Glossary of terms

Administrative geography is a way of dividing the UK’s national geography according to local authority or governmental areas. Used by local and national government to define areas of responsibility, it has grown organically over time and is very complex to try and accommodate the country’s varying constituencies and governmental boundaries. Admin areas are not fixed, and each area is subject to periodic change.

Administrative geography is used for census taking and demographic measurement, the creation of electoral constituencies for all levels of government and to help plan service provision in the public, administration and health sectors.

It is normally independent from postcode geography, although some areas resemble their postcode boundaries, which presents challenges in matching up private and public sector geodata.

Attribute data in terms of geographical analysis is the data to be displayed and analysed within a GIS. Normally held as a spreadsheet, CSV, or database file, this data is then plotted by a GIS into vector data and displayed over the background map / raster. This data could really be anything, but in terms of our work it is often site locations, sales territories, competitor, customer, or resident data.

Bedroom standard is a method used to calculate the number of bedrooms needed in geodemographic data.

• Two adults living as a couple need a bedroom
• Single adults over 21 need a room
• Under 21s can share with a same sex relative
• Under 10s can share with any other related under 10
• Under 21s that are unrelated need a bedroom each

The British Population Survey (BPS) was a survey of household income and shopping habits collected by face-to-face interviews between 2008 and 2015.

Branches are the second tier of detail in the P² People & Places geodemographic classification. Sitting below "Trees" in the data, they break the population down into 44 clusters, including an Unclassified cluster.

In geodata analysis a Buffer is an area created by measuring a specific distance from a feature such as a point, line, or polygon. This then allows proximity analysis around the key shape. For example, you might want to create a buffer around a residential street to notify residents of roadworks that will affect them.

In data mapping, a catchment is the area which forms the audience or responsibility of an account manager or store. Also known as a territory when used by sales teams or regional outlets to define the area which they serve or could reasonably expect customers to travel from.

The Census is conceived, collected, collated and released by three government offices covering all of the UK.

• Office for National Statistics (ONS) in both England and Wales.
• National Records Scotland (NRS) for Scotland.
• Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) across Northern Ireland.

A choropleth, or choropleth map, more commonly known as a heat map, provides a way of visualising density or total value of attributes in an area.

Choropleth maps are especially useful when presenting numerical data over a large area or where a point-set map would be overwhelmed by the sheer number of points.

A cluster is a group of output areas that share similar characteristics. Produced by Principal Component Analysis.

Collins Bartholomew are a provider of high quality digital mapping products and printed maps. We use a selection of their maps to populate the rasters/background maps in some of our GIS products. We act as a re seller for their mapping data and products.

Demographic profiling, is a type of analysis used in business and marketing to better understand target markets and audiences. It works by classifying people into distinct groups with similar characteristics such as income or spending habits.

Once these demographic groups are isolated into distinct areas (ie. geography becomes involved), it is referred to as geodemographic analysis, and can be used to identify high-propensity target areas for new stores or marketing campaigns.

A household is considered "deprived", according to geodemographic classification, if it is affected in one or more of the following ways:

• Employment: Any member of the household aged 16-74, who is not a full-time student, is either unemployed or permanently sick.
• Education: No member of the household aged 16 to pensionable age has at least five GCSEs (grade A-C) or equivalent AND no member of the household aged 16 to 18 is in full-time education. For Scotland, the education level is at least one Standard Grade or equivalent which is a lower level.
• Health and disability: Any member of the household has general health “not good” in the year before the Census or has a limiting long-term illness.
• Housing: The household’s accommodation is either overcrowded OR is in a shared dwelling OR does not have sole use of bath/shower and toilet OR has no central heating.

Fusion Tables were a web service provided by Google to turn table data such as CSV files or spreadsheets into a visual format to assist in display, analysis, and decision making. Google announced that this service would be “retired” in December 2019 meaning that users would have to find alternatives. Data exported from Fusion Tables can easily be imported into our own online mapping and data visualisation tool, MapVision.

A Geographical Information System (or GIS) is also known as mapping software. It captures, stores, analyses, manages and presents data which is geographically referenced. This enables users to compare their data with demographic and consumer data and visualise trends locally and nationally.

A Geographical Information System (or GIS) is also known as mapping software. It captures, stores, analyses, manages and presents data which is geographically referenced. This enables users to compare their data with demographic and consumer data and visualise trends locally and nationally.

A Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based location and navigation system which uses multiple satellites around the earth to pinpoint an exact location. Most useful to our work are GPS coordinates, which are a universal identifier of a precise location on the earth shown as a series alphanumeric characters. This provides a universal alternative to less exact, or localised location measures, such as postcodes. As such, GPS coordinates are very useful for analysing location data.

Heat maps, or hot-cold maps, are known in a geographical context as choropleth maps. They provide a way of visualising density or total value of attributes in a defined area, such as a postcode area, district, or sector.

Heat maps are particularly useful when trying to present numerical data over a larger area or where a point-set map would be overwhelmed by the sheer number of points. A postcode heat map can provide a valuable first step in a complete geographical analysis, pinpointing areas in need of further analysis using tools such as point set maps.

HERE Technologies (formerly known as NAVTEQ) ) is a location data and technology company who work globally across a wide range of industries, including transport and logistics, mobility, manufacturing, retail, and the public sector. They are most well-known for their road network data which is commonly used in Satnav systems.

We source and supplement HERE data to enable our journey capture and outdoor advertising evaluation projects.

Someone is considered highly qualified, according to geodemographic profiling, if they have a degree level qualification or its equivalent.

Income, according to our own geodemographic profile data, is measured as household income before tax and is broken down into bands:

• Less than £11,499
• £11,500 to £17,499
• £17,500 to £24,499
• £24,500 to £29,999
• £30,000 to £39,999
• £40,000 to £49,999
• £50,000 to £74,999
• More than £75,000

Index values are a way of comparing two proportional values.

The index is the ratio of the two values expressed as a percentage.

Usually, less than 90 is considered to be below average and more than 110 is above average.

An isochrone, or isochrone map, defines an area reachable from a fixed point within certain criteria – for example time or distance.

A simple example would be a “crow fly” / straight line distance isochrone from a fixed point, which would appear as a fixed circle on a map. In transport and journey planning, isochrones are more difficult define as they often relate to on-road distance or drive-time, neither of which are likely to result in a neat circle.

Job sectors are based on the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) as used by the ONS and provided in Census data. Variables have been grouped to reflect the nature of UK employment. The service sector has some overlap with the Tourism and Knowledge intensive sectors.

Agriculture

• ISIC code A: This covers the exploitation of vegetable and animal resources. This comprises the activities of growing crops, raising animals, harvesting plants and animals from a farm or their natural habitats.

Manufacturing

• ISIC code C: This is the mechanical, physical or chemical transformation of materials, substances or components into new products. The raw materials used are the products of agriculture, fishing, mining or quarrying.

Service

• Wholesale and retail trade, ISIC code G: The wholesale and retail of any type of goods and services incidental to the sale of merchandise, Transport and storage, Accommodation and food service, Information and communication.
• Transport and storage, ISIC code H: Activities related to providing passenger or freight transport by rail, pipeline, road or air.
• Tourism, ISIC code I: The provision to customers of lodging and/or prepared meals, snacks or beverages for immediate consumption.
• Information and communication, ISIC code J: Publishing periodicals and books, recording and broadcasting of Film, TV and Radio, IT services and supply and Telecommunications.

Knowledge Intensive

• Information and communication, ISIC code J: Publishing periodicals and books, recording and broadcasting of Film, TV and Radio, IT services and supply and Telecommunications.
• Financial and insurance activities, ISIC codes K: Financial services, Insurance and Pension services and associated activities.
• Real Estate activities, ISIC code L: Marketing, selling and rental services for land and property.

Tourism

• ISIC code I: The provision to customers of lodging and/or prepared meals, snacks or beverages for immediate consumption.

A KML (Keyhole Markup Language) file is used to specify and record location data. Often distributed as a zipped or KMZ file. KML files are now commonplace when working with location data and are supported by a number of mapping or GIS systems, such as our own MapVision tool.

Sometimes known as 3D laser scanning, Lidar stands for Light Detection and Ranging - and you will find wide variations on how the letters are capitalised within the acronym. Lidar uses the reflections of pulsed laser light to create landscape images. It can be used to make high-resolution maps that can be used as background images / rasters within a GIS. This 3-Dimensional mapping is more suited to scientific disciplines such as geology, archaeology, or seismology than typical business use, where 2-Dimensional maps are as effective - and tend to be cheaper.

A Life stage is a stage or phase in life - such as being single, independent and working, being a parent of young children, or being an 'empty nester' (those whose children have recently left home).

Life-stage is often more relevant and useful for classification purposes than 'hard' demographics such as age. This is because people at the same life-stage generally have far more in common than those simply of the same age.

In demographic classification, limiting long-term illness covers any long-term illness, health problem or disability which limits the daily activities or work a person can do.

MapPoint was Microsoft’s desktop-based Geographical Information System (GIS). It was officially discontinued in December 2014. Now, after some years, even dedicated legacy users are having to find replacement solutions, as unresolved bugs, old map data, and incompatibility with other software become a major issue. Data exported from MapPoint as CSV or Excel files can easily be imported into our MapVision mapping system.

National Records of Scotland (NRS) produce and collect information about the Scottish population. As well as holding historic records for Scotland, this Non-Ministerial Department of the Scottish Government conduct the Census of Scotland’s population every 10 years.

Historically, newspaper readership has been used in demographic classifications to help illustrate a group's outlook and attitudes and create more realistic pen portraits of consumers:

• Broadsheets: These include newspapers such as The Times, The Guardian, The Independent and The Financial Times.
• Black Tops: These include newspapers like The Daily Mail and The Daily Express.
• Tabloids: These are also known as the red tops, such as The Sun, The Mirror, The Daily Star and The Daily Record

Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) is the main source of Official Statistics and social research on Northern Ireland. It is most notable for conducting the Census of Population in Northern Ireland every 10 years.

Non-residential in the UK technically refers to any structure which is not "fit" for human habitation. This is the rather stark definition used by HMRC.

In terms of mapping, Non-residential can refer to commercial or agricultural property, or any other structure not used as housing, for example schools or other educational establishments.

National Records of Scotland (NRS) produce and collect information about the Scottish population. As well as holding historic records for Scotland, this Non-Ministerial Department of the Scottish Government conduct the Census of Scotland’s population every 10 years.

National Statistics Socio-economic classification (NS-SeC) is the UK's official socio-economic classification. First used in the 2001 census the classification describes different occupation levels.

1. Higher managerial and professional occupations
2. Lower managerial and professional occupations
3. Intermediate occupations (clerical, sales, service)
4. Small employers and own account workers
5. Lower supervisory and technical occupations
6. Semi-routine occupations
7. Routine occupations
8. Never worked or long-term unemployed

Occupancy Rate is a measure of overcrowding. The rate is calculated by taking the number of bedrooms needed according to the Bedroom Standard from the actual number of bedrooms.

• An occupancy rate of 2 - indicates the dwelling has too few bedrooms and is overcrowded.
• An occupancy rate of 2 + indicates the house has more bedrooms than required and is not overcrowded.

In demographic profiling, occupations are split into broad categories to allow for menaingful comparison:

• Unskilled Manual: These are the workers, apprentices and trainees to skilled workers. This includes jobs like cleaner, porter, construction worker, machinist, mechanical fitter, gardener and warehouse worker.
• Skilled Manual: This includes all skilled manual workers and those manual workers with responsibility for other people. This includes jobs like automotive technician, carpenter, electrician, aviation mechanic, plumber, pipefitter and welder.
• Other White Collar: This includes jobs such as office workers that do not manage others or retail staff members.
• Managerial or Professional: These are people who have professional or higher education qualifications or manage teams of these types of people who have professional or higher education qualifications. This includes jobs like accountant, architect, doctor, lawyer and vet.

Great Britain’s national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey (OS) carries out the official surveying of GB, providing accurate and up-to-date geographic data. OS are one of the map providers with whom we work to populate our geographical information systems.

Public sector clients can often benefit from the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA), through which OS offer their maps free of charge for public sector use.

OS AddressBase is a dataset created by Ordnance Survey (OS) that brings together address data with exact coordinates and unique property references for every location in Great Britain. Available at several detail levels for residential or commercial properties, and updated every 6 weeks, this dataset can enhance databases, power location analysis projects, and target marketing campaign activity.

OS MasterMap is a comprehensive map of natural and manmade topography across Great Britain. Created by Ordnance Survey (OS) it details all major permanent features of the built and natural environment, giving them a specific location and area so detailed that it is often used in planning processes.

It is so comprehensive that it is offered as a modular product so clients only pay for the area and themed detail layer that they require. This product tends to be used by the public sector under the PSGA as this level of detail can be expensive for private sector clients.

OS Open Zoomstack is a vector map for the whole of Great Britain created by Ordnance Survey (OS). It allows you to display detailed features of natural or urban topography. As a vector file, you can select which features to display and each element can be coloured or themed making it very useful for rural or urban planning projects. OS Open Zoomstack is available within the MapVision data library.

Output Areas (OA's) were built from clusters of adjacent unit postcodes. They were designed to have similar population sizes and be as socially homogeneous as possible (based on tenure of household and dwelling type). Most OAs consist entirely of urban postcodes or entirely of rural postcodes, avoiding urban/rural mixes where possible. They are designed to sensibly represent the geographical area that they cover and allow for the comparison of geographical areas in a robust manner.

Used in administrative geography, OAs are sometimes further subdivided into Lower Super Output Area (LSOA): with a population below 1,000 people or 400 households, or Middle Super Output Area (MSOA) with population below 5,000 people or 2,000 households.

A point map (or point set map)is a way of illustrating fixed points on a map. The most common type is a postcode point map, where postcode geography is used to define where points sit on a map. However, any location reference can be used to create a point map, including: full or part UK postcodes, Ordnance Survey National Grid Reference or coordinates, latitude and longitude data, or centralised points calculated from administrative geography.

Presenting your data in this way lets you see a range of geographical data at-a-glance and allows for quick reference and data interrogation. Depending on the density of data, points might be styled differently, and be accompanied by labels or a key to demonstrate multiple data attributes. When used as part of a multi-layer geographical analysis, a point set map, is often complemented by one or more heat map layers to show these points in context.

A Greek term meaning “many sides”. In a mapping context, a polygon is a series of points that form a shape and define an area. This can be anything from an abstract shape defining a data boundary, a postcode sector, or even the outline of a country.

Postcode Address File (PAF) is a dataset that contains all known delivery points (letterboxes) and postcodes in the United Kingdom. It can be used to verify addresses and correct them for more accurate delivery and database management, or identify addresses in an area for marketing activity.

Created by the Royal Mail and updated quarterly, PAF is available at different detail levels with a corresponding change to cost:

• Full PAF: complete address for the property (not the owner).
• Part PAF: postcode and locality.
• The whole of the UK or just certain areas.

We are a Royal Mail licensed solutions provider so are able to help you source a PAF-based addressing solution.

Postcode geography is a way of dividing the UK into smaller areas following Royal Mail's postcode system. This provides several potential layers of detail:

• Postcode areas: the initials of a postcode.
• Postcode districts: the first half of the code.
• Postcode sectors: the second set of numbers.
• Postcode units: the most granular level taking into account the whole code including the final two letters.

Principal component analysis is a procedure for identifying a smaller number of uncorrelated variables, called "principal components", from a large set of data. The goal of principal components analysis is to explain the maximum amount of variance with the fewest number of principal components. Principal component analysis is commonly used in the social sciences, market research, and other industries that use large datasets.

Profiling is a way of identifying patterns in data (e.g. customer lifestyles) and using these patterns to find similar people in other geographic areas.

The Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA) - formerly the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA) - is a collective agreement between Ordnance Survey (OS) and the UK government to licence data to public sector bodies. This means that organisations in the public sector can benefit from free map data, making geographical analysis projects far more cost effective.

The Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA) - formerly the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA) - is a collective agreement between Ordnance Survey (OS) and the UK government to licence data to public sector bodies. This means that organisations in the public sector can benefit from free map data, making geographical analysis projects far more cost effective.

Rasters are the background map images within a Geographic Information System (GIS). Typically they will show geographical features, roads and buildings.

The The Retail Prices Index (RPI) measures inflation. The change in the cost of buying a 'standard' basket of products is calculated. RPI includes some housing costs like council tax or mortgage interest.

We use their postcode area and boundary data in our mapping tools to ensure accurate analysis, whilst their Postcode Address File (PAF) allows for accurate address verification and matching in client projects. We are a Royal Mail licensed solutions provider so are able to help you source a PAF-based addressing solution.

Trees are the first tier in our P² People & Places geodemographic classification data. They break the population down into 16 clusters, including an Unclassified cluster. The 16 Trees are further broken down into 44 Branches.

At each tier of P² People & Places, there is an unclassified cluster which describes people whose characteristics are too unique for them to fall comfortably into the standard categories. Those who are Unclassified make up 1.9% of the UK population.

UPRN, or Unique Property Reference Number, is a set of data held within Ordnance Survey’s OS AddressBase product. It provides a consistent identifier for every building within England. A UPRN records a structure’s exact location, the area it covers, and categorises its use e.g. residential or commercial. One aspect that marks it apart from Royal Mail’s PAF data is that it is applied to all buildings regardless of usage or whether it is populated or not.