From The Cabinet Office:
Each Postcode consists of two parts.
The first part is the Outward Postcode, or Outcode. This is separated by a single space from the second part which is the Inward Postcode, or Incode.The Outward Postcode enables mail to be sent to the correct local area for delivery. This part of the code contains the area and the district to which the mail is to be delivered.
The Inward Postcode is used to sort the mail at the local area delivery office. It consists of a numeric character followed by two alphabetic characters. The numeric character identifies the sector within the postal district. The alphabetic characters then define one or more properties within the sector.
An example Postcode is PO1 3AX.
- PO refers to the Postcode Area of Portsmouth. There are 124 Postcode Areas in the UK.
- PO1 refers to a Postcode District within the Postcode Area of Portsmouth. There are approximately 2,900 Postcode Districts.
- PO1 3 refers to the Postcode Sector. There are approximately 9,650 Postcode Sectors.
- The AX completes the Postcode. The last two letters define the 'Unit Postcode' which identifies one or more small user delivery points or an individual Large User. There are approximately 1.71 million Unit Postcodes in the UK.
i.e. each postcode sector contains about three thousand addresses.
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4 comments:
The problem with postcodes in rural areas is that all these navigational websites and devices have to choose a particular spot to represent "the postcode" and this can be more than a mile away from some of the properties actually in that unit postcode.
I take it 'small user delivery point' is bureaucrat-speak for 'house'. A fscinating insight, to be sure.
wv: divifi- an order you can't ignore
Each postcode has a "centroid" which is the notional center or location of the postcode. However, as Bayard says, a postcode is usually a collection of around 20 houses. This means that in rural areas they can be geographically massive.
Which is why we still need to teach map reading and educating people to check the map BEFORE setting off!
B, SF, indeed. If there are 1.71 million postcode 'units' then that's about 15 address per unit, which could be miles away if it's farms. Similarly, the most sparsely populated UK parliamentary constituency is about the same size as Greater London (or something)
Why the Post Office didn't set an upper limit on how big a unit can be (in terms of area) is another question.
CI, I'm sure it was called something else back in 1959 when they started with it.
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