Geocodio has long supported geocoding in the US and Canada and more recently, Mexico. With the release of API v2.0, we've now expanded our country coverage to include the United Kingdom: forward and reverse geocoding, address parsing and standardization, and UK political districts at three levels. 🇬🇧

API v2.0: Now More International

API v2.0 internationalizes our API response and paves the way for further country-coverage expansion. (Up next: Australia and NZ!)

Note: if you prefer, you can access UK data on older API versions without the new field names. 

What changes in v2.0:

• zip becomes postal_code

• state becomes state_province

• secondaryunit becomes unit_type

• secondarynumber becomes unit_number

• A new nation field returned in UK results (England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland)

• A new building_name field populated for matched UK premises

• The top-level input wrapper is gone. results is the sole payload.

Geocodio’s UK Coverage

Geocodio’s coverage for the UK includes forward geocoding, reverse geocoding, address correction, data enrichment (timezones and political districts), and distance. 

Forward Geocoding for the UK

Send a UK address to Geocodio and get back latitude/longitude coordinates with parsed, standardized address fields. Geocodio's address parser also handles missing postcodes, missing towns, misspelled streets, jumbled components, and lower-cased input.

This works across all of Geocodio's tools:

• API: Pass UK addresses to the /geocode endpoint. View docs

• Spreadsheet uploads: Upload a spreadsheet of UK addresses and get coordinates back.

• Maps: Geocode and map UK addresses in Geocodio Maps.

Rooftop precision is even available for named houses without a street number, such as  Rose Cottage, High Street, Teddington, TW11 8HG.

Please note:

• The city/town returned is the postal town. If you’d also like the geographic town returned, please let us know.

• The county returned is the administrative county. If you need ceremonial counties as well, please let us know.

• For Northern Ireland, only postcode-level results are currently available. We hope to improve this in the future.

Reverse Geocoding for the UK

Convert UK latitude/longitude coordinates into addresses using the API or spreadsheet upload.

UK Political District Appends

Geocodio has long been a reliable source for US and Canadian political district data, even with frequent redistricting, and we’re excited to bring that focus to the UK. (Fittingly, Scotland redistricted during the UK geocoding beta period, so we’ve already been through a round of updated districts.)  

Geocodio can append three categories of UK political district data, which can be requested separately or together via the fields parameter.

• Westminster (UK Parliament) constituencies: all 650 seats across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

• Devolved parliament districts: the Scottish Parliament (constituency + region), Senedd Cymru (constituency + region), and Northern Ireland Assembly. (England does not have a devolved parliament.)

• Local government districts: wards across all four nations, plus County Electoral Divisions for two-tier English council areas like Surrey and Hampshire.

Every district response row includes the GSS code, name, nation (ENG, SCT, WLS, or NIR), district type, and source. The UK political district field appends also include support for upcoming boundary changes with a matching -next variant.

For the full reference (every district type, GSS prefix table, OCD ID coverage, edge cases) and to see a sample response with all three field appends requested, see our Data Appends Guides →.

Storage Terms: As Permissive as Possible

One of the key reasons many people choose Geocodio is that we allow you to store the results. Results storage beyond a temporary cache is prohibited by most geocoding services, and if they do allow you to store data longer than 30 days, it’s significantly more expensive. 

The good news: For forward geocoding, address correction, and data appends, you can still store the results however you wish.

However, for reverse geocoding, any matched addresses need to be deleted one year after your subscription expires. This is as permissive as our underlying data provider, Royal Mail, will allow, and is unfortunately the cost of having the most accurate results.

For full details, please see the UK Data Services Attachment.

How to Get Started

Try out any UK address below. No signup required.

Enabling UK Access for Your Account

Before you can request UK data from Geocodio, please choose a UK-enabled plan. All Flex plans include UK, and you can choose a UK-enabled version of Unlimited. You will also need to sign a Terms of Use addendum for licensing reasons. You can do both on your dashboard.

Flex Plan Options

Note that UK address/coordinate lookups cost 2 credits. See here for more information on Flex plans.

Unlimited + UK Plan Options

In the Agreements section of the dashboard, you can also sign our UK GDPR DPA if desired. (Custom DPAs are only available for Enterprise.)

Making UK requests

Once UK access is enabled on your account, no additional configuration is required. UK geocoding, address standardization, and the political district appends are all available via API and spreadsheet upload. Just make sure to include the country in your request:

• When starting from addresses (forward geocoding), include the country in your API request or formatted spreadsheet. 

• UK, GB, United Kingdom, and Great Britain are all accepted. 

• Otherwise, the geocoding engine defaults to the US.

For UK political district appends, add one or more of uk-westminster, uk-devolved, or uk-local to the fields parameter. You can combine multiple appends in a single request:

GET https://api.geocod.io/v1.12/geocode
  ?q=10+Downing+Street,+London+SW1A+2AA
  &country=GB
  &fields=uk-westminster,uk-devolved,uk-local
  &api_key=YOUR_API_KEY

• Full API reference

• UK political districts guides

Questions? Suggestions?

If you have questions,  run into any unexpected results, or have suggestions for other data appends you’d like us to add, you can always reach us  at [email protected].