Talk:Postcodes in the United Kingdom

message: I've added a section about these to the main article. The only ones I know of are the 3 I've listed: BS98, BS99 and WC99.
I'm sure there are many others. Does anyone have a list? RenesisX 11:39, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, FY0 is officially non-geographic. The table at List of postcode districts in the United Kingdom is current and includes annotations for non-geographic districts. — Richardguk (talk) 00:11, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-geographic postcodes 

message: "are asigned to, for example, building site offices (road construction)". Does anyone know how this is done?
What about BFPO and ships in harbour? Rich Farmbrough 11:42, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Temporary postcodes 

message: The article title 'Postcode' notes the alternate spacing 'Post code' used in some countries (implying they're basically the same thing). By this logic 'Post Code' should redirect to 'postcode'; however, 'Post Code' *actually* redirects to 'Postal Code'....
Although I'd ask if this should be fixed, it presents a more general question about the organisation of content between the two articles. The 'Postcode' article aims to be generic (references to postcodes in countries outside the UK), yet concentrates on the UK system too much for this. And as mentioned, there's already a generic article about it ('Postal code')
My proposal is to move non-UK content in the 'postcode' article to the generic 'Postal code' article. This still leaves the UK-specific content remaining; and the article could then be titled more appropriately ('Postcodes in the UK', or something along those lines).
Finally, 'Post code' and 'Postcode' would both redirect to 'Postal code'.
(Apologies for the lack of account, which will be sorted. Please reply here, not to my anonymous 'user'. I'm on dial-up; plus, the address given is apparently the ISP's transparent web-cache address, not mine).
: I completely agree with this suggestion - or alternatively that the content be merged into the article Postal Code, and a new article be established for UK postcode (this I think would amount to the same thing but it might be clearer for people to understand the intent of the change as it happens).  The existence of this page (except as a seperate UK postcode article) makes no sense as there is already the above-mentioned generic article.  Since the term "postal code" better embraces the various systems that other states have (ie ZIP, etc) than the UK-specific "postcode", clearly this page should give way to the Postal Code page, or otherwise be converted into a UK-specific page. --Danward 22:54, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Apologies for being slow - there *is* by now a seperate UK article.  In which case what on earth is the postcode page for??? --Danward 22:57, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Postcode', 'Post code' and 'Postal Code' 

message: I have just found this online. www.absoluteastronomy.com/reference/postcode Parts of it are word for word the same. The same for this site as well.http://postcode.brainsip.com/. pjb007 17:11, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: These are totally-legal copies of Wikipedia which is why there is a warning to contributors that "If you do not want your writing to be edited and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here"!PeterEastern (talk) 10:16, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Same details on another website 

message: I've added the postcode for Santa (SAN TA1), and there's and interesting website here:  that lists similar valid addresses for other countries. 
Apart from Santa, can anyone say definitively if GIR 0AB is also an allowable exception in addition to GIR 0AA?
I believe there is also a 'test' postcode that is valid in the PAF, but does not correspond to anywhere real - anyone know what it is - it might possibly be the FX postcode apparently used in training.  I have no idea if the AM code for Ambridge validates properly in the PAF either.
WLD 14:31, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Royal Mail's address finder says both GIR 0AA and SAN TA1 are not in the correct format (or "You have entered the Postcode incorrectly.", as opposed to "The address or postcode you have entered is not listed in our database."). I'm not sure what the most authorative source for postcodes is though. Elektron 14:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Left hand, meet right hand.  As you've discovered, determining whether a particular postcode is valid or not is tricky, and the on-line address finder is not authoritative, and neither is the PAF.  There probably isn't a single authoritative source, unfortunately. GIR 0AA is definitely valid, as it is still in use by Alliance & Leicester, who took over GIRObank in the UK. WLD 20:28, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The postcode element of the addresses side of British Standard BS7666 (Spatial datasets for geographical referencing) is covered in the appropriate page of the  UK Government Data Standards Catalogue - 217.46.150.171 08:26, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That standard validates the format, not the content. And, it also explicitly lists GIR 0AA as an exception still used. Furthermore, I don't think it claims to be definitive - that is, I think it is a descriptive standard, not a prescriptive one. I would expect the Royal Mail to have a source document describing both the format and valid contents of their implementation of a postal code - not least as a specification for the automated sorting machines - but whatever they have does not seem to be available to the general public. The PAF is not definitive, even though many organisations erroneously treat it as such. WLD 10:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The standard is just that a British Standard and the postcode section is only part but does prescribe - for the time being at least - the structure of UK postcodes that are or could be assigned. It is however acknowledged that these conventions may change in the future if operationally required. - 217.46.150.171 10:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it has been updated - see here, and I don't have access to the 2006 revised edition. The link you give says "The code allocated by the Post Office to identify a group of postal delivery points.", so the document you link to acknowledges ownership of the code by the 'Post Office' i.e. it is not defined by the standard.  The British Standard can say what it likes e.g. "the colour of Smarties will be that determined by the confectioner", so so long as the confectioner chooses the colour, then he is following the standard. If someone other than the confectioner were to choose the colour of the Smarties to be manufactured, the standard would not then be being followed.  The standard doesn't say what the colours will be. In this case, the standard is effectively saying that it is whatever the 'Post Office' says, then goes on to attempt to describe the practice of the 'Post Office'. WLD 11:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right that there appears to have been a very recent update - I'll reserve further comment until I have been able to delve deeper into its nature - 217.46.150.171 14:40, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks WLD 15:55, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Any update? Cheers. 85.158.137.195 08:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The standard describes the elements that make up an address, and state that one of those elements is postcode. The description of possible formats isn't a definitive part of the standard, because the format of postcodes is a matter for Royal Mail. Mayalld 15:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Royal Mail's Letters to Santa page at http://www.royalmail.com/letters-to-santa now lists XM4 5HQ as the "Santa" postcode (does it replace SAN TA1?). 06 Dec 2013  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.123.247.235 (talk) 16:51, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exceptions 

message: Section #Postcode_lottery doesn't mention any lottery.
--Jidanni 2007-03-12
:"Postcode lottery" is a political cliche not a lottery and really shouldn't be in the article. It refers to unequal distribution of resources by geographical area. This can be eg NHS treatment or funding from the "good causes" bits of the national lottery. Secretlondon 13:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made it a separate article. Andy Mabbett 13:17, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What lottery? 

message: The article says that CRO (oh) was allocated and then CR2, CR3. Later the article says that CR0 (zero) was not changed to CR1. Should that first CRO (oh) be a CR0 (zero)? -- SGBailey 19:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Croydon 

message: I heard that the number in the first part of the postcode is the approximate distance in miles from the nearest main sorting office - so NG5 xxx is approx 5 miles from the main Nottingham sorting office.  Is this true, and if so can details be sourced and added into the article. Burns flipper (talk) 18:45, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not true. District numbers were generally assigned in a clockwise direction outwards from the '1' district in the main town or city. Could someone word this better and add it? 137.205.74.30 (talk) 22:06, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: The number in the outward

message: The codes were in the form NOR followed by three digits. I think I'll need a  on this. When I was applying for a place at UEA in 1975-76 the university was still using NOR 88C as its postcode on some documentation, as well as its modern code NR4 7TJ, so obviously not all codes ended in three digits. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 10:41, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Just did a search for postal addresses/postcodes in the London Gazette, and these seem typical examples:
* has NOR 61Z, NOR 56B, NOR 21W, NOR 11B, NOR 34Z
* has NOR 16P
* has NOR 68J, NOR 42O, NOR 64E
* has NOR 40K, NOR 17P
They all seem to be in the format NOR digit-digit-letter, although a code such as NOR 42O (four-two-oh) could be read (four-two-zero), and "I"s could similarly be misread as "1"s. Lozleader (talk) 21:58, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Norwich postcode history

message: This map is only about 70% correct. I have removed it from the page.
137.205.74.230 (talk) 21:27, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've looked at the OpenStreetMap source for this. Most of the errors are accounted for by small exclaves of postcode areas in other areas, some of which are hundreds of kilometres from their parent towns. I do not know these to exist in the real plan, which should look like http://blogs.tmb.uk.com/underthesun/uk_postcode_map.gif. If you zoom in most areas regain their correct labels, but the anomalies are still there and become more numerous. My conclusion is that until OpenStreetMap can substantially upgrade this application to avoid exclaving, this is a completely unsuitable method of generating an image for this. 137.205.74.230 (talk) 21:51, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Try again 

message: I've found that the most complete regular expression for post codes doesn't match all London post codes because the post office have sneakily started allowing an alphabetic character in the fourth position (eg. EC3V 9AA)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.96.159.81 (talk) 07:53, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason you would do that has nothing to do with SQL injection. There's a few basic principles to avoid SQL injection, which go beyond the scope of the concerns here. I would check with RoyalMail to see how they define a postcode and validate against that definition. --Hm2k (talk) 20:15, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

text: --Hm2k (talk) 08:03, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Validation Algorithms

message: The list of vanity postcodes is getting quite long. It only needs to be a few examples. Also, the "hierarchy" in the Westminster postcodes is unreferenced. I'm thinking of trimming this down to 5-10 examples. MRSC (talk) 07:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Vanity list

message: The Validation section currently states that:
:NB: British Forces Post Office postcodes do not follow the BS 7666 rules, but have the format "BFPO NNNN" or "BFPO c/o NNNN", where NNNN is 1 to 4 numerical digits.
While I seem to recall previously seeing "BFPO c/o NNNN", the current Lookup BFPO Numbers has, under the section on "BFPO No - Naval Party, Location", the format "c/o BFPO NNN" instead. Unless anyone knows a more authoritative source that contradicts this, I believe an edit is in order (perhaps, subject to other sources, one allowing either form). — 81.130.7.175 (talk) 10:31, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  British Forces Post Office 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Douglas Adams briefly worked as a hospital porter. He may have remembered the ZZ99 xxx fake NHS postcodes when assigning Earth a galactic postcode.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.102.50.155 (talk) 19:26, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: These are not postcodes. I have deleted that section as irrelevant to the article.--Shantavira|feed me 10:12, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The descriptions of Outward Code and Postcode District are very muddled. Would someone like to fix them?  Beowulf (talk) 21:11, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Muddled 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The Postcode_district section here defines the postcode district as the end of the out code (e.g. the 19 in SW19).
The List of postcode districts ... page equates the "district" with the complete out code (e.g. SW19).
Being pedantic I know, but which defines "district"? -- GhostInTheMachine (talk) 11:34, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  District? 

message: Article includes "Some older road signs in Hackney still show the North East (NE) sector/district."
Can anyone provide photographic evidence for this?
Geofpick (talk)  — Preceding undated comment added 12:05, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hackney was an NE