In the US, ZIP Codes (the US postal code equivalent) are frequently emphasized to not correspond to geographic locations, but sets of addresses. Of course they frequently cluster according to geography (and the prefixes are indeed assigned to states and regions within the state), and are often used as stand-ins, but you can't make assumptions about continuity or proximity for the addresses they correspond with. Even though I can't find it explicitly worded that way (i.e., "post codes are address sets, not locations"), it seems to be the same situation here. Given that, the most "correct" thing to do would be tagging postal codes in addresses, and not as distinct entities.
The Canada Post website has a tool to lookup the postal code for a particular address, so if it were released, wouldn't the data they use to supply that information be good enough for this? It doesn't quite solve people trying to navigate "to" a particular postal code, but it seems like that's an ambiguous request anyway. - Justin On 2019-10-02 8:53 p.m., Kevin Farrugia wrote: > I don't want to rain on the postal code party, and maybe I'm a little > jaded from using the data, but I use the Postal Code Conversion File > (PCCF) from Statistics Canada (who get it from Canada Post) at work. > In general I would say that the postal code points are in mediocre shape. > > Some things I've noticed about the data and postal codes in general: > * There is usually one postal code point per postal code, although > there are cases where there can be several points for a postal code. > For example, with some postal codes, if you were to make them > polygons, would generate multiple polygons that are intersected by > other postal codes. > * Postal codes, especially rural ones, pop in and out of existence and > so are a little harder to track and are less permanent than addresses. > * Postal codes will sometimes jump from one side of a road (even > municipality) between years as they try to improve accuracy. > I would check out the Limitations section if you'd like to see > more: > https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/assets/cpc/uploads/files/marketing/2017-postal-code-conversion-file-reference-guide-en.pdf > > Forward Sortation Areas do exist as open data through Statistics > Canada - StatsCan generates these FSA polygons based on respondents of > the Census. There are two limitations to this dataset on which I > would advise against importing it into OSM: > 1) Since businesses do not respond to the Census, they generally do > not have FSAs for large industrial areas. These areas are covered by > the nearest FSA that they know about/can define, but this can also > cause some movements of boundaries from Census to Census. > 2) Because postal codes are created for the purpose of mail sortation > and delivery, the FSA boundaries StatsCan is able to create are not exact. > Here's the reference document if you're > interested: > https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/92-179-g/92-179-g2016001-eng.htm > > If at some point they did release it as open data, it might be decent > enough for the purposes of general geocoding in OSM, I just don't want > people to think it's as well maintained and reliable as some other > types of government data. > > -Kevin (Kevo) > > > On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 20:39, James <james2...@gmail.com > <mailto:james2...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > funny you should mention geocoder.ca <http://geocoder.ca> > > The owner of that website was sued by Canada Post because he was > crowd sourcing postal codes. Just recently (2 ish years ago?) they > dropped the lawsuit because they knew they didnt have a case(He > came to the Ottawa meetups a couple of times) > > On Wed., Oct. 2, 2019, 8:08 p.m. Jarek Piórkowski, > <ja...@piorkowski.ca <mailto:ja...@piorkowski.ca>> wrote: > > Yeah, Canada Post currently considers postal codes their > commercial > data. Crowd-sourcing all or a substantial amount of full codes > seems > infeasible. Crowd-sourcing the forward sortation areas (the > first A1A) > seems difficult since verifiability is going to be a problem > especially around the edges of the areas. > > The website OpenStreetMap.org returns results for some postal > codes > from a third-party database https://geocoder.ca/?terms=1 which > is not > ODbL-compatible either. > > Partial mapping is causing some problems with tools like Nominatim > that attach the nearest tagged postcode to search results, often > resulting in improper postal codes for reverse address lookups, > however that is arguably a tooling problem and not an OSM > problem per > se. > > This isn't going to be pretty until Canada Post is persuaded > to free > the data. Call your MP, everybody. > > --Jarek > > On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 17:38, john whelan > <jwhelan0...@gmail.com <mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > > > " The number one request on open.canada.ca > <http://open.canada.ca> is to open the postal code database. > Feel free to add your vote. > https://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets"; > > > > Cheerio John > > > > On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 13:32, john whelan > <jwhelan0...@gmail.com <mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com>> wrote: > >> > >> On the import mailing list there is a proposal to import > postcodes in the UK one of the reasons given was that many > like to input a postcode to get directions on smartphones > using things like OSMand. > >> > >> I don't think an Open Data source with the correct > licensing is available in Canada but OSMand appears to be able > to use the postcode if it is entered in the map as part of the > address. Is there any Open Data that might be useful? > >> > >> I don't know if it is possible but could something be used > to extract postcodes in the current map and from there perhaps > we could come up with a list of missing postcodes that need > one address with it in mapped? > >> > >> As a minimum if you could add a few in you know from local > knowledge that might help fill in some gaps. > >> > >> Thoughts > >> > >> Thanks John > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Talk-ca mailing list > > Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org <mailto:Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org> > > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-ca mailing list > Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org <mailto:Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org> > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-ca mailing list > Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org <mailto:Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org> > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca > > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-ca mailing list > Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca _______________________________________________ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
