BS 5930:1999, "the code of practice for site investigations", is a UK code of practice published in October 1999 by the British Standards Institution.

It supersedes BS 5930:1981 which itself supersedes CP2001: 1957 "Site investigations".

The stated purpose of the document is to "...deal(s) with the investigation of sites for the purposes of assessing their suitability for the construction of civil engineering

Civil engineering

Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...

 and building works and of acquiring knowledge of the characteristics of a site that affect the design and construction of such work...".

The document gives guidance on legal, environmental and technical matters relating to site investigation and includes a section on the description and classification of soil

Soil

Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...

s and rock

Rock (geology)

In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...

s.

BS5930:1999 was amended in December 2007 to avoid conflict with the newly introduced Eurocode 7

EN 1997

EN 1997 - Eurocode 7: Geotechnical design, is the European Standard for the design of geotechnical structures, using the limit state design philosophy. It is published in two parts; "General rules" and "Ground investigation and testing". It was approved by the European Committee for Standardization...

"Geotechnical Design" and the code is to be retained as a normative reference.