M postcode district map, Manchester

Where the M districts sit

12 districts are plotted without a label where labels would overlap; every one is in the table below.

Where M sits

It is administratively fragmented, reaching into Manchester, Salford, Trafford and Bury and 4 other authorities.

Water supply across M

All 46 M districts are supplied by United Utilities, which is notable at this size: an area with this many districts usually crosses at least one supply boundary, and this one does not.

No hosepipe ban currently applies anywhere in M.

The shape of the M area

The districts are wildly uneven: M33 holds 1,555 postcodes around Sale and M99 holds 11, a ratio of about 141 to one. They divide into 211 sectors.

No single district dominates: the largest holds only about 5 per cent of the area's postcodes.

The numbering is not continuous. M runs up to 99 but has only 46 districts, so 53 numbers are unused:.

Several districts share a settlement, which is a common source of confusion when a form rejects an address: M1, M2, M3, M4, M7, M8, M12, M13, M14, M15, M16, M60, M61 and M99 all point at Manchester, M5, M6 and M50 all point at Salford and M11, M18 and M43 all point at Droylsden.

What borders M

M sits next to BL (Bolton) to the north west, WA (Warrington) to the south west, SK (Stockport) to the south east, OL (Oldham) to the north east and WN (Wigan) to the west.

Its neighbours run in 5 different directions, so M is landlocked by other postcode areas on most sides.

M districts, settlements and water supply

Principal settlement is the town or city each district sits in or nearest to, derived from OS Open Names. It is not the Royal Mail post town, which is licensed data and not published openly. Status is resolved live from each company’s own notice.

Water hardness in M

No water company covering M publishes hardness figures as open data. The gap is named per district below so you know who to ask.

United Utilities does not publish hardness as open data, but does publish a water hardness factsheet with a full band table and a postcode water quality checker.

Hardness is published per census area, not per postcode, so these figures characterise a district rather than measuring one address. They are a scale and taste matter, not a safety one. Hardness data version wessex-water@2022-2025+yorkshire-water@2026.

Download the M data

No signup, no email wall. GeoJSON carries the district points, the supplier and the live status, so it can be dropped straight into a map.

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District positions are averaged postcode centroids from OS Code-Point Open. They show roughly where a district sits, not where its boundary runs, and are not legal boundaries.

Frequently asked questions