WHAT ARE POSTCODE AREAS?
Postcodes are assigned by the Royal Mail to every address in the UK, to help them deliver mail, and therefore form part of every address. Many commercial addresses will have their own unique postcode, while residential addresses usually share a postcode among a group of houses. A typical postcode might take the form ZZ99 9ZZ, though there are variations on this – the second part tends not to vary, but the first part can also take the form Z9, Z99, or ZZ9. The first one or two letters of the postcode are called the area code, and these are derived from the name of the local city or town, or in the case of London, from the district of London – for example, S for Sheffield, SA for Swansea, W for West London. The other parts of the postcode are allocated without reference to the name of the local town or city. As the area code is the only part of the postcode that is obviously derived from a named town (and thus can be guessed if the postcode is not known), this is what I have based this m
