About this converter
UK Geospatial Converter converts between the location formats used across the UK and Ireland:
OS Grid References (the British National Grid used on Ordnance Survey maps of
England, Scotland and Wales), Irish Grid References (used in Northern Ireland
and the Republic of Ireland), Easting/Northing (OSGB36), decimal
Latitude/Longitude (WGS84), and full or partial UK postcodes —
including their ITL1/ITL2/ITL3 region. Paste one location per line, or upload a CSV, and see
every format side by side on an interactive map.
Frequently asked questions
How does the converter calculate each format?
Latitude/Longitude (WGS84) is the hub every input converts to first, and every
other format shown is then derived from that shared point.
-
OS Grid Reference ⇄ Easting/Northing — calculated directly using Ordnance
Survey's own published British National Grid transformation formulae (Airy 1830 ellipsoid +
Helmert datum shift). Pure maths, no external service is called. Easting/Northing is the raw
numbers; OS Grid Reference is the same numbers in OS's letter-plus-digits shorthand.
-
Irish Grid Reference ⇄ its own Easting/Northing — calculated the same way,
using the separate published Irish Grid formulae used across Northern Ireland and Ireland.
-
Postcode → coordinate (Great Britain) — the postcode is sent to the free
postcodes.io API (built from
the ONS Postcode Directory / Code-Point Open), which returns its latitude/longitude plus a
Local Authority District code. That code is matched against a bundled ONS-derived lookup table
to get the ITL1/ITL2/ITL3 region.
-
Coordinate → postcode (reverse lookup) — the converted coordinate is sent to
postcodes.io's nearest-postcode search. If nothing comes back within its 2km search limit, the
tool falls back to its own bundled postcode-boundary dataset (a Voronoi tessellation, where
"nearest" is well-defined for every point) and, failing that, to the nearest postcode district
— which is why a non-postcode input's Postcode column is marked as approximate.
-
Northern Ireland postcodes — postcodes.io doesn't cover NI (different licensing
to the GB data), so NI postcode lookups use a small bundled sample dataset at district-level
accuracy only, not a live API call.
What is an OS Grid Reference?
An OS Grid Reference (e.g. "NT 257 735") is the alphanumeric coordinate system Ordnance Survey
uses on its maps of Great Britain, based on the British National Grid. This tool converts OS
Grid References to and from postcodes, Easting/Northing, and Latitude/Longitude.
Can I convert a UK postcode to a grid reference or Lat/Long?
Yes — paste a full or partial postcode (e.g. "SW1A 1AA" or just "SW1A") and it converts to OS
Grid Reference, Easting/Northing, Latitude/Longitude, and identifies the postcode's ITL1/ITL2/ITL3
region.
Does this work for Northern Ireland postcodes and grid references?
Yes. Northern Ireland uses the Irish Grid rather than the British National Grid, and this tool
automatically detects and converts both Irish Grid References and Northern Ireland postcodes.
Can I convert lots of locations at once?
Yes — paste up to 2000 locations (one per line) or upload a CSV, then download the results as
CSV or Excel.
Is this an official Ordnance Survey or Royal Mail tool?
No. This is an independent tool built using published open coordinate-conversion formulae and
open postcode data — it is not affiliated with or endorsed by Ordnance Survey, Royal Mail, or
the Office for National Statistics.