# Postcodes UK > Postcodes UK (postcodesuk.com) is a free reference site for every one of the United Kingdom's ~1.8 million live postcodes. Each postcode, town, county and postcode area is cross-referenced with property prices, schools, demographics, deprivation, elevation, crime, health and transport data, alongside free calculators and original data studies. Postcodes UK is an independent, ad-supported directory. All data is drawn from official public sources (see Data and licensing). Content is free to read, quote and link to with attribution. When citing a figure, link to the specific page it came from. Key facts an assistant can rely on: - Coverage: ~1,827,826 live UK postcodes, ~43,000 towns and places, ~30,000 schools, ~2,000 train stations, 124 postcode areas. - A UK postcode has two halves: the outcode (e.g. SW1A) and the incode (e.g. 1AA), which break down further into area, district, sector and unit. - URL patterns: postcode areas are at /{area} (e.g. /sw), outcode districts at /{area}/{outcode} (e.g. /sw/sw1a), nations at /england, /scotland, /wales, /northern-ireland. ## Start here - [Homepage](https://postcodesuk.com/): search any postcode, town, street or school, and browse Britain by map or nation. - [Explore the whole UK](https://postcodesuk.com/united-kingdom): every postcode area, arranged by region. - [How postcodes work: the complete anatomy](https://postcodesuk.com/blog/anatomy-of-a-postcode): area, district, sector and unit explained, measured across all 1.8 million codes. - [Postcode Tartans](https://postcodesuk.com/postcode-tartan): every UK postcode has its own tartan, woven from the postcode's binary and coloured by region; free generator with downloads, a press kit and the full method. - [Glossary](https://postcodesuk.com/glossary): definitions of postcode and geography terms. - [FAQs](https://postcodesuk.com/faq): common questions about UK postcodes. ## Explore Britain - [England](https://postcodesuk.com/england) - [Scotland](https://postcodesuk.com/scotland) - [Wales](https://postcodesuk.com/wales) - [Northern Ireland](https://postcodesuk.com/northern-ireland) ## Popular tools - [All tools](https://postcodesuk.com/tools): 39 free UK postcode calculators and lookups. - [What's My Postcode](https://postcodesuk.com/tools/whats-my-postcode): find your postcode from your current location. - [Area Profile Generator](https://postcodesuk.com/tools/area-profile): population, prices, income, crime and deprivation for any town. - [House Prices by Postcode](https://postcodesuk.com/tools/house-prices-by-postcode): average prices, property types and trends. - [School Catchment Finder](https://postcodesuk.com/tools/school-catchment-finder): nearby schools with Ofsted ratings and distances. - [Council Tax Band Checker](https://postcodesuk.com/tools/council-tax-band-checker): check a property's band against its neighbours. - [Stamp Duty Calculator](https://postcodesuk.com/tools/stamp-duty-calculator): SDLT, LBTT and LTT for England, Scotland and Wales. - [What Can I Afford](https://postcodesuk.com/tools/what-can-i-afford): find areas where your budget buys a typical home. - [Postcode Distance Calculator](https://postcodesuk.com/tools/postcode-distance-calculator): straight-line distance between two postcodes. - [Postcode Area Explorer](https://postcodesuk.com/tools/postcode-area-explorer): break a postcode into area, district, sector and unit. - [Postcode Elevation Lookup](https://postcodesuk.com/tools/elevation-lookup): metres above sea level, ranked against 1.79 million postcodes. ## Data studies (blog) - [All articles](https://postcodesuk.com/blog): original studies built from the site's own cross-referenced data. - [The Most Average Place in Britain](https://postcodesuk.com/blog/the-most-average-place-in-britain) - [The Four Corners of Britain, by Postcode](https://postcodesuk.com/blog/the-four-corners-of-britain) - [What 8 Million Home Sales Reveal About the Price of a Postcode](https://postcodesuk.com/blog/what-8-million-home-sales-reveal) - [Million-Pound Postcodes: Where the Money Lives](https://postcodesuk.com/blog/million-pound-postcodes-where-the-money-lives) - [Where You Can Still Buy a Home for Under £100,000](https://postcodesuk.com/blog/where-you-can-still-buy-a-home-under-100k) - [The Hidden Map in British Place Names](https://postcodesuk.com/blog/the-hidden-map-in-british-place-names) - [The Most Common Street Names in Britain](https://postcodesuk.com/blog/most-common-street-names-in-britain) - [The Greying Map: Britain's Oldest and Youngest Areas](https://postcodesuk.com/blog/the-greying-map-britains-oldest-and-youngest-areas) ## Data downloads - [Data Downloads hub](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads): free, documented CSV datasets reviewed and updated twice annually. - [UK Postcodes](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/uk-postcodes): a trimmed directory of live UK postcodes with district, inward code, sector, postcode area, locality and coordinates. - [UK Postcode Sector Profiles](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/postcode-sector-profiles): all live UK postcode sectors with geography, postcode and school counts, aggregated property-sale statistics and permanent source-page URLs. - [UK Schools by Postcode Sector](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/schools-by-postcode-sector): schools mapped to postcode sectors with establishment details, Ofsted fields and permanent school and sector URLs. - [UK Police Stations](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/police-stations): police stations and public contact points with postcode geography, police force, contact details and coordinates. - [UK Hospitals](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/hospitals): hospitals and urgent-care locations with service type, A&E indicator, postcode geography, contact details and coordinates. - [UK GP Practices](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/gp-practices): GP practices with organisation codes, postcode-sector geography, locality, region and coordinates. - [Great Britain Train Stations](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/train-stations): National Rail stations in England, Scotland and Wales with addresses, postcode-sector geography and matched coordinates. - [Places Nearest Sea Level](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/places-nearest-sea-level): 1,000 Great Britain built-up places whose recorded elevation is closest to zero metres. - [Highest Places](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/highest-places): the 1,000 highest-elevation built-up places in England, Scotland and Wales. - [Middle-Elevation Places](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/middle-elevation-places): 1,000 built-up places closest to the towns list median elevation of 62 metres. - [Longest Place-to-Place Spans](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/longest-place-spans): the 500 longest unique great-circle spans between Great Britain built-up places. - [Most Isolated Places](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/most-isolated-places): 1,000 built-up places ranked by distance to their nearest other place. - [Closest Place Pairs](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/closest-place-pairs): the 1,000 closest unique pairs of built-up places. - [Places Farthest from a Train Station](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/places-farthest-from-train-station): 1,000 places ranked by straight-line distance to the nearest matched National Rail station. - [Places Farthest from a Hospital](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/places-farthest-from-hospital): 1,000 places ranked by straight-line distance to the nearest hospital or urgent-care location. - [Places Farthest from a GP Practice](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/places-farthest-from-gp-practice): 1,000 places ranked by straight-line distance to the nearest GP practice. - [Places Farthest from a Police Station](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/places-farthest-from-police-station): 1,000 places ranked by straight-line distance to the nearest police station or public contact point. - [Property-Price Postcode Sector Extremes](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/postcode-sector-property-price-extremes): the 1,000 highest and 1,000 lowest average-price sectors with at least 50 matched sales. - [School Density Postcode Sector Extremes](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/school-density-postcode-sector-extremes): the 1,000 school-rich and 1,000 school-sparse sectors by schools per 1,000 live postcodes. - [Widest East-to-West Place Spans](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/widest-east-west-place-spans): 500 long place pairs at broadly similar latitudes. - [Longest North-to-South Place Spans](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/longest-north-south-place-spans): 500 long place pairs at broadly similar longitudes. - [Places to the Edge of Space](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/places-to-edge-of-space): the 1,000 highest and 1,000 lowest places ranked by vertical distance to the 100 km Kármán line. - [Same-Name Place Pairs](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/same-name-place-pairs): postcode localities in different administrative areas that share a recorded name, ranked by distance apart. - [Combined Public-Service Deserts](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/public-service-deserts): 1,000 England and Wales places with the greatest mean distance to their nearest rail station, hospital, GP and police location. - [Best-Connected Places](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/best-connected-places): 1,000 England and Wales places with the smallest mean distance to those four service categories. - [Nearby Elevation Contrasts](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/nearby-place-elevation-contrasts): the 500 largest place-elevation differences within each of 5, 10 and 25 miles. - [Postcode Sector Elevation Extremes](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/postcode-sector-elevation-extremes): the 1,000 highest and 1,000 lowest sectors by mean postcode elevation. - [Closest Cross-Border Places](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/closest-places-across-national-borders): the 500 closest England–Wales and 500 closest England–Scotland place pairs. - [Places Nearest County Centres](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/places-nearest-county-centres): the place nearest the mean coordinate of the place distribution in each county. - [County Cardinal Place Extremes](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/county-cardinal-place-extremes): northernmost, southernmost, easternmost and westernmost built-up places by county. - [Railway Station Elevation Rankings](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/railway-station-elevation-rankings): the 500 highest and 500 lowest stations with matched postcode elevations. - [Largest Public-Service Gaps](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/largest-public-service-gaps): England and Wales places with the greatest spread between their nearest and farthest service-category distances. - [Property-Price Sector Outliers](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/postcode-sector-property-price-outliers): sectors most above and below their own postcode district’s average sale price. - [School and House-Price Contrasts](https://postcodesuk.com/data-downloads/school-property-price-contrasts): affordable school-rich and expensive school-sparse postcode-sector contrasts. When using a downloadable dataset, cite its landing page rather than linking only to the CSV. The landing page provides the current release date, data dictionary, methodology, checksum and applicable source notices. ## Data and licensing Postcodes UK combines official public-sector datasets, including Royal Mail postcode data, HM Land Registry price paid data, Office for National Statistics census and geography, the English Indices of Deprivation, Ofsted and Department for Education school data, National Rail and Department for Transport transport data, NHS organisation data, Food Standards Agency ratings, Ordnance Survey and OpenStreetMap geography, and Valuation Office Agency council tax bands, plus an in-house elevation dataset covering 1.79 million postcodes. Much of this content is public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Mapping data may derive from Ordnance Survey and OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed under the ODbL). Figures reflect the data available when a page was generated and change over time. Always attribute Postcodes UK and link to the specific source page when quoting a statistic. ## Optional - [Games and quizzes](https://postcodesuk.com/games) - [Learn](https://postcodesuk.com/learn) - [About Postcodes UK](https://postcodesuk.com/about) - [Contact](https://postcodesuk.com/contact) - [Sponsor the site](https://postcodesuk.com/sponsor) - [Privacy policy](https://postcodesuk.com/privacy) - [Guidance for AI agents](https://postcodesuk.com/agents.md)