AddressBase Core

An address from Ordnance Survey's AddressBase Core, a flat cut of the approved addresses in Great Britain. Each record is one UPRN drawn from the local authority gazetteers: the National Land and Property Gazetteer for England and Wales, the One Scotland Address Gazetteer for Scotland. It carries the Royal Mail delivery point where one has been matched, property level coordinates, a classification (classification_code), the key identifiers (uprn, parent_uprn, udprn, usrn, toid), the contributing authority (gss_code), coordinate quality (rpc) and the change the latest supply applied (change_code). Ordnance Survey publishes around 35 million records and refreshes them weekly.

How it differs from the neighbouring datasets:

• AddressBase Premium (abp) is the full gazetteer: around 40 million UPRNs including historic and provisional records, the local authority address breakdown (pao_*, sao_*), lifecycle (logical_status, blpu_state), Welsh alternatives, the street record and cross references to the Valuation Office Agency and ONS, refreshed every six weeks. AddressBase Core carries none of these. Use it when one approved address per UPRN, with coordinates and a classification, is enough.
• Royal Mail PAF (paf) lists delivery points only, keyed by UDPRN. AddressBase Core keys on UPRN and also holds non-postal objects (substations, car parks, land parcels, parent shells) with no delivery point. On those records udprn is 0 and delivery_point_suffix is empty. Where a record matches PAF, ab renders the same line_1 to line_3 as paf for that UDPRN, bar a handful of records with a trailing range in the building name, which AddressBase Core keeps whole.
• The Ordnance Survey end of life notice for autumn 2027 covers AddressBase and AddressBase Plus, not AddressBase Core.

Example Record

Field	Example	Type
id	ab_10070014461	string
ISO Country Code (3) country_iso	GBR	string
Dataset dataset	ab	string
language	en	string
Line 1 line_1	Flat 27	string
Line 2 line_2	Henry House	string
Line 3 line_3	Ringers Road	string
Premise premise	Flat 27, Henry House	string
UPRN uprn	10070014461	string
UDPRN udprn	53705246	number
PARENT_UPRN parent_uprn	10070014435	string
USRN usrn	20301384	number
TOID toid	osgb5000005186746874	string
Classification Code classification_code	RD	string
Easting eastings	540291	number
Northing northings	168873	number
Latitude latitude	51.4015451	number
Longitude longitude	0.0154405	number
Single Line Address single_address_line	Flat 27, Henry House, Ringers Road, Bromley, BR1 1AA	string
Street Name street_name	Ringers Road	string
Locality locality	Empty in this example	string
Town Name town_name	Bromley	string
Delivery Point Suffix delivery_point_suffix	2H	string
Post Town post_town	Bromley	string
Governmental Statistical Service gss_code	E09000006	string
Representative Point Code rpc	2	number
Last Update Date last_update_date	2020-01-06T00:00:00.000Z	string
Island island	Empty in this example	string
Change Code change_code	I	string
Building Name building_name	Henry House	string
Building Number building_number	Empty in this example	string
Sub-building sub_building	Flat 27	string
Postcode postcode	BR1 1AA	string
PO Box po_box	Empty in this example	string
Organisation organisation	Empty in this example	string
Country country	England	string
County county	Kent	string
District district	Bromley	string
Ward ward	Bromley Town	string
Traditional County traditional_county	Kent	string
Administrative County administrative_county	Empty in this example	string
Postal County postal_county	Kent	string

Every field is documented below.

Essential Elements

id string

ID

Global unique internally generated identifier for an address

Example ab_10070014461

dataset string

Dataset

Indicates the provenance of an address

Example ab

Enum

• "ab"

language string

Language

Language represented by 2 letter ISO Code (639-1)

Example en

Enum

64 possible values

• "en"
• "ar"
• "as"
• "az"
• "be"
• "bg"
• "bn"
• "bs"
• "ca"
• "cs"
• "cy"
• "da"
• "de"
• "el"
• "es"
• "et"
• "eu"
• "fi"
• "fo"
• "fr"
• "ga"
• "gl"
• "gn"
• "he"
• "hi"
• "hr"
• "hu"
• "hy"
• "id"
• "is"
• "it"
• "ja"
• "ka"
• "kk"
• "km"
• "kn"
• "ko"
• "lt"
• "lv"
• "mk"
• "mn"
• "ms"
• "mt"
• "my"
• "nl"
• "no"
• "pl"
• "pt"
• "rm"
• "ro"
• "ru"
• "sk"
• "sl"
• "sq"
• "sr"
• "sv"
• "ta"
• "th"
• "tr"
• "uk"
• "uz"
• "vi"
• "wa"
• "zh"

line_1 string

Address Line 1

First address line. Often contains premise and thoroughfare information. For a commercial premise the first line is the full name of the registered organisation. Never empty.

Example Flat 27

line_2 string

Address Line 2

Second address line. Often contains thoroughfare and locality information. May be empty.

Example Henry House

line_3 string

Address Line 3

Third address line. Takes the address elements left after line_1 and line_2 are filled; where the address needs more than three lines the remaining elements are joined into line_3, comma separated. May be empty.

Example Ringers Road

premise string

Premise

A pre-computed string which sensibly combines building_number, building_name and sub_building_name. Those three fields hold raw dataset values and can be difficult to parse if you are unaware of how they work together, so we also provide this single, simple premise string. Ideal if you want to pull premise information and thoroughfare information separately instead of using our address lines data.

Example Flat 27, Henry House

uprn string

UPRN

Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) assigned by the LLPG Custodian or Ordnance Survey.

Example 10070014461

udprn number

UDPRN

Royal Mail's Unique Delivery Point Reference Number (UDPRN).

Example 53705246

parent_uprn string

PARENT_UPRN

UPRN of the parent Record if a parent-child relationship exists.

Example 10070014435

usrn number

USRN

Unique Street Reference Number assigned by the Street Name and Numbering Custodian OR Ordnance Survey depending on the address record.

Example 20301384

toid string

TOID

The Topographic Identifier taken from OS MasterMap Topography Layer. This TOID is assigned to the UPRN by performing a spatial intersection between the two identifiers. It consists of the letters 'osgb' and is followed by up to sixteen digits.

Example osgb5000005186746874

classification_code string

Classification Code

A code that describes the classification of the address record to a maximum of a secondary level.

Example RD

eastings number

Easting

A value in metres defining the x location in accordance with the British National Grid.

Example 540291

northings number

Northing

A value in metres defining the y location in accordance with the British National Grid.

Example 168873

latitude number

Latitude

A value in metres defining the y location in accordance with the British National Grid.

Example 51.4015451

longitude number

Longitude

A value defining the Longitude location in accordance with the ETRS89 coordinate reference system.

Example 0.0154405

single_address_line string

Single Line Address

A single attribute containing text concatenation of the address elements separated by a comma.

Example Flat 27, Henry House, Ringers Road, Bromley, BR1 1AA

street_name string

Street Name

Street / Road name for the address record.

Example Ringers Road

locality string

Locality

A locality defines an area or geographical identifier within a town, village, or hamlet. Locality represents the lower level geographical area. The locality field should be used in conjunction with the town name and street description fields to uniquely identify geographic area where there may be more than one within an administrative area.

Example Empty in this example

town_name string

Town Name

Geographical town name assigned by the Local Authority. Please note this can be different from the Post Town value assigned by Royal Mail.

Example Bromley

delivery_point_suffix string

Delivery Point Suffix

A two-character code uniquely identifying an individual delivery point within a postcode, assigned by Royal Mail.

Example 2H

post_town string

Post Town

The town or city in which the Royal Mail sorting office is located which services this address record.

Condition: POST_TOWN is not populated if this is the same as TOWN_NAME.

Example Bromley

gss_code string

Governmental Statistical Service

The Office for National Statistics Governmental Statistical Service (GSS) code representing the contributing Local Authority.

Example E09000006

rpc number

Representative Point Code

Representative Point Code describes the accuracy of the coordinate that has been allocated to the UPRN as indicated by the Local Authority and enhanced using large scale OS data.

Example 2

last_update_date string

Last Update Date

The latest date on which any of the attributes on this record were last changed.

Format dateExample 2020-01-06T00:00:00.000Z

island string

Island

Third level of geographic area name to record island names where appropriate.

Example Empty in this example

change_code string

Change Code

This enumeration is used in association with the attribute “CHANGE_CODE”. This enumeration identifies the type of change that has been made to a feature. The change type must be set when a feature is inserted, updated, or deleted. Please see section 3 for more information. Example I = Insert, U = Update, D = Delete

Example I

Enum

• "I"
• "U"
• "D"

building_name string

Building Name

The building name is a description applied to a single address or a group of addresses.

Example Henry House

building_number string

Building Number

The building number is a number or range of numbers given to a single address or a group of addresses.

Example Empty in this example

sub_building string

Sub-building

The sub-building name and/or number for the address record.

Example Flat 27

postcode string

Postcode

A postcode assigned by Royal Mail for the address record.

Example BR1 1AA

po_box string

PO Box

Text concatenation of 'PO BOX' and the Post Office Box (PO Box) number or 'BFPO' and the British Forces Post Office number.

Example Empty in this example

organisation string

Organisation

The organisation name is the business name given, when appropriate, to an address record.

Example Empty in this example

country string

Country

Example England

country_iso string

Country ISO

Example GBR

county string

County

Whatever county data is available for the address. Normally the postal county. If that is not present it falls back to the administrative county, then to the traditional county. May be empty where none of the three is present.

Example Kent

district string

District

A district is a type of administrative division that is managed by the local authorities.

Example Bromley

ward string

Ward

The current administrative/electoral area to which the postcode has been assigned. May be empty for a small number of addresses.

Example Bromley Town

traditional_county string

Traditional County

Traditional counties are provided by the Association of British Counties. It is historical data, and can date from the 1800s. May be empty.

Example Kent

postal_county string

Postal County

Postal counties were used for the distribution of mail before the Postcode system was introduced in the 1970s. The Former Postal County was the Administrative County at the time. This data rarely changes. May be empty.

Example Kent