Re: [Talk-us] Boundaries of cities used in postal addresses?
On 11/12/10 7:18 AM, Nathan Edgars II wrote: Would it be possible to get the boundaries of the areas where a certain place name is accepted by the USPS in addresses? For example, any places not within the Orlando city limits have Orlando, FL addresses, and someone searching for said place is likely to type that into the search box. Are these simply combinations of areas covered by zip codes? If so, is there a suitable source for zip code boundaries, or are they copyrighted by the USPS? zip codes don't properly correspond to geographic areas, that they do is a common misconception. the USPS does not provide such maps. i have seen maps which claim to show such boundaries but they are all guesses by the mapmaker. richard ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Boundaries of cities used in postal addresses?
For an authoritative list of USPS valid combinations of community names and ZIP Codes look at the USPS City State product http://www.usps.com/ncsc/addressinfo/citystate.htm Mixed with the ZCTA5 dataset from the US Census Bureau you can make an approximation of where names apply. The ZCTA5 dataset is not an authoritative source of ZIP Codes and is not a complete set of ZIP Codes either. http://www2.census.gov/cgi-bin/shapefiles2009/national-files The file you would want is called 5-Digit ZIP Code Tabulation Area (2002)http://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2009/tl_2009_us_zcta5.zip on that page. Note that lots of ZIP Codes have more than 1 and many have more than 2 valid community names. C. On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 8:26 AM, Richard Welty rwe...@averillpark.netwrote: On 11/12/10 7:18 AM, Nathan Edgars II wrote: Would it be possible to get the boundaries of the areas where a certain place name is accepted by the USPS in addresses? For example, any places not within the Orlando city limits have Orlando, FL addresses, and someone searching for said place is likely to type that into the search box. Are these simply combinations of areas covered by zip codes? If so, is there a suitable source for zip code boundaries, or are they copyrighted by the USPS? zip codes don't properly correspond to geographic areas, that they do is a common misconception. the USPS does not provide such maps. i have seen maps which claim to show such boundaries but they are all guesses by the mapmaker. richard ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us -- Carl Anderson, GISP cander...@spatialfocus.com carl.ander...@vadose.org ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Boundaries of cities used in postal addresses?
On 11/12/10 8:55 AM, Nathan Edgars II wrote: On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 8:26 AM, Richard Weltyrwe...@averillpark.net wrote: zip codes don't properly correspond to geographic areas, that they do is a common misconception. the USPS does not provide such maps. i have seen maps which claim to show such boundaries but they are all guesses by the mapmaker. I know the zip codes are (more or less) what mailboxes a certain post office serves. But if you add together all the lots those mailboxes are on, you get a geographic area. my understanding is that the post office wishes to keep that information strictly under their control, via products they publish, so they can change things when needed and publish revised versions of their products. so the zip code directories in the POs are official because they can be pulled and replaced when the USPS wants, the pocket ones you can buy in some office supply stores not so much. i guess it's like any other admin boundary, it's subject to change. who is going to maintain it, or will it be allowed to slowly deteriorate and become obsolete? if the rate of change is low, maybe that's not an issue. richard ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Boundaries of cities used in postal addresses?
On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 8:38 AM, Carl Anderson carl.ander...@vadose.org wrote: For an authoritative list of USPS valid combinations of community names and ZIP Codes look at the USPS City State product http://www.usps.com/ncsc/addressinfo/citystate.htm Mixed with the ZCTA5 dataset from the US Census Bureau you can make an approximation of where names apply. The ZCTA5 dataset is not an authoritative source of ZIP Codes and is not a complete set of ZIP Codes either. http://www2.census.gov/cgi-bin/shapefiles2009/national-files The file you would want is called 5-Digit ZIP Code Tabulation Area (2002) on that page. Yeah, this is no good. Walt Disney World has been 32830 (Lake Buena Vista) since it opened in 1971, but is shown as part of 32836. ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Boundaries of cities used in postal addresses?
On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 9:02 AM, Richard Welty rwe...@averillpark.net wrote: i guess it's like any other admin boundary, it's subject to change. who is going to maintain it, or will it be allowed to slowly deteriorate and become obsolete? if the rate of change is low, maybe that's not an issue. How frequently does a piece of land change postal place name (not zip code)? Does this usually happen only with a new community? ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Boundaries of cities used in postal addresses?
We try to maintain zip code boundaries using existing parcel boundaries and a list of known addresses that we get from the postal service every quarter. Zip codes do change significantly on a quarterly basis though, depending on new addresses, retired addresses, vacant addresses, PO box demand, and delivery demand. To add to this, zip codes are clearly not contiguous with themselves. They very definitely skip around, sometimes even skipping around among addresses within a parcel (and even more so when you get into the ZIP+4, which is what you need to assign specific community names). Even with full time people working on it, it is a nightmare that we only really do every couple of years for ~500 sq mi. It is possible, but certainly not easy. Brett Lord-Castillo Information Systems Designer/GIS Programmer St. Louis County Police Office of Emergency Management 14847 Ladue Bluffs Crossing Drive Chesterfield, MO 63017 Office: 314-628-5400 Fax: 314-628-5508 Direct: 314-628-5407 -Original Message- Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2010 07:18:57 -0500 From: Nathan Edgars II nerou...@gmail.com To: Talk Openstreetmap talk-us@openstreetmap.org Subject: [Talk-us] Boundaries of cities used in postal addresses? Message-ID: aanlktikj+jy1xm=_cue244uiqub1bow_ofi=_=kp5...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Would it be possible to get the boundaries of the areas where a certain place name is accepted by the USPS in addresses? For example, any places not within the Orlando city limits have Orlando, FL addresses, and someone searching for said place is likely to type that into the search box. Are these simply combinations of areas covered by zip codes? If so, is there a suitable source for zip code boundaries, or are they copyrighted by the USPS? ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Boundaries of cities used in postal addresses?
As far as I can tell from the USPS point of view the name is an attribute of a ZIP Code. When you change ZIP Codes the list of valid names also changes. Form my experience the rate of change of valid names for a single ZIP Code is very low, less than 0.5% per year. On the other hand newly added addresses may change ZIP Codes, as published in the USPS AIS ZIP+4 product, several times in their first year. The problem with boundaries is not so much wholesale ZIP Code renumbering but the refinement of the boundary through growth. As new things pop up they seem to get allocated to a ZIP Code that has sufficient capacity to serve them, not necessarily the ZIP Code of their neighbors. Likewise commercial and residential mailboxes often get served by different mail carriers (the people actually doing the delivery). Sometimes those carriers are associated with different ZIP Codes. It is possible and known that one building can have one ZIP Code for its commercial addresses and another ZIP Code for its residential addresses. Looking back at the 32830 vs 32836 issue the USPS reports both with an Actual City name of Orlando FL while 32836 also has an Acceptable City name of Lake Buena Vista FL (The USPS use of Actual in this way does cause a different confusion, in that neither are within the municipal limits of Orlando) try it yourself http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/citytown_zip.jsp The USPostal data from geonames.org may help you associate a valid names with point locations. C. On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 9:07 AM, Nathan Edgars II nerou...@gmail.comwrote: On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 9:02 AM, Richard Welty rwe...@averillpark.net wrote: i guess it's like any other admin boundary, it's subject to change. who is going to maintain it, or will it be allowed to slowly deteriorate and become obsolete? if the rate of change is low, maybe that's not an issue. How frequently does a piece of land change postal place name (not zip code)? Does this usually happen only with a new community? ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us -- Carl Anderson, GISP cander...@spatialfocus.com carl.ander...@vadose.org ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
