What is the ZIP Code of London

What is the ZIP Code of London

The Royal Mail does not use zip codes. They have a much more sophisticated system called Post Codes. The code is a mixture of letters and numbers where the first one or two characters are letters and indicate the “post town” followed by one or two numbers indicating a subdivision of that post town delivery area (and in more rural areas, that subdivision can be quite a long way from the post town).

Then, you get a space, a number, and two more letters. That section after space can be used to identify a group of houses (rarely more than 30) or even a department in a company. It’s quite possible to address something using no more than the house number and postcode (I’ve tried it!). The U.K. does not have “Zip codes.” 

It has “Postcodes”. These operate at a very local level, each postcode covering typically a few dozen private addresses or a handful of commercial ones.

The postcode is in three segments, the first being alphabetic, signifying a town, city, or London area; the second a numeric sub-area; and the third segment a discrete alphanumeric local area signifier for the most granular level.

So, for example, completely at random,

E17 8EG refers to East London sub-area 17 local signifier 8EG for odd-numbered houses in Harris Street. NW1 3SX refers to the North West London sub-area, one local signifier for a number of Flats in Richmond House Park Village East. You can search addresses and related postcodes in the Royal Mail Postcode Finder on the internet.

Postal codes in the U.K. are also known as postcodes. The initial postcode system divided London and other large cities in the U.K. A full postcode designates an area with a number of addresses or a single major delivery point.

Are there ZIP codes in the U.K.?

Postal codes used in the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown dependencies are known as postcodes (originally, postal codes). They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the General Post Office (Royal Mail).

postal codes

• PlaceCode
• -33.025/27.908
• 1 East London 5208
• -33.033/27.917
• 2 East London 5211

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If you are asking about London, England, UK, there are no ZIP Codes. The U.K. uses “postcodes, “which cover half a street or less, depending on the road’s length. The city is divided by postal regions and then into local postcodes.

What is a five five-digit zip code in the U.K.?

How are British ZIP codes structured? U.K. postcodes consist of 5-7 alphanumeric characters and are separated into two parts by a single space. The first part is the outward code, which specifies an area and district of the U.K. Space, and the inward code follows it.

What is a 5-digit zip code in the U.K.? No, the United Kingdom does not use zip codes. The U.K. uses postal codes with 5-7 digits, which consist of a mix of letters and numbers. The U.S. uses zip codes with five digits to identify geographic locations. Does London have zip codes?

Is there a zip code for the U.K.?

A zip code in the U.K. is called a postcode and is a six to 8 character code. Unlike zip codes in the U.S., postcodes can include both letters and numbers.

What is a UK ZIP code example?

Examples of postcodes are “SW1W 0NY”, “PO16 7GZ”, “GU16 7HF”, and “L1 8JQ”.

What is a valid postcode in the U.K.?

What is a valid zip code in the U.K.? The outward code includes the postcode area and the postcode district, respectively. The inward code includes the postcode sector and the postcode unit, respectively. Examples of postcodes are “SW1W 0NY”, “PO16 7GZ”, “GU16 7HF”, and “L1 8JQ”.

Guidance on recording valid postcodes: The postcode is a combination of between five and seven letters/numbers, which define four different levels of a geographic unit. It is part of a coding system created and used by the Royal Mail across the United Kingdom for sorting mail.

Central London areas are divided into what are known as LONDON POSTCODES. Each small section of London is allocated a 1-3 letter prefix that corresponds to its compass location and then the following number and two letters to distinguish it from adjoining streets within that area. A postcode used in a SatNav typically takes you within 50 yards of your intended destination in urban areas. ZIP Code Wall Map of New London

What is the ZIP Code of London?

The London postal district is the area in England of 241 square miles (620 km2) to which mail addressed to the London post town is delivered.

The General Post Office, under the control of the Postmaster-General, directed Sir Rowland Hill to devise the area in 1856. Throughout its history, it has been subject to reorganization and division into increasingly smaller postal units, with the early loss of two compass points and a minor retraction in 1866.

It was integrated by the Post Office into the national postcode system of the United Kingdom during the early 1970s and corresponded to the N, N.W., S.W., S.E., W, W.C., E, and E.C. postcode areas.

The postal district has also been known as the London postal area. The County of London was much smaller, at 117 square miles (300 km2), but Greater London is much larger, at 607 square miles (1,570 km2). Zipcodes are an American postal system. The U.K. uses postcodes. A postcode typically refers to about 15 properties.

London has many postcodes, but they typically fall into E (East), E.C. (East Central), W (West), W.C. (West Central), N (North), N.W. (North West), S.E. (South East), S.W. (South West). In addition to these postcodes, Greater London contains other postcodes that were originally part of the home counties prior to the expansion of London.

Friends, the postcodes for Downing Street are SW1A 2AA. The postcode for Buckingham Palace is SW1A 1AA. The postcode for the Tower of London is EC3N 4AB.

What is the ZIP Code of London

There is no such thing as a London-wide code.

London has the following postal regions, which are further divided into local postcodes.

1. S – South
2. Ñ – North
3. E – East
4. W – West

• W.C. – West Central for inner London.
• E.C. – East Central for inner London but pretty much the old City of London
• NW – Northwest London
• SW – South West includes some inner west London but mainly southwest London
• SE – South East.

In addition, due to the massive area of Greater London, some of it is covered by postcodes for areas that were always outside the London postal districts, so EN, U.B., R.M., and a few others I’ve forgotten.

There is even a tiny bit of a London postcode in the E4 area that is outside the M25, the London Orbital Motorway, which many view as a de facto London boundary. If you care to look/search, there are plenty of questions and answers here on the internet about London postcodes, their history, and stuff like that.

Conclusion:

There are no zip codes in London. There are around 2 million addresses. A single postcode consists of around 30 addresses in close proximity. Like a 100-yard stretch of a road. Or even just a single house.

If Postcode starts with, and there is a number at the place of *

• WC*
• EC*
• E*
• W*
• N*
• S*
• SE*
• SW*
• NW*
• then it’s London

For example, the Postcode for 10 Downing Street is SW1A 2AA Buckingham Palace is SW1A 1AA

London doesn’t have zip codes … exactly. We have postal codes, and each one is different depending on where you live: north, southeast, or west. And sometimes even how far down a street you live. The good thing about it is that you can give someone a house number and the street code and end up at their door with no more information than that.

Codes are made up of 2 letters and either 1 or 2 letters space and then a number followed by two letters: example: NW6 5BQ… I have no idea if that exists.. but NW6 does (Northwest London). Then you have towns, Camden, Ealing, Islington, Greenwich, etc. It’s easier when you’re used to it, a nightmare if you’re trying to figure it out! I hope that helps!

ZIP Code Wall Map of New London

Elements of a Postcode

The first part of the Postcode, e.g., PO1, is called the outward code as it identifies the town or district to which the letter is to be sent for further sorting.

The second part of the Postcode, e.g., 1EB, is called the inward code. This identifies the particular sector in the town or district to which the letter has been delivered and a thoroughfare, part of a thoroughfare, or an individual address within that sector.  The maximum number of delivery points covered by one Postcode is 100, and the average is 15.

Postcode Area

This is the largest geographical unit of the Postcode. Each one comprises one or two alpha characters generally chosen to be a mnemonic of the area, e.g., MK for Milton Keynes and SO for Southampton. There are currently 124 Postcode areas, including Guernsey (GY), Jersey (JE), and the Isle of Man (IM).

Postcode District

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Each postcode area is divided into a number of districts, which are represented by the numerical portion of each part of the Postcode.

These numbers range from 0 to 99, e.g. MK42. In London, a further alpha character is used to divide some districts into subdivisions, e.g., EC1A.

Postcode sectors

Sectors are numbered 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0.

It should be noted that when sorting postcodes into order, sector 0 is the tenth sector rather than the first.

ZIP Code of London

Many respondents have already pointed out the basic problems underlying this question:

1. The UK does not have Zip codes but a much more focused postcode which covers, on average, about 10 to 15 addresses (some many more and some far less)
2. London is a large urban mass, and having a ‘Zip Code’ covering the addresses of the 8 million residents and the hundreds of thousands of business addresses would be as effective in pinpointing a specific address as it would if New York City were to have just one Zip Code.

What does not seem to have been highlighted is that London was effectively the birthplace of postal coding systems – because it was already a very large and densely populated place when the universal postal system was introduced by the British Parliament, which was and remains, based in London.

The original postal district covered over 240 square miles when the universal post was established with the Penny post in the 1840s. London’s urban population was still growing, as was the volume of posts, and by the 1850s, it was necessary to divide London into smaller chunks, each new district with its main sorting office.

These were based on the points of the compass:

• North (N)
• Northwest (NW)
• North-East (NE)
• South (S)
• South-West (SW)
• Southeast (SE)
• East (E)
• West (W)
• Then, the two central districts
• East Central (EC)
• West Central (WC)

South was later abolished and merged between SE and SW, as was NE, which merged with E. Each district has a ‘Head District,’ which is where the primary district sorting office would be found (not always the case today), with sub-sorting offices where the ‘walks’ for delivery were assembled around the remainder of the district.

As an example, the SW postal district straddles the Thames but had its Head District (SW1) in the vicinity of Westminster, where the Post Office expected the highest volume and the post of the highest importance.

The rest of the district was divided into sub-districts, which were numbered consecutively based on the initial letter of the town or center in which the local office was based. This district was a center of population growth, which led to further divisions and a new Head, District SW11; similarly, the satellites were numbered in the same fashion:

SW2 is Brixton, SW3 is Chelsea, SW4 is Clapham, SW5 is Earl’s Court, etc.

SW12 is Balham, SW13 is Barnes, SW14 is Mortlake, SW15 is Putney, etc. In my lifetime, we had the next part of the codes added. My old home in the Brixton area is now SW2 2DH. 

There are about five codes covering that one street of about 100 houses. Really high-density or high-volume areas had an additional digit added, so, for example, SW1A 1AA is one of the postal codes for the House of Commons in the Houses of Parliament in Westminster (The Head District for SW).

That’s just for the Victorian London Postal District; Greater London is now much bigger and includes postcodes that reflect the names of the larger towns that were brought into London in 1965. Croydon, for instance, has CR0 (unusual for a zero to be used). Still, its original Head District was based on the old sorting office in Old Town (it now shares facilities with many other districts near Gatwick Airport).

ZIP Code Wall Map of London, AR ZIP Code Map Laminated

• Wall Map
• Laminated
• Current Map Series
• City ZIP Code Map
• 24-inch x 15 inch

This A-Z London Postcode Map with Administrative Boundaries is a full-color, double-sided map. Side one features a Greater London Postcode map, while the reverse features a Greater London Administrative Boundaries Map. Both maps cover the whole of the Greater London area and extend beyond the M25 motorway to CheshamWaltham.

ildfordWindsorBeaconsfieldThe Postcode Map of London on side one includes post towns with their boundaries, Postcode districts with their boundaries, and Postal county names. 

The Administrative Boundaries Map of London on side two shows Greater London County boundaries, Unitary Authority boundaries, and District boundaries.

On both sides, the A-Z main road mapping is used as the base map; however, there is no index to the main road, place, and area names shown on the map. 

The boundaries of both the London congestion charge zone and London low emission zone are also shown on side one (the Postcode Map of London) and side two (the Administrative Boundaries Map of London).

What is the zip code of London, UK?

By the 1850s, the rapid growth of the metropolitan area meant it became too large to operate efficiently as a single post town. A Post Office inquiry into the problem had been set up in 1837, and a House of Commons committee was initiated in 1843. In 1854, Charles Canning, the Postmaster-General, set up a committee at the Post Office in St.  Martin’s Le Grand to investigate how London could best be divided for the purposes of directing mail.

In 1856, of the 470 million items of mail sent in the United Kingdom during the year, approximately one-fifth (100 million) were for delivery in London, and half of these (50 million items) also originated there. 

The General Post Office, under the control of the Postmaster-General, devised the area in 1856. Sir Rowland Hill [3] produced an almost perfectly circular area of 12 miles (19 km) radius from the central post office at St. Martin’s Le Grand in central London.

As originally devised, it extended from Waltham Cross in the north to Carshalton in the south and from Romford in the east to Sunbury in the west — six counties at the time, including the City of London. Within the district, it was divided into two central areas and eight compasses. 

Each was named “London” with a suffix (EC, WC, N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, and NW) indicating the area it covered; each had a separate head office. The system was introduced in 1857 and completed on 1 January 1858.

Postcode	Ward	Northing
E1 6AN	Bishopsgate	181747
E1 7AA	Portsoken	181382
E1 7AD	Portsoken	181368
E1 7AE	Portsoken	181385

What is the ZIP Code of London

• E1 7DA
• E1 7BT
• E1 7DB
• E1 7DD
• Portsoken
• Aldgate
• Portsoken
• Bishopsgate
• 533553
• 533519
• 533503
• 533400

Are there ZIP codes in the UK?

Why are Zip Codes in the UK different? While they do use an equivalent of American zip codes in the UK, they are different from what you may be used to seeing. The British version is known as Postal codes or Postcodes and is formatted as letters and numbers.

What is the central London postcode?

An example postcode for Central London (Westminster) is SW1V 3JD (JSON).

How do I find my ZIP code in the UK?

Royal Mail Go to Royalmail.com/find-a-postcode, enter your street address, town, or city, and click Find postcode. Everything is fast and easy! While typing, you’ll get search suggestions. Note that UK zip codes have a special format with outward (postcode area) and inward (postal district) parts, e.g., SW19 3AR.

Have you been searching for London zip codes but need help finding them? That’s because the United Kingdom doesn’t use zip codes but instead uses postal codes, also known as postcodes. The postcodes in the UK incorporate letters and numbers used by the Royal Mail for its delivery system in the country.

What is the ZIP Code of London?

What you call zip codes, we call postcodes. When I was driving in LA, the zip code for our hotel was CA91016, with the first two letters denoting the state.

When we were in Las Vegas, it was NV89103, ‘NV’ for Nevada, and the remaining five digits denoted the block of buildings where our hotel was situated. In the UK, it’s a little less straightforward.

The post code formats in the UK are usually A1 9CD or A12 9CD or AB1 9CD or AB12 9CD or in parts of central London AB1C 9DE

For example, my flat is SW2 4QE, my university is WC1N 2NF, and my doctor’s surgery is E3 5QT.

There are currently 124 postal areas (the newest being E20, created around 2012 during the London Olympics). Within these postal areas, there are 11,200 postcodes (aka Zip codes), which is what you tap into the satnav (e.g., E20 4WF).

In my area, about 100 houses share my postcode of SW2 4QE.

Outside of London, in the smaller towns, the postcode format is more straightforward; for example, in Bristol, every postcode begins with BS (e.g., BS14 8WR); in nearby Bath, everyone starts with BA.

What is the ZIP Code of London?

The UK does not have “Zip codes.” It has “Postcodes.” These operate at the very local level, each postcode covering typically a few dozen private addresses or a handful of commercial ones.

The postcode is in three segments: alphabetic, signifying a town, city, or London area; a numeric sub-area; and a discrete alphanumeric local area signifier for the most granular level. So, for example, completely at random,

E17 8EG refers to East London sub-area 17 local signifier 8EG for odd-numbered houses in Harris Street. NW1 3SX refers to the North West London sub-area, one local signifier for several Flats in Richmond House Park Village East.

You can search addresses and related postcodes in the Royal Mail Postcode Finder online. A postcode used in a SatNav typically takes you within 50 yards of your intended destination in urban areas.

What’s the United Kingdom postal code format?

Each postcode consists of two parts. The first part is the outward postcode or outcode. A single space separates this from the second part, 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 will 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.

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The following is a list of the valid formats of postcodes. An ‘A’ indicates an alphabetic character, and an ‘N’ indicates a numeric character.

Format

• Outcode Incode Example
• AN NAA = M1 1DB
• ANN NAA = M60 1NW
• AAN NAA = CR2 6XH
• AANN NAA = DN55 1PT
• ANA NAA = W1P 1HQ
• AANA NAA = EC1A 1BB

The following characters are never used in the inward part of the postcode:

C I K M O V

How is the postcode read, for example, 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.

PO1 3AX. The AX completes the postcode. The last two letters define the ‘unit postcode,’ which identifies one or more small user delivery points or a large individual user. There are approximately 1.71 million unit postcodes in the UK.

Additionally, (thanks, Kevin) there are non-geographical postcodes used by large corporations, government offices, and the military. The DVLA and HMRC would be the most common ones people would come across. 

HMRC has half a dozen postcodes for different departments: self-assessment, employer NI, VAT, etc. For example, you would send your letter to “HMRC BX9 1AS” for self-assessment queries without any street address.

What is the ZIP Code of London?

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