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Revision and Update of Ordnance Survey products

Ordnance Survey revision policy

Ordnance Survey have created and continue to maintain the National Topographic Database. This Database is their record of the topographic features in Great Britain at any time. All of their map and data products are derived from this database. Ordnance Survey revise the database to reflect changes in the real world, and in doing so apply a series of priorities. For these priorities, Ordnance Survey categorise change into 4 different categories. The table below describe these categories.

Ordnance Survey data categories and their revision
  What it includes OS revision policy
Category 1
  • housing and associated features
  • commercial, industrial, community and public buildings and associated features
  • communications (roads, railways, airports, transmission lines) and associated features
  • distinctive names
Technique
  • continuous revision in urban, rural and moorland areas
Frequency
  • revision period 6 months
Category 2 No longer used
Category 3
  • agricultural and horticultural buildings
  • quarries and other surface workings
  • field boundaries
  • water features
  • forestry and other vegetation
  • tracks and paths
  • other rural features
Technique
  • cyclic revision in rural and moorland areas.
Frequency
  • revision period 5 years in rural areas and 10 years in moorland areas.
  • not currently programmed for revision in urban areas.
Category 4
  • private garages
  • extensions and other minor alterations to buildings and features in Category 1
  • telephone call boxes, letter boxes
  • mean high water, mean low water
Frequency
  • not currently programmed for revision in urban, rural, or moorland areas except where affected by changes to features in Categories 1 and 3
Category 5
  • archaeological information
  • changes to contours in Land-Form PROFILE height products
Frequency
  • archaeological change in urban, rural and moorland areas is incorporated according to a national programme agreed with English Heritage.
  • changes to Land-Form PROFILE contours revised at the same time as associated features.

Continuous revision

Continuous revision is the process currently applied in urban, rural and moorland areas to capture major changes (Category 1) in the landscape such as large housing developments, commercial developments and major road and railway construction. Continuous revision is applied equally to new construction and demolition. Changes are captured within six months of building completion or demolition. These changes are captured using either ground or aerial survey methods or a combination of both.

Cyclic revision

Cyclic revision is the process of sweeping through rural areas over a five year period and moorland areas over a ten year period, to capture general revision information in Category 3. Major changes to the landscape in these areas (Category 1) that occur between revision cycles are captured by continuous revision.

Supply of updates to Digimap

The Ordnance Survey products within Digimap are updated as listed in the table below. The Land-Form PANORAMA™ product is a snapshot product, and the Ordnance Survey do not update it. If this changes, we anticipate that updated editions of these products will be available through Digimap

Updates of OS products from Digimap
Ordnance Survey product Digimap View Frequency of update Date of creation of data currently within Digimap
Land-Line.Plus® Detailed No longer updated No longer available
OS MasterMap® Topography and ITN Detailed Annual May 2009
OS MasterMap® in Data Download n/a Bi-annual May 2009
Meridian™2 District Annual January 2009
Land-Form PANORAMA™ District not updated November 1993
Land-Form PROFILE n/a Infrequent August 2003
1:50,000 Colour Raster Local Annual August 2009
1:25,000 Colour Raster Neighbourhood Annual May 2009
1:10,000 Raster Street Annual June 2009
Strategi® Regional Annual January 2009
1:50,000 Scale Gazetteer n/a Annual May 2009
Code-Point® with Polygons Postcode Query Annual March 2009
Boundary-Line n/a Annual April 2009 - NTF format
May 2009 - other formats