Zip code length in uk

As already raised by neil-mcguigan, wikipedia has a decent page on the topic. But it is generally hard to prevent someone, somewhere from deciding to get "creative" and stuff 50 characters into a VARCHAR2 50 field for one reason or another i. You also have to deal with testing the boundary cases will every application that displays a ZIP handle 50 characters? And with the fact that when clients are retrieving data from the database, they are generally allocating memory based on the maximum size of the data that will be fetched, not the actual length of a given row.

Probably not a huge deal in this specific case, but 40 bytes per row could be a decent chunk of RAM for some situations. Postal codes might be used more than once, and might be related to street names or town names. Separate table s. By work, I mean do special processing for rather than just use to print address labels and so on.

Do you really need to group your orders or transactions by postcode? I think not, since different countries have vastly different schemes for this field. If you want to integrate postal codes in database then geonames database is best to use.

Even though it is tough to use and understand but it is the largest geographical database available freely to users like us. All the other such database are more or less likely have same data and structure. If you are just doing it for low load systems use their free services the limits are attractive and provides more easy interface using json and ajax. You can view the limits here. How are we doing? Please help us improve Stack Overflow. Take our short survey. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. I need to store postal codes in a database. How big should the column be? Ask Question. Asked 13 years, 1 month ago. Active 5 years ago. Viewed 95k times. US Zips are 9. Canadian is 7. I am thinking 32 characters would be reasonable upper limit What am I missing? Improve this question. Postcode sector is made up of the postcode district, the single space, and one more alphanumeric.

It is between four and six characters long including the single space. Examples of postcode sectors include "SO15 2", "DN16 1". The postcode unit is two characters added to the end of the postcode sector. You can search for postcode by search or by point on the map. The procedure are called, forward geocoding and reverse geocoding. For example, the GU postcode area, named after Guildford, covers much of southern England.

GU1 and GU2 are the postcode districts for Guildford. Woking, a post town in the GU22 postal district, is 6 miles away. These are treated either alphabetically particularly in London, where Chingford is E4 and Walthamstow is E17 or geographically the Outer Hebrides area HS numbers the districts north to south.

As a rule, large post towns have higher-numbered districts in the outlying areas. However, the post towns within a postal area can be numbered for various reasons. Except for the town named after the postal area, this is always 1.

The postcode alone cannot reliably infer a postcode district's centrality within a postcode area. Check the postcode. Postcodes are used for many purposes besides mail sorting, such as calculating insurance premiums, routing software, and census enumeration. In addition to storing postcode boundaries, the Postcode Address File database also stores full address data for approximately 29 million addresses delivery points. In , London was divided into broad numbered subdivisions, which were expanded to other cities in However, this is against Royal Mail guidelines, which require a complete address.

Formatting Postcodes are alphanumeric and range from 6 to 8 characters including a space. The outward code and the inward code are separated by a single space in each postcode. The postcode area and district make up the outward code. The inward code is the postcode sector and unit. Postcodes are used to sort letters manually using labeled frames or increasingly with letter-coding systems with machine assistance.

Automated sorting that reads printed postcodes is best suited for mail with a consistent layout and addressing format. A long string of "faced" letters is presented to a keyboard operator at a coding desk who types the postcodes in coloured phosphor dots onto the envelopes. The associated machine uses these dots to direct letter bundles into the appropriate delivery office-specific bags.

The bundles can be further sorted using the dots of the inward sorting code, ensuring that each delivery round receives only its own letters. This feature is only used in large sorting offices that handle high volumes of mail. In the absence of postcodes, the operator reads the post town's name and inserts a code sufficient for outward sorting to the post town. The letter bundles are transported to the delivery office by road, air, or train.

Manually handled mail is "set in," i. The latter is now being automated by walk sequencing machines. They read the postcode and convert it to two phosphorus barcodes, which the machines then print and read, sorting the mail to the correct outward postcode. An item with an inward-facing phosphorous barcode has an outer-facing phosphorous barcode. The UK is Europe's biggest island.