Change Log

New: Postcode Tartan, a unique tartan for every UK postcode

Every UK postcode now has its own tartan. Each postcode is converted into binary, and that binary pattern is used to weave a unique, repeatable tartan, coloured by its region: Highland greens in Scotland, claret in London, red in Wales. Type your postcode and watch it weave, then download it free as an SVG, a high-resolution PNG or a phone wallpaper.

The design is deterministic and fully our own: the same postcode always produces the same tartan, nothing is stored, and no AI is involved. Each one comes with its weaving spec, the colourway and a proper thread count, so a printer or weaver could reproduce it exactly. There are pages on how it works, the history behind it, a gallery of examples, and a press kit for anyone writing about it.

Find it at postcodesuk.com/postcode-tartan, and look for your own postcode's tartan in the sidebar of any postcode page.

New: Council Tax, school admission and planning tools

We have added three new property tools, each built to go a step further than a plain lookup. The Council Tax Band Checker does not just show a band. It pulls every property on your postcode and compares them side by side, so you can see at a glance whether your home is banded higher than its neighbours, which is the strongest sign a band may be worth challenging. It also explains, in plain terms, how much more tax a higher band means.

Will You Get In? is a school admission chances tool. Rather than simply mapping nearby schools, it gives each one an honest verdict on your realistic chances of a place from your exact address, weighing your distance against the things that override it, such as selective entry, faith criteria and how oversubscribed a school is. It is a realistic way to build a preference list rather than a catchment map.

The Planning Constraints Checker shows the planning designations that affect an address, such as conservation areas, Article 4 directions, listed buildings, tree preservation orders, green belt and flood zones, and translates each one into what it actually means for what you can build or change. All three tools are free, work from any postcode, and can be found in the Tools section.

New: Postcode Plate Maker

We have added a Postcode Plate Maker: a free tool that turns your UK postcode into a novelty number-plate-style wall plate. Type your postcode, choose the white or yellow style, and see it rendered instantly with the UK band, then download a high-resolution image for free. These are novelty show plates for display and make a fun gift or keepsake; they are not road legal and cannot be fitted to a vehicle.

We are gauging interest before we start making physical plates. If you would like one, you can leave your email on the tool and we will let you know the moment they are available, with no obligation to buy. It only takes a few seconds and it helps us decide whether to produce them, so do register if a postcode plate is something you would want.

New: Fun and Games section

We have launched a Fun and Games section: a set of free browser games built on our UK geography data. There are four to start with. Guess the County shows you a place and asks which county it sits in. Place It gives you somewhere to pin on the map. Which Is Further North? pits two towns against each other. Beat the Clock challenges you to answer as many as you can before the time runs out.

The games work on both desktop and mobile, need no sign-up and keep score as you play. They are a light-hearted way to get to know the counties, towns and geography of the United Kingdom. You can reach them from the Fun and Games link in the main menu.

New: UK rankings

We have added a UK Rankings section: a set of pages that rank the counties, towns, postcode districts and areas of Britain by the facts in our data. There are 39 rankings in all, covering everything from the most and least populous counties to the highest and most northerly towns, the largest postcode areas and the most common place names.

Every ranking is a full, sortable table with each entry linked through to its own page, and the figures are drawn straight from official sources such as the census and our own postcode dataset. A sidebar lets you move between rankings, and you can reach the section from the Rankings link in the main menu.

New: UK hospitals directory

We have added a directory of hospitals across Great Britain. It lists 1,708 hospitals, from large A&E and teaching hospitals to community, mental-health and independent (private) hospitals, and it flags the 232 that have an accident and emergency department so you can spot your nearest emergency options at a glance.

You can browse hospitals by county, and every one is shown with its postcode, nearest town and the trust or operator that runs it where we hold that detail. Each hospital has been matched to its nearest real postcode from our dataset, so its location is accurate to within a few metres. The directory is linked from the footer.

New: UK police stations directory

We have published a directory of police stations covering England, Scotland and Wales. It lists 1,317 police buildings, including full stations, force headquarters and public front counters, and shows which territorial force is responsible for each area.

Stations can be browsed by county, and every one comes with its postcode and nearest town. As with the rest of the site, each location has been matched to its closest real postcode, so the county and police force attribution is accurate. You will find the directory in the footer.

More accurate county and country populations

We have significantly improved the accuracy of the population and density figures shown on county and country pages, and in the related rankings. The previous method could misattribute the population of postcode districts that straddle a county boundary, which left a handful of counties looking far too large or too small.

Every postcode district is now mapped to its true local authority using official ONS data, and populations that sit across a boundary are split by the real share of people on each side rather than a simple count of postcodes. National and county totals now line up closely with the published census figures.

A glossary of postcode and geography terms

We have added a full glossary that explains the postal, geographic, local government, census, deprivation, mapping and property terms used across the site. It holds 254 terms across 14 categories, from postcode areas and output areas to property reference numbers, deprivation deciles, grid references and council tax bands. Each term has its own page, so you can look up exactly what a field in the data means.

Every entry is written in plain British English with clear subheadings, covering what the term is, where it sits in the wider system and how it relates to postcodes. Related terms are linked together throughout, and each page points to the tools where you can put the term to use, so the glossary works as a connected reference rather than a flat list. You can search and filter the whole set from the glossary home page.

You can reach it from the main menu and the footer. The glossary is free to use and we will keep adding to it over time.

Population updated to the latest census

We replaced the population figures across the site with the most recent census counts: the 2021 Census for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the 2022 Census for Scotland. Town, county, district and area pages, along with the population density and compare two postcodes tools, now show these official numbers. UK coverage comes to 66.9 million residents across 2,727 postcode districts.

To do this we built a postcode to small area lookup from the ONS Postcode Directory, then aggregated census population from the smallest published areas up to each postcode district. The previous figures are kept in a backup, so the change is fully reversible.

We also added the 2021 Census age structure for England and Wales. The age breakdown in the local area sections, covering children, working age and older residents, now comes from the census rather than an older estimate, and the totals line up with the headline population.

Population and age data from the Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, published under the Open Government Licence.

Deprivation data now covers the whole UK

Deprivation deciles previously covered England only. We have now added the devolved indices so every UK nation is included: the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020, the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2019 and the Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure 2017, alongside the English Indices of Deprivation.

The compare two postcodes tool no longer shows a blank for Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish postcodes. Each area is ranked within its own nation, because the four indices are produced separately and are not directly comparable across borders.

Data from the Office for National Statistics, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, published under the Open Government Licence.

New tool: nearest EV charging points

We added a tool that finds the public electric vehicle charging points closest to any postcode, ranked by distance, with the operator, connector types and number of bays where these are recorded.

The data covers 7,953 charging sites across the UK and comes from OpenStreetMap. The former government chargepoint registry was retired at the end of 2024, so this open, community maintained source keeps the listings current.

Charging point data from OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database Licence.

Schools data refreshed

We refreshed our schools database against the Department for Education's Get Information About Schools register, the official daily-updated record of every school in the country. This updated the details of more than 27,000 open schools, from phase and capacity to address, ward and constituency, and added 131 newly opened schools that were not previously listed.

Each school keeps its existing web address and its most recent Ofsted rating, and every updated record now carries a timestamp so we can see at a glance how fresh the data is. Ofsted inspection grades come from a separate source and were already current to early 2026.

No school pages were removed in this update. The figures behind our school listings and the school catchment finder now reflect the latest official register.

House price data brought up to date

We refreshed our property sales database against HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, adding every recorded sale from 2023, 2024, 2025 and the opening months of 2026. The data now runs from 2018 right through to April 2026, so the house prices by postcode tool reflects recent transactions instead of figures that stopped at the end of 2022.

While updating, we also removed close to 3 million duplicate records that had built up in the historical data, leaving just under 8 million genuine sales. The yearly totals now line up with the real market, including the dip in 2020 and the surge in 2021.

All figures come from HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, published under the Open Government Licence. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.

33,292 new postcodes added

We refreshed our postcode database against the Office for National Statistics Postcode Directory (February 2026 release). This added 33,292 newly created live postcodes that had come into use since our previous data, bringing total coverage to 1,827,826 active UK postcodes.

Every new postcode includes its grid coordinates, local council, electoral ward, parliamentary constituency, county, region and country, so each one now has a full directory page and appears throughout nearby-postcode and area listings.

No existing records were removed. Postcodes that have been officially retired by Royal Mail remain searchable for reference.