[Talk-us] Postal Code Extract (zip vs zcta)

2013-09-04 Thread dies38061 
From the page which Bryce referred to in 
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2013-September/011738.html 
comes the following passage:

The term ZCTA was created to differentiate between this entity and true USPS 
ZIP Codes.
ZCTA is a trademark of the U.S. Census Bureau; ZIP Code is a trademark of the 
U.S. Postal Service.

Therefore, ZCTA information _approximates_ ZIP information for census purposes. 
 If you want to map/use ZIP code information, don't use the ZCTA information to 
do it, I would infer.--ceyockey

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Re: [Talk-us] Postal Code Extract (zip vs zcta)

2013-09-04 Thread Bryce Nesbitt 
On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 4:37 AM, Richard Welty rwe...@averillpark.netwrote:

 On 9/4/13 7:16 AM, dies38...@mypacks.net wrote:

 From the page which Bryce referred to in http://lists.openstreetmap.**
 org/pipermail/talk-us/2013-**September/011738.htmlhttp://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2013-September/011738.htmlcomes
  the following passage:

 The term ZCTA was created to differentiate between this entity and true
 USPS ZIP Codes.
 ZCTA is a trademark of the U.S. Census Bureau; ZIP Code is a trademark of
 the U.S. Postal Service.

 Therefore, ZCTA information _approximates_ ZIP information for census
 purposes.  If you want to map/use ZIP code information, don't use the ZCTA
 information to do it, I would infer.--ceyockey

  any area-oriented representation of zip data will be an approximation.
 it's the nature of the beast.


+1 on that.  ZIP codes are not as simple as they seem.
For a great *animation* of what a ZCTA is, see:
http://www.census.gov/geo/ZCTA/zcta_delineation_animation.html
The census bureau was compelled to build an alternative to pure ZIP codes
for all the reasons cited so far and more.

Note that ZIP codes change also: a few thousand a year are adjusted
according to USPS.  Some zip codes even cross state boundaries.  They
frequently cross county and city lines.

See http://www.carrierroutes.com/more-zip-code-faqs.html#zipcodemapping
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[Talk-us] Postal Code Extract (zip vs zcta)

2013-09-04 Thread dies38061 
Maybe I should clarify what my point really was ... one needs to choose whether they are mapping ZCTAs or ZIP Codes and not confound the two. That was what I was getting at. Regards --ceyockey


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