The Curious Case of Counties: When Address Accuracy Meets Human Geography

Counties are one of those quiet curiosities of UK addressing - the kind of data field that often sparks more debate than you’d expect. Should they be included? Which kind? And do we even need them anymore?

As with so many things in data, the answer is: it depends.

Three Counties, One Country

In the UK, the word “county” doesn’t describe one single thing. It describes at least three - each with its own history, purpose, and quirk:

• Postal counties were once the backbone of the Royal Mail’s sorting system. They helped machines (and people) get mail to the right place efficiently. But in 1996, Royal Mail officially dropped them, and by 2010, county data was removed from the official address dataset entirely. For the postal system, counties simply no longer exist.
• Traditional (or historic) counties trace their origins back centuries — the counties of record, land, and local identity. They don’t match today’s administrative borders, but they persist in cultural memory and local pride. To some, these are the real counties of England.
• Ceremonial counties, meanwhile, are what most modern maps and local authorities recognise today. They loosely align with lieutenancy areas — the basis for everything from local government to BBC weather maps.

And just to add another layer, the UK also has metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties used for administration, because nothing in British geography would be complete without a little complexity.

So… Do We Still Need Them?

For Royal Mail, the answer is simple: no. County names are ignored by modern sorting systems, and they don’t affect delivery.

But in the real world of databases, integrations, and overlapping address systems, the answer is less clear-cut. Counties still appear because:

• Some legacy systems require a county field for validation.
• Some organisations and couriers still use them for regional routing.
• And sometimes, humans just like them — they help people orient themselves, especially in places with duplicate town names.

It’s a reminder that addresses aren’t just for machines. They’re for people, too — and people often bring context, emotion, and memory into their sense of “place.”

The Bigger Picture: One World, Many Formats

Counties are just one example of how geography, history, and technology collide in addressing. Every country — sometimes every region — does it differently. 

Some use regions, provinces, or prefectures. Some rely on hierarchies of towns and municipalities. Others have no subdivisions at all.

For global platforms and data validation providers, that diversity creates a fascinating challenge: how do you standardise something that isn’t standard anywhere?

It’s the quiet work of address intelligence — understanding not just where something is, but how people describe it.

Why This Matters

The goal of address accuracy isn’t to erase local identity or force uniformity; it’s to understand and support variation intelligently. Whether you’re sending a parcel, mapping customer data, or building systems that work across borders, knowing how and why these differences exist is part of getting the data right.

So next time you’re faced with that little “County” field — think of it not as a relic, but as a reminder. Behind every address is a history, a structure, and a story.

And understanding that story is where true data quality begins.