The Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) is a unique number (a geocode) for every addressable location—e.g., a building, a bus stop, a post box, a feature in the landscape, or a defibrillator—in Great Britain[1] and can be found in Ordnance Survey's AddressBase databases. Over 42 million locations have UPRNs.[1]
For buildings, a UPRN provides a comprehensive, complete, consistent identifier throughout its life cycle, from planning permission through to demolition. For example, the UPRN for 10 Downing Street is 100023336956,[2] and that for Bristol Central Library is 000000199356.[3] UPRNs, of up to 12 digits allocated by OS and local authorities,[1] do not contain information about the location but identify records in the ONS UPRN Directory (ONSUD).
UPRNs and USRNs (Unique Street Reference Numbers)[4] are managed by GeoPlace,[5] a joint venture between the Local Government Association and Ordnance Survey to create a definitive national databases of addresses and streets, now available under an Open Government Licence (OGL).[6]
The Government Digital Service mandated the UPRN and USRN as "the public sector standard for referencing and sharing property and street information".[7]
The ONS UPRN Directory (ONSUD) relates the UPRN for each addressable location in Great Britain to a range of current statutory administrative, electoral, health and other area geographies. It also links UPRNs to 2011 Census Output Areas (OA) and Super Output Areas (SOA).[8] It is produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Geography group and is designed to complement the Ordnance Survey's AddressBase location intelligence databases.[9]
The ONSUD is issued every six weeks using information supplied by the OS AddressBase, and is available for free download in comma-separated values (CSV) format from the ONS Open Geography Portal. The content is broken down by region, with data for each supplied as a separate file (with a file each for Wales and Scotland).
In most instances, it relates UPRNs to geographic areas as at the end of the preceding year. The ONSUD uses the Government Statistical Service (GSS) standard 9-character codes throughout; lookup files linking these codes to statutory area names are provided.[10]
Each record in the ONSUD contains the following fields: