# Street register

A street register lists a country's streets and the district each runs through, so it can confirm that a street exists where an address says it does — and never that a building does.

Date: 2026-09-16

A street register lists a country's streets and the postcode district each one is filed under, so it can confirm that a street exists where an address says it does, and can never confirm that a building does.

## What Spaw answers

Great Britain's is OS Open Names, published by Ordnance Survey under the Open Government Licence and keyed by postcode district. A street it lists answers `match_level: street` with `confirmation.street: register`, and `exists` stays `null` because a register of streets has nothing to say about a building; a street it does not list answers `match_level: none` with `confirmation.street: unconfirmed` and no weight, because a road that runs through several districts is filed under one of them. The same file names the places each postcode is written with, which is what `locality_matches_postcode` reads for British addresses.

## What it is not

It is not the Postcode Address File. Every full British address list derives from Royal Mail's licensed file, which is why `exists` for a British building comes only from a licensed partner and is otherwise `null`.

Reference: https://spaw.co/glossary/street-register