Specifications

General information

Number of records:	49,244
Last updated:	21st October 2024
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 (8.6MB 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.