Tweeting the changing face of Britain

Ordnance Survey staff are using Twitter to provide live updates as they map the Great British landscape.

Working in a range of roles, from surveyors mapping the outer reaches of Scotland and inner city London, to a member of Ordnance Survey’s Flying Unit, each will be tweeting as they go about their work and providing an insight into modern map making.

As the national mapping agency for Great Britain, Ordnance Survey data is relied on by government, businesses and individuals everyday. Everything from planning local bus routes, emergency service response, fraud detection and the digital switchover is underpinned by geographic data.

As such, Ordnance Survey makes some 5,000 changes each day to the national master map and thanks to the work of its 300 surveyors and an extensive aerial photography programme, significant changes are ‘on the map’ within six weeks of them appearing.

Surveyors on the ground make use the latest GPS satellite technology, accurate to just a few centimetres, to captures changes - from the latest developments at the Olympic Park to a new visitor centre on the peak of Snowdon.

All Ordnance Survey’s tweeters can be followed on a special interactive map, which allows users to easily see where each person is working and gives their location to within a few tens of metres.

The Ordnance Survey Twitter map can be viewed here www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/twittermap

News