Geocode Address Geocode Address World can geocode to a postal centroid if postcode information
is available from the country. Postcode information can come from any of the data
sources (TomTom, GeoNames, or Pitney Bowes). See Country Postal Data Coverage for a
summary of Geocode Address Geocode Address World postal data coverage. Depending on the
country, postal geocoding may provide more accurate results that geographic
geocoding.
Postal level geocoding is possible if these conditions are met:
- Your input address consists of a valid postcode.
- The data source contains postcode information for the country. Not every country
has postcode data.
Geocode Address Geocode Address World may return multiple close matches for postal geocoding. For
example, a postcode of 12180 matches Troy NY but the identical postcode occurs in
several other countries. If the input is the postcode only, then all those candidates
are returned as close matches.
If the input includes geographic address elements (such as country, state, region, or
city name), Geocode Address Geocode Address World may be able to use that
information to return a more accurate single close match. If you want to use geographic
address content to refine your postal geocoding results, consider the following:
Note: Different countries derive their postal data from either the TomTom,
GeoNames, or Pitney Bowes sources. Therefore, the available geographic
content in the postal data source varies by country. For example, city name
(
City) is a close match weighting factor
for countries that use the GeoNames postal data source, but city name is
ignored for countries that use the TomTom postal data source. See
Data Sources and Coverage for information about the geographic content of the TomTom, GeoNames, and Pitney Bowes data
sources.
Postal Geocoding with Geographic Information
In this postal
geocoding example, the input address includes a valid postcode of 41012 and the province
(StateProvince) of Emilia Romagna. A street address is
provided, but this is ignored for postal geocoding.
Fornaci 40
Emilia Romagna
41012
Because the TomTom postal data
source for Italy includes
StateProvince, the province of
Emilia Romagna is considered when evaluating close matches. Therefore, Emilia Romagna,
Italy with the matching 41012 postal code is returned as the single close match with a
Z1 result code. Candidates with a 41012 postcode from other countries may be returned
as non-close candidates. If
StateProvince or Country
information was not provided on input, then Geocode Address
Geocode Address World would return multiple close matches because the five-digit 41012
postcode can be found in a number of countries.
Note: The geographic content must be present in the postal data source in order refine
postal geocoding results. For example, the Italy TomTom postal data source does not
include city/town (
City). So if you input the
city of Carpi with the 41012 postal code, Geocode Address
Geocode Address World ignores the city name and returns multiple close matches for
the 41012 postal code (unless you also specified the ITA country name). See
Data Sources and Coverage for information about the
geographic content of the TomTom, GeoNames, and Pitney Bowes data sources.