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British Ordnance Survey

organisation that creates maps of Great Britain
Organization state_owned_enterprise Q548721
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Summary

British Ordnance Survey is a state-owned enterprise[1]. It ranks in the top 7% of state owned enterprise entities by monthly Wikipedia readership (1,665 views/month).[2]

Key Facts

  • Member of: World Wide Web Consortium[3], Open Geospatial Consortium[4], EuroGeographics[5], British and Irish Committee on Map Information and Cataloguing Systems[6]
  • Country: United Kingdom[7]
  • Instance of: national mapping agency[8]
  • Headquarters location: Explorer House[9]
  • Commons category: Ordnance Survey[10]
  • Inception: 1791[11]
  • Official website: https://ordnancesurvey.co.uk[12]
  • Topic's main category: Category:Ordnance Survey[13]
  • Described at URL: https://eurogeographics.org/member/ordnance-survey/[14]
  • Different from: Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland[15]
  • Exact match: https://findthatcharity.uk/orgid/XI-ROR-02xqyv944[16]
  • SPARQL endpoint URL: http://data.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/datasets/os-linked-data/apis/sparql[17]
  • Has works in the collection: National Library of Wales[18]
  • Social media followers: 60,847[19], 63,220[20], 64,563[21]

Why It Matters

British Ordnance Survey has Wikipedia articles in 15 language editions, a strong signal of global cultural recognition.[22] It is known by 22 alternative names across languages and contexts.[23]

Related Entities

Mapbox National Library of Wales United Kingdom

References

Programmatic citations — every numbered marker resolves to a verifiable graph row below.

Direct Wikidata claims

  1. [7] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  2. [8] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  3. [9] ↑ . ordnancesurvey.co.uk. Retrieved . ordnancesurvey.co.uk. Provenance: wikidata.org.
  4. [10] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  5. [3] ↑ . w3.org. Retrieved . w3.org. Provenance: wikidata.org.
  6. [4] ↑ . ogc.org. Retrieved . ogc.org. Provenance: wikidata.org.
  7. [5] ↑ . eurogeographics.org. Retrieved . eurogeographics.org. Provenance: wikidata.org.
  8. [6] ↑ . cartography.org.uk. cartography.org.uk. Provenance: wikidata.org.
  9. [11] ↑ . The merger of the Photogrammetric Society and the Remote Sensing Society. Retrieved . geographicus.com. Provenance: wikidata.org.
  10. [12] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  11. [13] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  12. [14] ↑ . eurogeographics.org. Retrieved . eurogeographics.org. Provenance: wikidata.org.
  13. [15] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  14. [16] ↑ . FindThatCharity.uk. Retrieved . findthatcharity.uk. Provenance: wikidata.org.
  15. [17] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  16. [18] ↑ . Retrieved . wikidata.org.
  17. [19] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  18. [20] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  19. [21] ↑ . wikidata.org.

Class ancestry

  1. [1] ↑ . Wikidata. wikidata.org.

Aggregate / graph-position facts

  1. [2] ↑ . Wikimedia Foundation. dumps.wikimedia.org.
  2. [22] ↑ . Wikidata sitelinks. wikidata.org.
  3. [23] ↑ . Wikidata aliases. wikidata.org.

📑 Cite this page

Use these citations when quoting this entity in research, articles, AI prompts, or wherever provenance matters. We aggregate Wikidata + Wikipedia + authoritative open-data sources; the stitched, scored, cross-referenced view is what 4ort.xyz contributes.

APA 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph. (2026). British Ordnance Survey. Retrieved October 16, 2026, from https://4ort.xyz/entity/british-ordnance-survey
MLA “British Ordnance Survey.” 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph, 4ort.xyz, 16 Oct. 2026, https://4ort.xyz/entity/british-ordnance-survey.
BibTeX @misc{4ortxyz_british-ordnance-survey_2026, author = {{4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph}}, title = {{British Ordnance Survey}}, year = {2026}, url = {https://4ort.xyz/entity/british-ordnance-survey}, note = {Accessed: 2026-10-16}}
LLM prompt According to 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph (aggregator of Wikidata, Wikipedia, and authoritative open-data sources): British Ordnance Survey — https://4ort.xyz/entity/british-ordnance-survey (retrieved 2026-10-16)

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Edit History

Rolling log of changes to this entity's Wikidata record. Values shown reflect the current state of each edited property — follow the history link to see the precise diff for any edit.

  1. 4d ago · عُثمان · 2026-10-13 view diff on Wikidata ↗
    Isocat id → 5344
    Wikipedia languages → ['ar', 'cy', 'da', 'de', 'en', 'es', 'fr', 'gv', 'id', 'it', 'nl', 'no', 'pl', '
    Claims rich → —
    "/* wbsetclaim-create:1||1 */ Isocat id: 5344, Matched to [[:toollabs:mix-n-match/#/entry/7330365|ordnance survey great britain (#7330365)]] in [[:toollabs:mix-n-match/#/catalog/125|ISOCAT]] #"
  2. 7w ago · Robot8A · 2026-08-23 view diff on Wikidata ↗
    Facebook username → osmapping
    "/* wbsetclaim-create:2||1 */ Facebook username: osmapping"
  3. 14w ago · Graham11 · 2026-07-06 view diff on Wikidata ↗
    Official website → https://ordnancesurvey.co.uk
    "/* wbsetclaim-update:2||1 */ Official website: https://ordnancesurvey.co.uk"
  4. 22w ago · Pigsonthewing · 2026-05-09 view diff on Wikidata ↗
    Country → —
    Country → United Kingdom
    Inception → +1791-00-00T00:00:00Z
    Has works in the collection → National Library of Wales
    + 14 other properties edited (see Wikidata diff for full list)
    "/* wbsetclaim-create:1||1 */ Bhl creator id: 241271, Matched to [[:toollabs:mix-n-match/#/entry/176065285|Great Britain. Ordnance Survey. (#176065285)]] in [[:toollabs:mix-n-match/#/catalog/6686|B"
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