Land Use Features

The OS National Geographic Database (NGD) Land Use Features Collection gives you access to the most current and comprehensive land use sites and access data captured by Ordnance Survey.

Example image showing what two of the feature types in the Land Use Features Collection look like in the data. A background map has been included to provide context.

A land use site is a geographic representation of an area that can be identified as being used for a particular purpose, for example, a school, shopping centre, or private residence. It seeks to define the extent of the activity, and while this may be similar to or the same as the ownership information provided by HM Land Registry (HMLR) or Registers of Scotland (RoS), it should not be regarded as representing legal extents or ownership.

Collection applications

The OS NGD Land Use Features Collection allows you to:

• Ensure your land use data is always completely up to date, with up to daily updates.

• Access all our land use sites and access locations data from one place.

• Visualise and analyse data based on the extent of areas with different types of land use, including amongst others, residential, education, greenspaces, hospitals, and transport hubs.

• Quickly interpret the land use which is happening at a given site, using the description or land use attribute value (such as private residential, primary school, golf course).

• Analyse the number and location of sites with a given land use across areas or regions (such as locating all the schools in a county).

• Understand the location of access points into major sites (such as train stations, schools, and public parks) and how these sites are accessed from the road network.

Key elements

• Up to daily updates to data.

• Plug and play – the data is simple and quick to implement as you don't need to pre-process it before you use it.

• Rich attribution ensures the data is straightforward to navigate and query.

• Persistent unique identifiers with lifecycle information.

• Includes Sites for a wide range of land use types all in one dataset.

• Consistent classifications.

• Name attribution for non-residential sites (if known).

• Millions of new sites, including sites representing areas with residential land use.

• Further sites for non-residential land use to be added over time.

• Site access location and routing points with links to OS NGD transport networks.

Coverage

Great Britain.

Default coordinate reference system

British National Grid (EPSG: 27700).

Temporal filtering

The earliest date on which you can request a one-off snapshot of a date in the past for data in this collection is noted at the top of the individual feature type pages.

Supply formats

GeoPackage, CSV (comma-separated values), GeoJSON or vector tiles (the latter format is only available for one feature type in the collection: Site).

Supply mechanism

Accessed through the OS Data Hub via:

• OS Select+Build

• OS NGD API – Features

• OS NGD API – Tiles (only available for one feature type in the collection: Site)

Using our data

• Included in the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA) – therefore, it's free at point of use for Public Sector organisations.

• Available to OS Partners for commercial resell in your solutions.