Canada (CAN)

This section defines the supported geocoding datasets, operations, and input and output field information for Canada.

Supported Geocoding Datasets

The following table lists the supported geocoding dataset(s) with the available geocoding levels for Canada.

Supported Operations

Input Fields

Canadian addresses may contain some or all of the following address elements.

Address Guidelines for Canada

Follow these suggestions to ensure that your street input data is in the best format possible for optimum matching and geocoding.

• Postal box addresses—The geocoder can match to addresses containing some form of PO Box for English-speaking provinces and CP for French-speaking provinces. A successful match returns a result code of B2 along with the output format that is standardized according to Canadian address formats. The priority of PO Box matching over streets is set in a Preference in Management Console.

• Highway addresses—Highway addresses (such as Hwy 401) are geocoded.
• House numbers and apartment letters—Remove spaces between house number and apartment letter. 123 A Main Street does not geocode correctly because the geocoder assumes that the name of the street is A. Two workaround options are available: either do not include the apartment letter or delete the space between the house number and apartment letter.
• House numbers and unit information—The house number pinpoints the location of the address. Unit input can be in one of two formats, as shown in the following examples:

  - 99-123 Main St, where 99 is the unit number. In this format, do not specify the unit type. The number 99 could be a suite, apartment, unit, floor or any valid unit type.
  - 123 Main St. Apt 99, where Apt is the unit type and 99 is the unit number. In this format, you must specify a valid unit type (such as Apt or Suite), otherwise the address will not be geocoded correctly.

• Directional suffixes—Use directional suffixes wherever possible. This is especially true in towns and cities, such as Calgary, which consist mainly of numbered streets. These streets can only be distinguished by their directional suffixes and street types. They also distinguish addresses on streets that change direction. For example: 123 Main St W and 123 Main St E have very different coordinates.
• Street types—These distinguish different streets of the same name. For example, Main Avenue and Main Street are two entirely different entities. Using types is not essential, but it adds precision to your data. For a list of valid street types see www.canadapost.com.
• City name—Do not abbreviate city names. If the city is unknown, you may leave it blank, although this may affect the accuracy of the geocode.
• Province name—You may use the full province name (for example, Ontario), but using the two-character abbreviation (ON) is recommended to reduce the likelihood of input errors. Without a postcode, you must enter both the province and city in order to geocode.

Single Line Input

Instead of entering each address component in separate fields, you can enter the entire address in the mainAddress input field with the address elements ordered as follows:

[address_number][street_info][area_name_3][area_name_1][post_code_1][post_code_2]

For best results, put a comma between street information and the lastline (for example, city and postal) information.

Custom Options

The following table lists the options that are unique to Canada. These custom options are optional input parameters, and unless otherwise noted, they are available for both Geocoding and Reverse Geocoding.

For the standard set of options available to all countries and their definitions, see the chapters covering Geocode Service and Reverse Geocode Service.

Output Fields

The following table lists the address fields returned for a candidate located in Canada.

Custom Output Fields

The following table lists the output fields that are unique for Canada. Unless otherwise noted, these fields can be returned for both forward and reverse geocoding.