The OS MasterMap Topography layer is presented seamlessly with more than 500 Million real world objects – all uniquely identified - including roads, buildings, parks and waterways all managed and maintained by Ordnance Survey within one of the world’s largest spatial databases.
This product is updated every six weeks
In a business of any kind, OS MasterMap Topography Layer gives you the confidence to make location-based decisions about assets, services, environmental risks, customers and operations.
Geo-tag your assets, with the topographic identifier (TOID) at the heart of OS MasterMap products. This makes it ideal for monitoring assets such as pipelines, pylons, bridges and warehouses.
OS MasterMap Topography Layer includes enhanced features - Building Height Attribute to analyse the built environment and Sites Layer showing the main points of access to key sites.
With OS MasterMap Topography Layer, each feature is a record in a database. Each of these records has information about the feature’s position and shape on Earth – its geometry – as well as details about it termed ‘attributes’. It provides an accurate visual context to help you interpret addresses, routes and imagery provided by the other layers.
Download a small area of OS MasterMap Topography Layer.
Or try out the real thing by applying for a Data Exploration Licence
The user may use the Topography Layer in a wide variety of ways, including:
A common use for the product is by organisations who have their own GI and wish to examine it in relation to the real world around them. An example would be utility companies that have assets both at surface and below surface level. They frequently need to visit these assets, either for repair, maintenance or to add new assets. By viewing their infrastructure against the features in OS MasterMap Topography Layer, it will help their crews locate the assets, become familiar with the area before they leave their depot and allow them to provide a better user service by identifying those nearby premises that need to be notified about the works.
OS MasterMap Topography Layer was developed in response to the need for a national topographic dataset that offers users a more sophisticated type of data that represented the world in a more realistic way and was more aligned to the increasing use and functionality of GIS and spatial database technology within organisations.
Each and every feature within OS MasterMap has the TOID (TOpographic IDentifier) as a unique reference. This makes it possible to identify any single feature within the dataset without any ambiguity.
Current referencing systems, such as coordinates and addresses, are subject to interpretation between users. This creates fuzzy matching issues between organisations wanting to exchange data; for example, will the building St James House be picked up in another system where it is spelt St James' House?
TOIDs will stay the same throughout the life cycle of each feature. In other words, if a feature changes, the TOID will stay the same as long as it is deemed to be the same feature; for example, a house having an extension built is still the same house and fulfils the same purpose. This provides a continuity of reference even though a feature may undergo changes. This makes the TOID a robust referencing system that customers can use alongside, or instead of, their own referencing systems and can link to their own information about the feature. Having unique references is essential to making the most out of storing data within a relational database management system, as these rely on unique referencing to be able to store, sort, manage, query and retrieve data efficiently.
Please see our real-world object catalogue (PDF). It lists every type of real-world object in the OS MasterMap Topography Layer specification, and details how it is represented by Topography Layer features.
We define accuracy in three ways:
For cartographic representation, OS MasterMap Topography Layer is captured and designed for display at 1:1250, 1:2500 and 1:10 000 scales in urban, rural and mountain/moorland areas respectively.
In GIS OS MasterMap can be viewed over a considerable range of scales. The most scale-sensitive feature types, such as cartographic text and symbol features, are fixed in size and rapidly become less clear at smaller display scales (that is, when zoomed out).
OS MasterMap Topography Layer is also suitable for use in non–cartographic applications where the concept of scale is less applicable.
Download a small area of OS MasterMap Topography Layer.
Or try out the real thing by applying for a Data Exploration Licence
Ordnance Survey's commercial network of Partners can help you with bespoke location solutions, derived from OS data
Ranging from global giants to single entrepreneurs, our Partners all use our location data to create innovative products and services. Their expertise ensures customers can benefit from using our data for a range of services. Find a partner for topography mapping requirements.
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