ZIP / Postal Code + Country to Geo Coordinates

Question

What is the most complete, precise and reliable way to get the coordinates (latitude / longitude) of a given ZIP / Postal Code of a given country? I need to make a lot of requests, so a high API limit rate (maybe even absent) would be useful.

GeoNames dumps would be cool, but it seems to have way too many duplicate coordinates (example) and it also seems that their database is missing some ZIP / postal codes for specific countries.

Are there any other (reliable) alternatives?

---

While I was reading a Meta question, I came across this link:

http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?q=select%20%2A%20from%20geo.places%20where%20text%3D%22Jyv%C3%A4skyl%C3%A4%22&format=xml

I had heard of the YQL before but I had no idea I could use it to GeoCode addresses, so I searched a little and I found this very interesting piece of information:

Usage Limits

Per application limit (identified by your Access Key): 100,000 calls per day

Per IP limits: /v1/public/: 1,000 calls per hour; /v1/yql/: 10,000 calls per hour

Does anyone know where I can get more specific info in using YQL to GeoCode addresses?

Solution 1

Yahoo! GeoPlanet will give you centroid lat/long points for postal codes. They've been reliable in my experience. The API limit is 50,000 requests per day. I'm not sure what their policy on caching results is. I get the impression that if you contact Yahoo!, you can set up an arrangement with a higher request limit, though it may cost some money.

They also let you download a substantial portion of their data under a Creative Commons license, but unfortunately that appears to be limited to the WOEID relationships and country names.

Solution 2

I think that your choice will probably depend on how many API call you intend to make per day. The daily limit of the free Google Maps API is 15,000 request per IP address. (Source: Google Maps API FAQ.)

You can do geocoding with Google Maps API using the following HTTP request:

Simple CSV:

http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q=W1A+1AA,+London&output=csv&sensor=false

More Complex XML:

http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q=W1A+1AA,+London&output=xml&sensor=false

Simply change the "q" parameter with the postcode and country to geocode.

However, I think that storing the geocoding results permanently in your database may be a violation of the Google Maps API terms and conditions. You may want to check for more information about these restrictions.

Solution 3

The easiest way would of course be finding a high-quality service provider with no request limit. Why not ask Google for an offer? From what I hear, they are quite flexible towards business customers.

If that's not an option, you will certainly be able to get individual data files, and fare cheaper than 33 grand in many countries. I'm quite sure German and Austrian sell data files at 3-figure prices, and for the UK there's the Postcode Address File (PAF) it's data from the Royal Mail, I don't think quality gets better than that. Of course, in addition to the cost and hassle, there would be a lot of converting work to do with 26 individual files from different Post offices and whatnot - work I wouldn't envy anybody for :) If you have the budget, it's probably cheapest to talk to Google or Yahoo.

Solution 4

That's actually a really tough problem since a ZIP code is not actually a polygonal region, but a set of lines aggregated together (see the best anser to How to get the bounding coordinates for a US postal(zip) code? for a very detailed explanation of this.)

Within the United States, the Census Bureau maintains a list of approximate Zip Code boundaries called the "Five digit Zip Code Tabulation Areas" (ZCTA5). You can download these directly and process them however you like. There are several geocoding tools which can get you started with this; I use PostGIS (http://postgis.net/) but there are others, most importantly the Open Street Maps data (http://www.openstreetmap.org), which covers the world.

View more solutions

Comments

[Alix Axel]

15,000 a day it's kinda low for what I want... BTW what does sensor=false do?

[Daniel Vassallo]

Google can increase your geocoding limits for about $10k per year: groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API/browse_thread/thread‌​/…. You didn't say it has to be free :)

[Alix Axel]

high API rate = geocode all zip / postal codes for a country in one day

[Daniel Vassallo]

That would exclude Google Maps, and probably any other web-service. In addition, I think that storing the geocoding results permanently is a violation of the Google Maps terms.

[Alix Axel]

Thanks, but still 50k requests a day is still not enough for me (my small country alone has almost 300k postal codes). Also I've found that Yahoo isn't very precise in postal codes to coordinates, the same coordinate is returned for several different postal codes. Nice to know about the WOEID dump, though. =)

[Alix Axel]

UK: They make updates to their postal codes almost every week! I found a relatively cheap data provider (geopostcodes.com/buy_eu_zip_codes) but I'm not very sure about the quality of their data.

[Pekka]

Interesting, I didn't know that, but they are almost down to a house in the UK, so it's obvious they fluctuate a lot... Well, that explains why the annual subscription with Royal Mail costs £1700 :)

[Alix Axel]

Still I think it's an abuse, here we have street level precision and they only make changes to postal codes once or twice in a year.

[Pekka]

Yup, I've made the same experience with Google's data over here at home, a big part of my district is not geocoded to street level (and that in a major city!)

[Pekka]

And yes, £1700/year is a rip-off, no question. As is 33k, or any fee at all - after all, this is public data paid for with taxes in most (if not all) european countries.

[npdoty]

Good to know your experience with their imprecision. I agree with Pekka above; it might cost some money, but try asking Yahoo! and maybe for a small fee you can get them either to lift the daily limit or work something out where you can cache the results.

[jacktrade]

but you could use memcached to not waste api calls ;-D

[Jeryl Cook]

very simple API for US boundaries. www.boundares-io.com , it does cost money($25 bucks a month to hit the API) Disclaimer i work for them