From OpenStreetMap Wiki

Jump to: navigation, search

This page documents things relating to http://www.freethepostcode.org/, a free database of postcode-to-location mappings. They are asking people with GPS Receivers to submit their copyright-free lattitude/logitude readings for any particular postcode.

Clearly this is a Related Project, overlapping quite nicely with some of the activities of OpenStreetMap, so we can help each other out.

User:Randomjunk has created a postcode map, which displays postal areas on top of an OSM map, based on 'Free The Postcode' data: http://dev.openstreetmap.org/~random/postcodes/

See also OpenStreetMap FAQ which has some information relevant to FreeThePostcode.

How to easily get postcodes

Enter postcodes as waypoints in your GPS unit. Then when you get home you can go through them and send them to freethepostcode. If you don't know the postcode, it's fairly easy to figure out well-known places. For example, take a waypoint outside a pub then go and google for the pubs address. Bingo, you have the postcode.

A good source of post codes is phone boxes. In some parts of the UK most phone boxes have their full postal address on a small label inside (this is so that a caller can tell the emergency services where they are).

Another good source is businesses with local branches/stores (banks, supermarkets, etc). Most have a list of stores (with postcodes) on their web site.

iPhone Application

John McKerrell has written an application for the iPhone which makes it really easy to submit postcodes using the in-built GPS on the newer iPhone models. More information on that can be found on the iFreeThePostcode support page. The application is open source and free to install (via the iTunes App Store).

Windows Mobile Application

Chris Cowley has written an application for Windows Mobile devices, based on the look and feel of the iPhone application, which makes it really easy to submit postcodes using the in-built GPS on newer Windows Mobile phones. More information on that can be found on the author's web page.

Geocoder

The basic geocoder can get from postcode to lat/lon and back:

The postcode geocoder knows not to fall back on N-something if you ask it for NW-something. It will give you the closest match it can. You can make it better by collecting more postcodes. The format should be pretty obvious and not subject to change. Lines starting with a hash are comments, see also http://www.freethepostcode.org/currentlist

Feature requests

Enter OSGB coords rather than lat/lon
Enter eastings and westing rather than positive and negative numbers
Enter coords in degrees, minutes, seconds
Not just UK - eg freethepostcode.org/norway
Upload by GPX waypoint names (would need to validate postcode formats vs waypoint names, and many Garmin GPS receivers only allow 6 character waypoint names, which means only a subset of UK postcodes can be done this way). This avoids co-ordinate keying errors.
- See http://almien.co.uk/OSM/Tools/Postcodes/ -- Avantman42
Accuracy information - eg if a user requests OX1 4AU then if we don't have an exact match we can return a location based on OX1 4xx or OX1 xxx or OXx xxx with an estimated error based on average sizes of zone/district etc.
- this is already done, the geocoder returns the best match available and tells you which one it's giving back, try it :-)
- Sure, but this isn't good enough for an end-user application where we want to say "this postcode is here, plus or minus xx m/km". The implication here is that we need to store some information about the size of each postcode zone. --Dom.
- This is an issue for non-residential codes especially - my work postcode covers a site about 500m across. Should I measure the postcode somewhere in the middle of the site (looking the postcode up on google maps etc provides a point vaguely, but not exactly in the middle) or should I provide the location of the actual entrance? Even the latter is difficult, as the visitors' entrance used to be on one side of the site, and is now on the other... --DA
Incidentally, can we have a mailing list for freethepostcode? It'd make this sort of discussion easier --Dom.
Allow people to amend postcodes they enter, or at least to reject codes when the confirmation email arrives. I very stupidly put in the wrong coords whilst going through a list I gathered, and ignored the email but trying it a second time with the right coords doesn't seem to have worked -- Tom.
Please can we have a means to enter postcodes by clicking a position on an OSM map? Surely this is free of copyright? I could add quite a number of postcodes I know from memory but don't have the time to take a GPS to. Thanks, Daveemtb 18:34, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Schema

This might need some different approaches for different countries

(From [1] and [2] with comments)

AT

nnnn

For the format, consult wikipedia: [3].

There is an up-to-date list available from the Austrian Post website that associates each postal code to (parts of) municipalities; it consists of 5 columns, giving the community, Bundesland (federal state), municipality, postal code, denomination of the post office. In order to use those data for OSM, the Austrian Post should probably be asked first if that's okay for them. As postal codes tend to be rearranged sometimes, a script checking for changes in that file might then be quite useful.

AU

nnnn

To a rough approximation, the first digit 2-7 covers six states (2=NSW, 3=VIC, 4=QLD, 5=SA, 6=WA, 7=TAS) with territories either 0nnn or 2nnn. See wikipedia page. The Australian postcode database is a zero-cost download from Australia Post, but with copyright and usage restrictions.

BE

nnnn

Each commune has his one. The two first numbers give the province.

So,

10nn 11nn 12nn are for Brussels
13nn 14nn are for the Brabant Wallon
15nn 16nn 17nn 18nn 19nn are for Vlaams-Brabant
2nnn are for Antwerpen
30nn 31nn 32nn 33nn 34nn are also for Vlaams-Brabant
35nn 36nn 37nn 38nn 39nn are for Limburg 4nnn are for Liège
5nnn are for Namur
60nn 61nn 62nn 63nn 64nn 65nn are for Hainaut
66nn 67nn 68nn 69nn are for Luxembourg
7nnn is also for Hainaut
8nnn are for West-Vlaanderen
9nnn are for Oost-Vlaanderen

BR

Each street os cities bigger than 50,000 habitants have their it own code, big avenues can have more then one, such as one for each side. Some special buildings, such as big offices or any other places that receive lots of mail can have it's own code as well.

0xxxx-xxx: Greater São Paulo (01000-09999)
1xxxx-xxx: Interior and litoral of São Paulo (11000-19999)
2xxxx-xxx: Rio de Janeiro (20000-28999) and Espírito Santo (29000-29999)
3xxxx-xxx: Minas Gerais (30000-39990)
4xxxx-xxx: Bahia (40000-48999) and Sergipe (49000-49999)
5xxxx-xxx: Pernambuco (50000-56999), Alagoas (57000-57999), Paraíba (58000-58999) and Rio Grande do Norte (59000-59999)
6xxxx-xxx: Ceará (60000-63990), Piauí (64000-64990), Maranhão (65000-65990), Pará (66000-68890), Amapá (68900-68999), Amazonas (69000-69299 e 69400-69899), Roraima (69300-69399) and Acre (69900-69999)
7xxxx-xxx: Distrito Federal (70000-73699), Goiás (73700-76799), Rondônia (76800-76999), Tocantins (77000-77999), Mato Grosso (78000-78899) and Mato Grosso do Sul (79000-79999)
8xxxx-xxx: Paraná (80000-86999) and Santa Catarina (87000-89999)
9xxxx-xxx: Rio Grande do Sul (90000-99999)

More details (in portuguese) is available on Wikipedia: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistema_de_endere%C3%A7amento_postal_no_Brasil

CA

ana nan

Accurate to street segment and side if the second digit is non-zero. If the second digit is zero, it identifies a whole community and is not subdivided (rural postal code; a municipality might be split between codes, though, as with U.S. zipcodes). Postal codes ending in 0 identify post offices, counters and similar facilities.

The first digit indicates the province, roughly east to west:

A = Newfoundland

B = Nova Scotia

C = Prince Edward Island

E = New Brunswick

G,H,J = Quebec

H = Montreal

K,L,M,N,P = Ontario

M = Toronto

R = Manitoba

S = Saskatchewan

S7 = Saskatoon

T = Alberta

V = British Columbia

Y = Yukon

X = NWT/Nunavut

CN

nnnnnn

[4]

DE

nnnnn

not street level. (areas)

The number denotes a 'Zustellbezirk' (postal district)

1. Number: Zone
2. Number: Region
3-5 : district

Postcodes are assigned by the German Post, as suited best for their postal needs:

Most of the time a city or commune has just one number.

Bigger cities have more than one (Frankfurt/Main: 37 between 60311 - 60487)

Villages may share one number with other villages or a town nearby.

The number can have leading zeros because 0 is a valid zone
The postal districts have no relation to the city districts
The postal districts may exceed the borders of counties or even federal states
Single locations may use the postcode of the nearby office which delivers post best, even if located within another postal area otherwise.
There can be seperate numbers for P.O. Boxes or large institiutions (e.g. businesses receiving large ammount of mail) where no real street or geolocation can be assigned.
A street might pass more than one postal district

PLZ   City       Street       No        City District
60316 Frankfurt  Berger Str.  1-105     Nordend-Ost 
60316 Frankfurt  Berger Str.  2-124B    Nordend-Ost 
60385 Frankfurt  Berger Str.  107-181   Nordend-Ost 
60385 Frankfurt  Berger Str.  126-190   Nordend-Ost 
60385 Frankfurt  Berger Str.  183-999   Bornheim 
60385 Frankfurt  Berger Str.  192-998   Bornheim

DK

nnnn

English text on Danish postcodes
More comprehensive lists (in Danish) of Danish postcodes
Statutory order/ circular on post addresses, translated into English

The Faroe Islands, which are part of Denmark, used to be part of the danish postcode system, but now have their own 3 digit postcodes, so even when sending letters from Denmark "FO-" has to be prepended the postcode. The danish Wikipedia article for Faroe Islands postcodes is here.

Greenland however is still part of the danish postcode system and uses the range 3900-3999.

ES

nnnnn

Un código postal español (Código Postal) consta de cinco dígitos, los dos primeros dígitos se derivan de una lista por orden alfabético de las 50 provincias españolas - a partir de 01nnn ÁLava/Araba y termina en 50nnn de Zaragoza. Códigos postales 51001 a 51005 se utilizan para las direcciones de Ceuta y 52001 a 52006 para las direcciones en Melilla (los territorios españoles en el norte de África). Hay un poco de confusión para los códigos postales Asturias que comienzan con los dígitos 33nnn (en lugar de 05nnn), porque antiguamente, era conocido por su nombre de la ciudad capital, Oviedo. Ese es también el caso de Cantabria (39nnn), que fue conocida anteriormente como Santandero La Rioja (26nnn) por Logroño.

01 Álava	14 Córdoba	27 Lugo	40 Segovia
02 Albacete	15 La Coruña	28 Madrid	41 Sevilla
03 Alicante	16 Cuenca	29 Málaga	42 Soria
04 Almería	17 Gerona	30 Murcia	43 Tarragona
05 Ávila	18 Granada	31 Navarra	44 Teruel
06 Badajoz	19 Guadalajara	32 Orense	45 Toledo
07 Islas Baleares (orden de Baleares)	20 Guipúzcoa	33 Asturias (orden de Oviedo)	46 Valencia
08 Barcelona	21 Huelva	34 Palencia	47 Valladolid
09 Burgos	22 Huesca	35 Las Palmas	48 Vizcaya
10 Cáceres	23 Jaén	36 Pontevedra	49 Zamora
11 Cádiz	24 León	37 Salamanca	50 Zaragoza
12 Castellón	25 Lérida	38 Santa Cruz de Tenerife	51 Ceuta
13 Ciudad Real	26 La Rioja (orden de Logroño)	39 Cantabria (orden de Santander)	52 Melilla

FI

nnnnn

Smaller numbers in the south, bigger in the north

There's a service for mapping between street / city and postal code at http://www.itella.fi/online-palvelut/tyokalutjalaskurit/postinumerohaku.html

FR

nnnnn

The number denotes a 'Code Postal' (postal district)

1-2. Number: Departments, department as also used for vehicle number plate suffix before 2009. Not street level.
3-5 : district

Postcodes are assigned by the French Post, as suited best for their postal needs:

Most of the time a city or commune has just one number. Villages may share one number with other villages or a town nearby.

Bigger cities (Paris, Lyon, Marseille) have postcode for each district (Lyon/Rhône: 69 between 69001 - 69009)
Others Bigger cities have more than one e.g. Saint-Étienne/Loire 42000,42100...

The number can have leading zeros because 0 is a valid zone
The postal districts have no relation to the city districts
The postal districts may exceed the borders of counties or even departments
Single locations may use the postcode of the nearby office which delivers post best, even if located within another postal area otherwise.
There can be seperate numbers for P.O. Boxes or large institiutions (e.g. businesses receiving large ammount of mail) where no real street or geolocation can be assigned.

HR

HR-nnnnn

Shown format is ISO format for postal code use in Croatia, in standard use is also 5 digits number without "HR-" prefix.

The code is divide by bigger city in which Croatian Post have major distributing center :

10000 Zagreb Area
20000 Dubrovnik Area
21000 Split Area
22000 Šibenik Area
23000 Zadar Area
31000 Osijek Area
32000 Vukovar Area
33000 Virovitica Area
34000 Požega Area
35000 Slavonski Brod Area
40000 Čakovec Area
42000 Varaždin Area
43000 Bjelovar Area
44000 Sisak Area
47000 Karlovac Area
48000 Koprivnica Area
49000 Krapina Area
51000 Rijeka Area
52000 Pazin Area
53000 Gospić Area

Mostly Post use central city of County for distributing center. Also Croatian telecom use first two digits for prefix number when you call phone number in Croatia.

Postal code is assigned to post office, not particularly for area, so it will be nice to submit coordinate of postal office with exact postal code.

All code are freely available (and very accurate) on Croatian Post web pages.

It has been verified that Croatian postcode database may be imported in OSM.

HU

nnnn

Every postcode in Budapest (the capital of Hungary) starts with number one, like this: 1nnn. Then the 2nd and 3rd character tell the districts (23 districts exist is Budapest). So a postcode like 1028 can be found in the 2nd district within the city. Other areas in the country has different method, follows clockwise order from NortEast (3nnn) to NorthWest (9nnn), however the Budapest agglomeration usually starts with number 2 (2nnn).

IE

Dublin n(n)('W')

The Republic of Ireland currently does not use postcodes at all, the closest thing being the Dublin and Cork Postal Districts, of which only the Dublin ones are ever used on letters. A Dublin postal district is similar to the old pre-postcode UK ones, and is included on the postal town address line in the format "Dublin 15".

Odd-numbered postal districts (1-17) are north of the river Liffey, even-numbered ones (2-24 and 6W) south (with slight spillover in at least one river-spanning suburb). Dublin 6W is an anomaly to the system caused by address snobbery triggered by a boundary adjustment that threatened to include a slightly-upmarket district with its middle-class neighbours.

Cork's postal districts go from 1 to 4.

A project is in progress to devise and implement a countrywide postcode scheme, with 2011 the currently suggested date for a rollout. Although details of the scheme are not yet clear, Postcodes are likely to be street-level and at least at townland resolution in rural areas.

Wikipedia Article

IN

In India postal codes or PIN codes are 6 digits without any letter prefix or suffix. Sample codes:

 * 1xxxxx - Delhi and most North India
 * 4xxxxx - Mumbai and most Western India
 * 5xxxxx - Hyderabad
 * 7xxxxx - Kolkatta and most Eastern India
 * 6xxxxx - Chennai and most South India

IT

nnnnn

On a general basis, they are on town level.

This cities have street level granularity:

Alessandra, Ancona, Bari, Bergamo, Bologna, Brescia, Cagliari, Catania, Cesena, Ferrara, Firenze, Foggia, Forlì, Genova, La Spezia, Livorno, Messina, Milano, Modena, Napoli, Padova, Palermo, Parma, Perugia, Pesaro, Pescara, Piacenza, Pisa, Ravenna, Reggio Calabria, Reggio Emilia, Rimini, Roma, Salerno, Taranto, Torino, Trento, Trieste, Venezia, Verbania, Verona .

more info here:

officiale http://www.poste.it/online/cercacap/

unofficiale http://italia.indettaglio.it/ita/cap/cap.html

LV

Latvian post codes are managed by Latvian Post. Code consists with letters LV and for digits like LV-xxxx If code is in Riga then it is in interval 1000 - 2000. Outside Riga codes are bigger than 2000.

You can find any Latvias post code by goin this link

MD

nnnn

The full postcode looks like MD-nnnn, where the first two numbers indicate the city/district, and the latter - the post office code.

Postcodes

65xx - Anenii Noi
67xx - Basarabeasca
31xx - Bălţi
47xx - Briceni
39xx - Cahul
73xx - Cantemir
44xx - Călăraşi
43xx - Căuşeni
61xx - Ceadîr-Lunga
20xx - Chişinău
41xx - Cimişlia
38xx - Comrat
48xx - Criuleni 	
51xx - Donduşeni
52xx - Drochia
4571 - Cocieri
46xx - Edineţ
59xx - Făleşti
50xx - Floreşti
49xx - Glodeni
34xx - Hîncesti
68xx - Ialoveni
63xx - Leova
64xx - Nisporeni 
71xx - Ocniţa
35xx - Orhei
54xx - Rezina
56xx - Rîscani
62xx - Sîngerei
30xx - Soroca
37xx - Străşeni
72xx - Şoldăneşti
42xx - Ştefan Vodă
74xx - Taraclia
58xx - Teleneşti
36xx - Ungheni

NL

nnnn-aa

the first two digits denote city or region; the remainder denotes the delivery route, down to street side and segment. There is a scheme that uses a check digit to denote odd street number, even street number, or even boat moorings, which is easy enough to implement to check validity of addresses.

NO

nnnn

Postcode / area:

0100-1299 Oslo
1300-1999 South East region (Østfold county)
2000-2999 Central East region
3000-3999 Central South region (Vestfold, Telemark counties)
4000-4999 South (Agder, Rogaland counties, Stavanger, Haugesund)
5000-5999 West (Hordaland county, Bergen)
6000-6999 North west region (Ålesund, Molde)
7000-7999 Mid Central region (Trøndelag counties, Trondheim)
8000-8999 Low north (Nordland)
9000-9999 High north (Troms, Finnmark, Svalbard)

Nrk/YR is [making an effort] to make a free database

NZ

nnnn

First digit corresponds to one of 10 mail sorting lines. Each base code has approximately the same number of addresses, numeric IDS ascend going southwards. See NZ Post postcodes. Directories are freely downloadable but copyright. Database costs $.

0000 Northland 1000 North Auckland 2000 South Auckland 3000 Hamilton, Tauranga, Taupo? 4000 Taranaki to Gisborne 5000 Wairarapa & Kapiti Coast 6000 Wellington 7000 Northern South Island 8000 Christchurch 9000 Southern South Island

PL

nn-nnn

Like Croatia / Slovenia - assigned to the post office. In most cases first three digits identify city (nn-nxx). Consult wikipedia for more details: [5]

RO

nnnnnn

First two digits are marking the county (region). More details on [6]

SE

nnn nn

Not street level, usually in densly populated areas a street have more than one postcode, but where the population is more sparse there might be many streets per postcode. I did a fast count of the number of people per postcode and came up with 1000 per number, in Stockholm.

List of areas and their numbers

Postcode	Location	Comment
10x xx	Stockholm	PO boxes and companies
11x xx	Stockholm	Street addresses
20x xx	Malmö	PO boxes and companies
21x xx	Malmö	Street addresses
22x xx	Lund
25x xx	Helsingborg
30x xx	Halmstad
35x xx	Växjö
40x xx	Göteborg	PO boxes and companies
41x xx	Göteborg	Street addresses
50x xx	Borås
55x xx	Jönköping
58x xx	Linköping
60x xx	Norrköping
63x xx	Eskilstuna
64x xx	Torshälla
65x xx	Karlstad
70x xx	Örebro
72x xx	Västerås
75x xx	Uppsala
80x xx	Gävle
85x xx	Sundsvall
90x xx	Umeå
97x xx	Luleå	Before the revision 951 xx

SI

nnnn

TR

nnnnn

the first two digits denote province, as also used for vehicle licence plate prefix. Not street level.

TW

nnnnn or nnn.

I had fun exploring the Taiwan Post Office's postal code CDROM. They hand it out free at the post office, and one finds no copyright notice on it. The CDROM is better than their website, http://www.post.gov.tw/ , which doesn't expose the innards.

UA

UA-nnnnn

Postcode	Province	Administrative centre
01xxx-06xxx	Kyiv-city
07xxx-09xxx	Kyiv-province
10xxx-13xxx	Zhytomyr	100xx-Zhytomyr
14xxx-17xxx	Chernihiv	140xx-Chernihiv
18xxx-20xxx	Cherkasy	180xx-Cherkasy
21xxx-24xxx	Vinnytsia	210xx-Vinnytsia
25xxx-28xxx	Kirovohrad	250xx-Kirovohrad
29xxx-32xxx	Khmelnytskyi	290xx-Khmelnytskyi
33xxx-35xxx	Rivne	330xx-Rivne
36xxx-39xxx	Poltava	360xx-Poltava
40xxx-42xxx	Sumy	400xx-Sumy
43xxx-45xxx	Volyn	430xx-Lutsk
46xxx-49xxx	Ternopil	460xx-Ternopil
49xxx-53xxx	Dnipropetrovsk	490xx-Dnipropetrovsk
54xxx-57xxx	Mykolaiv	540xx-Mykolaiv
58xxx-60xxx	Chernivtsi	580xx-Chernivtsi
61xxx-64xxx	Kharkiv	610xx-611xx-Kharkiv
65xxx-69xxx	Odesa	650xx-Odesa
69xxx-72xxx	Zaporizhzhia	690xx-Zaporizhzhia
73xxx-75xxx	Kherson	730xx-Kherson
76xxx-78xxx	Ivano-Frankivsk	760xx-Ivano-Frankivsk
79xxx-82xxx	Lviv	790xx-Lviv
83xxx-88xxx	Donetsk	830xx-Donetsk
88xxx-90xxx	Zakarpattia	880xx-Uzhhorod
91xxx-94xxx	Luhansk	910xx-Luhansk
97xxx-98xxx	Crimea	95000-Simferopol
99xxx	Sevastopol

UK

a(a)n(n|a) naa

the initial alpha(s) are a mnemonic for city or region. All of Northern Ireland is BTn(n), despite containing several cities. London on the other hand is divided into several regions. Quite complex to parse/validate. Mnemonic look-up tables will be needed.

Girobank post codes are an exception (GIR naa) - see the PAF digest The first part of the postcode is known as the "Outward" part, and the second part is the "Inward" part. Typically, the "Outward" part relates to one, and only one postal town, though there are some exceptions.

UK coverage is being tracked at Free The Postcode UK Coverage

UK Overseas Territories

aaaa 1ZZ

Several of the UK's Overseas Territories have now been allocated a postocode (one single postcode per territory). They are a four letter code (based on the territory name), followed by 1ZZ. Wikipedia has an apparently full list of them.

US

(aa) nnnnn(-nnnn)

the alphas denote state, the nnnnn seem to be low in the Eastern US, high in the West. The -nnnn suffix brings zipcodes down to the carrier level. The street address and zip+4 is all the address that is needed in the USA.

ZA

nnnn

0000-2999 Northern Region (Gauteng, Mpumalanga, most of North West, Limpopo)
3000-4999 Eastern Region (Kwa Zulu Natal, eastern part of Eastern Cape)
5000-6699 Southern Region (Eastern Cape, eastern parts of Wetsern Cape)
6000-8299 Western Region (Western Cape (Cape Town and West Coast), Northern Cape)
8300-9999 Central Region (Northern Cape and Free State) (excluding 9000-9299, formerly South West Africa)

Wikipedia:List of postal codes in South Africa

Legal

As stated on the website itself. PLEASE ONLY ENTER DATA YOU YOURSELF HAVE COLLECTED WITH A GPS OR DERIVED FROM COPYRIGHT-FREE DATA. Other data may be copyrighted!

Alongside the data links the website also mentions the words 'public domain'.

See Talk:Free The Postcode#Legal for more detail (discussions)

FTP Stats

Links

http://opengeodb.sourceforge.net/
http://developer.skolelinux.no/~pere/gis/openstreetmap/pcode-location.txt
http://www.kirit.com/Free the Postcode — mirror of UK database available in other formats

other data

FTP will be upgraded to take other postcodes and also train stations. Until then, I'm dumping the data here:

Free The Postcode

From OpenStreetMap Wiki

Contents

How to easily get postcodes

iPhone Application

Windows Mobile Application

Geocoder

Feature requests

Schema

AT

AU

BE

BR

CA

CN

DE

DK

ES

FI

FR

HR

HU

IE

IN

IT

LV

MD

NL

NO

NZ

PL

RO

SE

SI

TR

TW

UA

UK

UK Overseas Territories

US

ZA

Legal

FTP Stats

Links

other data

Personal tools

Namespaces

Variants

Views

Actions

Search

Recent changes

Navigation

Toolbox