MORE than a million features of the York landscape now appear on a revolutionary digital map, showing the whole of Britain in unprecedented detail.

York Minster and the city's racecourse, down to minute details such as railway signal lights and free standing letter boxes, feature on the new map.

National mapping agency Ordnance Survey has taken the wraps off the two-year project, OS MasterMap, which is like an enormous national jigsaw made up of 400 million pieces, each one barcoded with a unique 16-digit reference number known as a topographic identifier, or TOID.

York Minster, for example, is number 0001000033561556.

TOIDs offer a higher level of detail than postcodes or individual addresses as they identify millions of non-addressable properties and natural landscape features such as small waterways and areas of woodland.

As well as telling you where a feature is, a TOID is also a direct link to a description of what it is. And TOIDs can be loaded with extra information within a user's computer system and shared between users.

This opens a host of possibilities in easier data sharing and management for utilities, local and central government and any business supporting a branch network, customer base or other geographic infrastructure.

Vanessa Lawrence, Ordnance Survey's director general and chief executive, said: "It has been developed in consultation with industry and government and with the knowledge that around 80 per cent of all the information held in Britain has some geographic content.

"As they are taken up, TOIDS will become common hooks held on any number of databases within and between organisations, bringing significant benefits in the way information is integrated, manipulated, analysed and presented."

Users can select the precise coverage they need, with themes such as roads, buildings, heritage, water, structures and boundaries. And they can receive further information on just the parts of the map that have been updated.

The cost of the map depends on the number of TOIDs ordered, with a minimum price of £50 for small sites. A market town with 80,000 TOIDs will cost about £3,000. Cities and larger areas will cost more, but with a lower price per TOID.

"We believe our pricing strategy offers excellent value for what is some of the most sophisticated and versatile electronic mapping in the world," said Mrs Lawrence.

"It could transform business and dramatically enhance the co-ordination of all kinds of services."

The website www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/osmastermap gives more details.

Updated: 11:14 Wednesday, December 05, 2001