Postcode

United Kingdom

There are 121 postcode areas in the UK, ranging widely in size from BT which covers the whole of Northern Ireland to WC for a small part of Central London. Postcode areas occasionally cross national boundaries, such as SY which covers a large, predominantly rural area from Shrewsbury and Ludlow in Shropshire, England, through to the seaside town of Aberystwyth, Ceredigion on Wales' west coast. There are a number of special purpose postcode areas that are "non-geographic" and which provide special routing instructions (such as parcel returns to online retailers). The three Crown dependencies and Gibraltar also use UK formatted postcodes. Some British Overseas Territories have adopted a single postcode for their territory that is very similar to the UK format.