Public data APIs
OS Names API
A free Ordnance Survey gazetteer API for Great Britain: look up 2.5 million places, roads, and postcodes by name, or find the nearest named place to a point.
- Pricing
- Free
- Login required
- Yes
- API available
- Yes
- License
- Open Government Licence v3.0 (attribution required).
- Last checked
- 2026-07-25
What it is
OS Names is Ordnance Survey’s free gazetteer API: a directory of about 2.5 million identifiable places in Great Britain — settlements, roads and road numbers, postcodes, and even forests — that you can query by name or by location. Call the Find endpoint with a place name or postcode, or give the Nearest endpoint a point and it returns the closest named places, which makes it a practical way to geocode your own data, link statistics or writing to a named place, or add simple lookup and navigation features without downloading OS’s full datasets. Honest boundaries: coverage is Great Britain only, it deliberately does not return residential addresses (that is the paid OS Places API), and calling it requires a free OS Data Hub account plus a project API key. The data is open under the Open Government Licence v3.0, so attribution is the main obligation. One thing we keep watching: OS lists its Open Names products on an indicative end-of-life roadmap with the alternative still “to be determined” — no withdrawal date is set and the documentation was updated in June 2026, but since OS did retire its Match and Cleanse API in March 2026, we re-check availability at every freshness review.
Why worth a look
A free Ordnance Survey gazetteer API for Great Britain: look up 2.5 million places, roads, and postcodes by name, or find the nearest named place to a point.
Good for
- Looking up where a place, road, or postcode in Great Britain sits without installing any data.
- Geocoding place names, or finding the nearest named location to a point for maps and statistics.
How to start
- Create a free OS Data Hub account, add a project API key, and call the Find endpoint with a place name.
- Try the interactive examples in the OS Names API docs before writing any code.
Best first click
Open the OS Names API documentation and try the interactive Find endpoint with a place name you know.
Trust facts
- Pricing
- Free
- Login required
- Yes
- Open source
- No
- API available
- Yes
- License
- Open Government Licence v3.0 (attribution required).
- Risk
- Listed on OS's indicative end-of-life roadmap as "Alternative TBD" (FY26/27–FY28/29) with no set withdrawal date; OS retired its Match and Cleanse API in March 2026, so availability is re-verified at each freshness check. Last human check: 2026-07-25.