Interestingly, there are no polygons for UK postcodes, because UK postcodes don’t represent a geographical area; instead, they represent one or more discrete points.

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xp84 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

ZIPs don't represent areas either. They represent routes, so a collection of paths on a road map is bundled together and named with a ZIP. If you built a new house in between towns, whichever post office decides to serve it would extend one of their lines to go past your house, and then you are assigned that ZIP code. Since it's all based on their convenience, they don't pay any mind to things like city limits or even in some cases state lines.

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russdill an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Given how postcodes are supposed to work, this is what I would expect. Curious if many of the polygons in the data set contain more than one polygon and or if there is any overlap

	▲	kube-system an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> how postcodes are supposed to work Not sure under what basis you think they are "supposed" to be a certain way but postal codes originated as a signifiers of areas, even in the UK. US postal codes absolutely have overlap in area, because they do not divide land, they direct delivery routing.

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EwanToo 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I know what you're saying, but Ordnance Survey sells the polygons anyway.

https://docs.os.uk/osngd/data-structure/administrative-and-s...

	▲	cjs_ac an hour ago \| parent [-]
		That’s naughty of them. I wonder how SW1A 1AA (Buckingham Palace) and SW1A 0AA (the House of Commons) are represented.