTS region that the center point of the settlement falls in.
type Town TEXT(13) The type of settlement (as specified by Ordnance Survey). The possible types are: City, Town, Village, Hamlet, Suburban Area and Locality.

Naming conventions

All settlement names in the database use the following naming conventions:

  • Saint is abbreviated to St where applicable For example: St Albans.
  • Official names are used, not colloquial names. For example: Newcastle upon Tyne, not Newcastle and Henley-on-Thames, not Henley.
  • If a settlement is also known by an official Welsh or Gaelic name, this is included after the English version of the name. For example: Cardiff / Caerdydd and Wrexham / Wrecsam. A forward-slash character is used as the separator.