London Zip Code

The London postal district is the area in England of 241 square miles (620 km2) to which mail addressed to the London post town is delivered.

The General Post Office under the control of the Postmaster-General directed Sir Rowland Hill to devise the area in 1856 and throughout its history, it has been subject to reorganization and division into increasingly smaller postal units, with the early loss of two compass points and a minor retraction in 1866.

It was integrated by the Post Office into the national postcode system of the United Kingdom during the early 1970s and corresponds to the N, NW, SW, SE, W, WC, E, and EC postcode areas.

No such thing as a London wide code.

London has the following postal regions which are further divided into local postcodes.

1. S – South
2. Ñ – North
3. E – East
4. W – West

• WC – West Central for inner London.
• EC – East Central for inner London but pretty much the old City of London
• NW – Northwest London
• SW – South West includes some inner west London but mainly south west London
• SE – South East.

In addition, due to the massive area of Greater London, some of it is covered by postcodes for areas that were always outside the London postal districts so, EN, UB, RM, and a few others I’ve forgotte

 

 

 

If postcode starts with, and there is a number at the place of *

WC*
EC*
E*
W*
N*
S*
SE*
SW*
NW*
then it’s London

 

These were based on points of the compass:

North (N)

North-West (NW)

North-East (NE)

South (S)

South-West (SW)

South-East (SE)

East (E)

West (W)

Then the two central districts

East Central (EC)

West Central (WC)

South was later abolished and merged between SE and SW, as was NE which merged with E.