Ordnance Survey an executive agency

Executive agency

An executive agency, also known as a next-step agency, is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate in order to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly or Northern Ireland...

 and non-ministerial government department

Non-ministerial government department

A non-ministerial government department is a department or ministry of a government that is not headed by a Government Minister or Government Secretary, and answers directly to a legislature ....

 of the Government of the United Kingdom

Government of the United Kingdom

Her Majesty's Government is the central government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Government is led by the Prime Minister, who selects all the remaining Ministers...

, is the national mapping agency

National mapping agency

A national mapping agency is an organisation, usually publicly owned, that produces topographic maps and geographic information of a country. Some national mapping agencies also deal with cadastral matters.-List of national mapping agencies:...

 for Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

, producing maps of Great Britain (and to an extent, the Isle of Man

Isle of Man

The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...

), and one of the world's largest producers of map

Map

A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....

s.

The name reflects its creation together with the original military purpose of the organisation (see ordnance and surveying

Surveying

See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...

) in the first instance in mapping Scotland at the time of the creation of the British United Kingdom following many centuries of conflict and confirmed later during the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

 when there was a threat of invasion from France, and its logo includes the War Department's broad arrow

Broad arrow

A broad arrow or pheon is a type of arrow with a typically flat barbed head. It is a symbol used traditionally in heraldry, most notably in England, and later the United Kingdom to mark government property.-Use in heraldry:...

 heraldic mark.