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Postal codes used in the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies are known as postcodes (originally, postal codes). [1] They are alphanumeric (the UK is one of only 11 countries or territories to use alphanumeric codes out of the 160 postcode using members of the ICU) and were adopted nationally between 11 October ...
The single or pair of letters chosen for postcode areas are generally intended as a mnemonic for the places served. [1] Postcode areas, post towns and postcode districts do not follow political or local authority administrative boundaries and usually serve much larger areas than the place names with which they are associated.
The Postcode Address File (PAF) is a database that contains all known "delivery points" and postcodes in the United Kingdom. The PAF is a collection of over 29 million Royal Mail postal addresses and 1.8 million postcodes . [ 1 ]
Placed on a separate line below the city (or county, if used). The UK postcode is made up of two parts separated by a space. These are known as the outward postcode and the inward postcode. The outward postcode is always one of the following formats: AN, ANN, AAN, AANN, ANA, AANA, AAA. The inward postcode is always formatted as NAA.
After the opening up of the industry, competitors such as Whistl and UK Mail found their place offering business postal solutions. These companies, despite being competitors to Royal Mail, hand over sorted mail to the Royal Mail for " last mile delivery " due to the sheer dominance the latter hold in a process called 'Down Stream Access'.
For the purposes of directing mail, the United Kingdom (although the populations listed just show figures for England, Wales and Northern Ireland), is divided by Royal Mail into postcode areas. The postcode area is the largest geographical unit used and forms the initial characters of the alphanumeric UK postcode . [ 1 ]
The BT postcode area, also known as the Belfast postcode area, [2] covers all of Northern Ireland and was the last part of the United Kingdom to be coded, between 1970 and 1974. [ citation needed ] This area is a group of 82 postcode districts in Northern Ireland, within 44 post towns and around 47,227 live postcodes.
The ONSPD is available for free download in comma separated variable (CSV) format and ASCII text (TXT) formats from the ONS Open Geography Portal. The supplied file contains multi CSVs so that postcode areas can be opened in MS Excel. The ONSPD reflects current and terminated postcodes using information supplied monthly by Royal Mail. It ...