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Modern postcode system[ ]

The Post Office experimented with electromechanical sorting machines in the late

1950s.[7] These devices presented an envelope to an operator, who would press a button

indicating which bin to sort the letter into. Postcodes were suggested to increase the

efficiency of this process, by removing the need for the sorter to remember the correct

sorting for as many places.[8] In January 1959 the Post Office analysed the results of a

survey on public attitudes towards the use of postal codes, choosing a town in which to

experiment with codes. The envisaged format was a six-character alphanumeric code with

three letters designating the geographical area and three numbers to identify the

individual address.[9] On 28 July Ernest Marples, the Postmaster General, announced

that Norwich had been selected, and that each of the 150,000 private and business

addresses would receive a code by October. Norwich had been selected as it already had

eight automatic mail sorting machines in use.[10] The original Norwich format consisted of

"NOR" followed by a space, then a two-digit number (which, unlike the current format,

could include a leading zero) and a single final letter (instead of the two final letters in the

current format).[11]

In October 1965, Tony Benn as Postmaster General[12] announced that postal coding was

to be extended to the rest of the country in the next few years.[13]

On 1 May 1967 postcodes were introduced in Croydon. The many postcodes for central

Croydon began with "CRO", and those of the surrounding post townswith outward codes

(the characters before the space) CR2, CR3 and CR4. The uniform system of a set of

three final characters, after the space, such as 0AA, known as the inward code, was

adopted. This was to be the beginning of a ten-year plan, costing an estimated £24 million.

Within two years it was expected that full coding would be used

in Aberdeen, Belfast, Brighton, Bristol, Bromley, Cardiff, Coventry, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne,Newport, Reading, Sheffield, Southampton and the Western district of

London.[14] By 1967 codes had been introduced to Aberdeen, Southampton, Brighton

and Derby.[15] In 1970 codes were introduced to the London W and North Western postal

districts.[16] In December 1970 much Christmas mail was postmarked with the message

"Remember to use the Postal Code", although codes were used to sort mail in only a

handful of sorting offices.[17]

During 1971 occupants of addresses began to receive notification of their postcode.

Asked in the House of Commons about the completion of the coding exercise, the Minister

of State for Posts and Telecommunications (whose role superseded that of Postmaster

General in 1969), Sir John Eden, stated that it was expected to be completed during

1972.[18] The scheme was finalised in 1974 when Norwich was completely re-coded but

the scheme tested in Croydon was sufficiently close to the final design for it to be retained,

with CRO standardised as CR0 (district zero), thus removing the need to create a CR1

district.[3]

A quirk remained: the central Newport area was allocated NPT, at a similar time to

Norwich becoming NOR and Croydon becoming CRO, and surrounding areas were, as

today, allocated NP1–NP8. NPT lasted until the end of 1984 when it was recoded NP9.[19]

Girobank's GIR 0AA, the last domestic postcode with a fully alphabetical outward code, no

longer exists in the Royal Mail's PAF system,[20] but remains in active use by the bank's

owners, currently Santander UK.[21]

Adaptation of earlier systems into national system[ ]

When the national postcode system was introduced, many existing postal districts were

incorporated into it, so that postcodes in Toxteth (Liverpool 8) start with L8. The districts in

both Manchester and Salford gained "M" postcodes, so "Salford 7" became M7, etc. In

other cases, the district numbers were replaced with unrelated numbers. The old coding

lives on in a small number of street signs with "Salford 7" etc., at the bottom. In Glasgow

many of its G-prefixed numbers are not used as C1 became G1, W1 became G11, N1

became G21, E1 became G31, S1 became G41, SW1 became G51, and so on. In London

(as postally defined) 1917-created postal districts are mapped unchanged to those of

today but its much enlarged administrative area, Greater London was created in April

1965. From that month the remaining 60% of Greater London's area has postcodes

referring to 13 other post towns.

GB postcodes available as Open data[ ]

Prior to 1 April 2010 the Royal Mail licensed use of the postcode database for a charge of

about £4000 per year.[22] Following a campaign and a government consultation in

2009[23] the Ordnance Survey released Code-Point Open, detailing every postcode in

Great Britain together with a geo-code for re-use free of charge under an attribution-only

licence Open Government Licence as part of OS OpenData.

Postcodes linked to a variety of UK geographies[ ]

The Office for National Statistics (ONS Geography) maintains and publishes a series of

freely available, downloadable postcode products that link all current and terminated UK

postcodes to a range of administrative, health, statistical and other geographies using the

Code-Point Open grid reference.

Formatting[ ]

Overview[ ]

The postcodes are alphanumeric and between six and eight characters long. They are

divided into two parts separated by a single space. Those two parts are the outward

code and the inward code. The outward code includes the postcode area and

the postcode district. The inward code includes thepostcode sector and the postcode unit.

Examples of postcodes include "SW1W 0NY", "PO16 7GZ", "GU16 7HF", or "L1 8JQ".

Outward code[ ]

The outward code is the part of the postcode before the single space in the middle. It is

between two and four characters long. A few outward codes are non-geographic, not

divulging where mail is to be sent. Examples of outward codes include "L1", "W1A", "RH1",

"RH10" or "SE1P".

Inward code[ ]

The inward part is the part of the postcode after the single space in the middle. It is three

characters long. The inward code assists in the delivery of post within a postal district.

Examples of inward codes include "0NY", "7GZ", "7HF", or "8JQ".[24][24]

Postcode area[ ]

The postcode area is part of the outward code. The postcode area is either one or two

characters long and is all letters. Examples of postcode areas include "L" for Liverpool,

"RH" for Redhill and "EH" for Edinburgh. A postal area may cover a wide area, for

example "RH" covers north Sussex, and "BT" (Belfast) covers the whole of Northern

Ireland.

Postcode district[ ]

The postcode district is the outward code. It is one or two digits (and sometimes a final

letter) that are added to the end of the postcode area. The outward code is between two

and four characters long. Examples of postcode districts include "W1A", "RH1", "RH10" or

"SE1P".

Postcode sector[ ]

The postcode sector is made up of the postcode district, the single space, and the first

character of the inward code. It is between four and six characters long (including the

single space). Examples of postcode sectors include "SW1W 0", "PO16 7", "GU16 7", or

"L1 8", "CV1 4".

Postcode unit[ ]

The postcode unit is two characters added to the end of the postcode sector. Each

postcode unit generally represents a street, part of a street, a single address, a group of

properties, a single property, a sub-section of the property, an individual organisation or

(for instance Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) a subsection of the organisation. The

level of discrimination is often based on the amount of mail received by the premises or

business. Examples of postcode units include "SW1W 0NY", "PO16 7GZ", "GU16 7HF",

or "L1 8JQ".

Validation[ ]

The format is as follows, where A signifies a letter and 9 a digit:

Format Coverage Example

AA9A 9AA WC postcode area; EC1–EC4, NW1W, SE1P, SW1 EC1A 1BB

A9A 9AA E1W, N1C, N1P W1A 0AX

A9 9AA

B, E, G, L, M, N, S, W

A99 9AA

M1 1AE

B33 8TH

AA9 9AA

All other postcodes

AA99 9AA

CR2 6XH

DN55 1PT

Notes:

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As all formats end with 9AA, the first part of a postcode can easily be extracted by

ignoring the last three characters

Areas with only single-digit districts: BR, FY, HA, HD, HG, HR, HS, HX, JE, LD, SM,

SR, WC, WN, ZE (although WC is always subdivided by a further letter, e.g. WC1A).

Areas with only double-digit districts: AB, LL, SO.

Areas with a district '0' (zero): BL, BS, CM, CR, FY, HA, PR, SL, SS (BS is the only

area to have both a district 0 and a district 10).

The following central London single-digit districts have been further divided by

inserting a letter after the digit and before the space: EC1–EC4 (but not EC50), SW1,

W1, WC1, WC2, and part of E1 (E1W), N1 (N1C and N1P), NW1 (NW1W) and SE1

(SE1P).



The letters QVX are not used in the first position.

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







The letters IJZ are not used in the second position.

The only letters to appear in the third position are ABCDEFGHJKPSTUW when the

structure starts with A9A.

The only letters to appear in the fourth position are ABEHMNPRVWXY when the

structure starts with AA9A.

The final two letters do not use the letters CIKMOV, so as not to resemble digits or

each other when hand-written.

Post code sectors are one of ten digits: 0 to 9 with 0 only used once 9 has been used

in a post town, save for Croydon and Newport (see above).

A postcode can be validated against a table of all 1.7 million postcodes in Code-Point

Open. The full delivery address including postcode can be validated against the Royal

Mail Postcode Address File (PAF) which lists 29 million valid delivery

addresses,[25] constituting most (but not all) addresses in the UK.[26]

Post towns[ ]

All, or part, of one or more postcode districts are grouped into post towns.[27] Larger post

towns may use more than one postcode district, for example Crawley uses RH10 and

RH11. In a minority of cases a single number can cover two post towns - for example, the

WN8 district includes Wigan and Skelmersdale post towns.

Special cases[ ]

Crown dependencies[ ]

The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man established their own postal administrations

separate from the UK in 1969. Despite this they adopted the UK format

postcodes, Guernsey in 1993 using GY, the Isle of Man the same year using IM,

and Jersey in 1994 using JE.[28]

Overseas territories[ ]

Some of the UK's overseas territories have their own postcodes:

Postcode Location

AI-2640 Anguilla[29] Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha:

ASCN 1ZZ Ascension Island

STHL 1ZZ Saint Helena

TDCU 1ZZ Tristan da Cunha[30]

BBND 1ZZ British Indian Ocean TerritoryBIQQ 1ZZ British Antarctic TerritoryFIQQ 1ZZ Falkland IslandsGX11 1AA GibraltarPCRN 1ZZ Pitcairn IslandsSIQQ 1ZZ South Georgia and the South Sandwich IslandsTKCA 1ZZ Turks and Caicos Islands[31]These were introduced because mail was often sent to the wrong place, e.g., for St

Helena to St Helens, Merseyside[32] and Ascension Island toAsunción, Paraguay, and

many online companies would not accept addresses without a postcode. Mail from the UK

continues to be treated as international, not inland, and sufficient postage must be used.

Royal Mail's Heathrow centre collects all live underpaid mail for surcharging, and there is

a reciprocal arrangement with postal services around the world to collect. An agreed

payment based on volumes is made, year on year. Other forms of postage are collected at

local mail centres, but Heathrow collects those that still get forwarded to them. Bermuda,

the UK's most populous remaining overseas territory, has developed its own postcode

system, with unique postcodes for street and PO Box addresses,[33] as have the Cayman

Islands[34] and the British Virgin Islands.[35] Montserrat does not have postcodes, although

a system has been under consideration in Gibraltar,[36]and the code GX11 1AA has been

introduced as the generic postcode for the territory.[37] Postcodes are not used in the Turks

and Caicos Islands and the TKCA 1ZZ designation is generally unknown.

British Overseas Territories typically have a local or UK government postal system

operator (see List of postal entities), even if a postal code is assigned by Royal Mail for

internal UK routing.

British Forces Post Office (BFPO)[ ]

The British Forces Post Office (BFPO) provides a postal service to HM Forces separate

from that provided by Royal Mail in the United Kingdom, with BFPO addresses used for

the delivery of mail in the UK and around the world. BFPO codes such as "BFPO 801"

serve the same function as postal codes for civilian addresses, with the last line of the

address consisting of "BFPO" followed a space and a number of 1 to 4 digits.

For consistency with the format of other UK addresses, in 2012 BFPO and Royal Mail

jointly introduced an optional alternative postcode format for BFPO addresses, using the

new non-geographic postcode area "BF" and the notional post town "BFPO". Each BFPO

number is assigned to a postcode in the standard UK format, beginning "BF1". The

database was released commercially in March 2012 as part of the Royal Mail Postal

Address File(PAF).[38][39] A postcode is not required if the traditional "BFPO nnnn" format is

used.

Non-geographic codes[ ]

Most postcodes apply to a geographic area but some are used only for routing and cannot

be used for navigation or distance-finding.[40] They are often used for direct

marketing and PO boxes. Some postcode sectors or districts are set aside solely for

non-geographic postcodes, including EC50, BS98, BT58, IM99, M60, N1P, NE99, SW99

and JE4.

Girobank's headquarters in Bootle used the non-geographic postcode GIR 0AA.

Non-geographic postcode area BX is used solely for non-geographic addresses, with

codes independent of the location of the recipient. See next paragraph. There is also a

special postcode for letters to Santa/Father Christmas, XM4 5HQ.[41]

Special postcodes[ ]

Postcodes are allocated by Royal Mail's Address Management Unit and cannot be

purchased or specified by the recipient. However, Royal Mail sometimes assigns

semi-mnemonic postcodes to high profile organisations.[42]

Prominent examples include:

Organisation[43] Postcode

BS98 1TL TV Licensing[44]

BX1 1LT

Lloyds Bank formerly known as Lloyds TSB Bank[45] – non-geographic

address

BX2 1LB

Bank of Scotland (part of Lloyds Banking Group)[46] – non-geographic

address

BX3 2BB Barclays Bank[47] – non-geographic address

BX4 7SB TSB BankBX5 5AT

VAT Central Unit of HM Revenue and Customs[48] (Roman numeral "VAT" =

"5AT") – non-geographic address

CF10 1BH Lloyds Banking Group (formerly Black Horse Finance)

CF99 1NA National Assembly for WalesCV4 8UW University of WarwickDE99 3GG Egg BankingDE55 4SW Slimming WorldDH98 1BT British TelecomDH99 1NS National Savings certificates administration

E14 5HQ HSBC headquarters

E16 1XL ExCeL London[49]E20 2AQ Olympic Aquatics Centre

E20 2BB Olympic Basketball Arena

E20 2ST Olympic Stadium

E20 3BS Olympic Broadcast Centre

E20 3EL Olympic Velodrome

E20 3ET Olympic Eton Manor Tennis Courts

E20 3HB Olympic Handball Arena

E20 3HY Olympic Hockey Stadium

E98 1SN The Sun newspaper

E98 1ST The Sunday Times newspaper

E98 1TT The Times newspaper

EC2N 2DB Deutsche BankEC4Y 0HQ Royal Mail Group Ltd headquarters

EH12 1HQ Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters

EH99 1SP Scottish Parliament[50]G58 1SB

National Savings Bank (the district number 58 also approximates the outline

of the initials SB)

GIR 0AA Girobank (now Santander Corporate Banking)

IV21 2LR Two Lochs RadioL30 4GB Girobank (alternative geographic postcode)

LS98 1FD First Direct bank

N1 9GU The Guardian newspaper

N81 1ER Electoral Reform Services[40][51]NE1 4ST St James' Park Stadium, Newcastle United

NG80 1EH Experian Embankment House

NG80 1LH Experian Lambert House

NG80 1RH Experian Riverleen House

NG80 1TH Experian Talbot House

PH1 5RB Royal Bank of Scotland Perth Chief Office

PH1 2SJ St. Johnstone Football ClubS2 4SU Sheffield United Football ClubS6 1SW Sheffield Wednesday Football ClubThe World Snooker Championships at the Crucible Theatre,

S14 7UP Sheffield;[52] 147 UP refers to a maximum lead (from a maximum break) in

snooker

Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency All postcodes starting with SA99 are

SA99 for the DVLA offices in the Morriston area of Swansea, the final part of the

postcode relates to the specific office or department within the DVLA

SE1 8UJ Union Jack ClubSM6 0HB Homebase LimitedSN38 1NW Nationwide Building SocietySW1A 0AA House of CommonsSW1A

0PW

House of Lords (Palace of Westminster; see above for House of Commons)

SW1A 1AA Buckingham Palace (the Monarch)

SW1A 2AA 10 Downing Street (the Prime Minister)

SW1H 0TL Transport for London (Windsor House, 50 Victoria Street)

SW1P

3EU

European Commission and European Parliament office (European Union)

SW1W

0DT

The Daily Telegraph newspaper

TW8 9GS GlaxoSmithKlineW1A 1AA BBC Broadcasting House

W1D 4FA Betgenius, the former address of The Football Association

W1N 4DJ

BBC Radio 1 (disc jockey)