science

National Street Gazetteer

National Street Gazetteer is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand National Street Gazetteer rather than just read about it. In short: The National Street Gazetteer (NSG) is an official database of all streets in England and Wales. It is compiled by the company GeoPlace from Local Street Gazetteers data, which is updated every month by the 175 local highway authorities.

Key takeaways

National Street Gazetteer belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect National Street Gazetteer to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of National Street Gazetteer from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The National Street Gazetteer (NSG) is an official database of all streets in England and Wales. It is compiled by the company GeoPlace from Local Street Gazetteers data, which is updated every month by the 175 local highway authorities. NSG acts as the authoritative reference dataset for streets in England and Wales. Access is restricted to local authorities and statutory undertakers (e.g. for maintenance or installing services). A public version of the data is made available at www.findmystreet.co.uk, a website by Exegesis which was commissioned by GeoPlace in 2018. The database has 1,486,432 million streets backed by 18,865,643 features.

History Originally the NSG was managed by Ordnance Survey (OS). However, it became clear that OS was unwilling or unable to provide a rigorous management of the service. Part of this may have been because OS was operating outside of their acknowledged expertise in mapping rather than data management, although it has been suggested that OS simply saw no commercial advantage in developing the NSG. In May 2005 the Mapping Services Agreement (MSA) was signed with local authorities. This was part of a long drawn out process of procurement for mapping data and included management of the NSG and the NLPG. The outcome of agreement involved the loss of the custodianship by OS of the NSG which was awarded to the data management company Intelligent Addressing Ltd who were already managers of the NLPG.

Data flows and standards In the United Kingdom local authorities have responsibility for the creation and maintenance of Local Street Gazetteers (LSGs). The NSG brings together the knowledge spread across local authorities and is a repository for combining the local street gazetteers they are required to keep. Maintenance of the NSG is covered by the National Streetworks Register legislation and is a statutory requirement of local authorities. On a monthly basis, highway authorities are required to upload their street gazetteers, along with Associated Street Data (ASD), to the NSG; a master index built to the national standard BS 7666, for access by a number of other organisations via the NSG online hub and managed by GeoPlace. This enables third-party organisations such as public utilities to meet their statutory requirements to provide the appropriate streetworks notifications. In effect, the NSG has become the authoritative streets database in England and Wales and provides a definitive identification of all streets with the use of a Unique Street Reference Number (USRN). The NSG has exceeded its initial aims to provide a consistent and unambiguous identification of streets and their associated streetworks. The street gazetteer has become a foundation for the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG). It has also become the basis for Transport for London's (TfL) road network through the Pan London Street Gazetteer.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with National Street Gazetteer

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what National Street Gazetteer claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to National Street Gazetteer before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about National Street Gazetteer ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of National Street Gazetteer

In research: National Street Gazetteer appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses National Street Gazetteer in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: National Street Gazetteer is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Databases in England, Databases in Wales, Gazetteers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for National Street Gazetteer outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study National Street Gazetteer in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what National Street Gazetteer means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain National Street Gazetteer out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is National Street Gazetteer in simple terms?

Why does National Street Gazetteer matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study National Street Gazetteer?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on National Street Gazetteer.