It was a bit of a running joke when I started the business. “How do you Geocode addresses?” and my usual answer was “I actually haven’t – I’ve never dealt with addresses”. Suddenly about 3 or 4 jobs later I had geocoded quite a bit and then last year I had the whole “learning about addresses” adventure in the islands.
So through email I got the following from a colleague:
| The Census Bureau has released a new geocoding tool that allows users to find the census geographic areas that street addresses or address coordinates are located within. The tool is available as an API and a web form. In addition to a single address look-up, the tool also allows users to submit batches of up to 1,000 addresses at a time. The information in the geocoder comes from the Census Bureau’s MAF/TIGER database, which holds our geographic information used for censuses and surveys. The address ranges used in the geocoder are the same address ranges found in the TIGER/Line Shapefiles, which are derived from the Master Address File (MAF).
Additional information, including documentation, descriptions of the data in the geocoder, and FAQs are included on our geocoder website. |
| Contact: geo.tiger@census.gov | (301) 763-1128 |
So this is kinda nice I think. A geocoder from the group I would expect a geocoder from. Most of my geocoding was against ArcGIS’s Geocoding Service and when it disappeared as a free service – well – I haven’t done any geocoding since.
For fun and giggles I did my old address and got this back:
Matched Address: 215 Jarnigan Ave, CHATTANOOGA, TN, 37405
Coordinates:X: -85.30156 Y: 35.062725
Tiger Line Id: 59307418 Side: L
Address Components:
From Address: 203
To Address: 299
PreQualifier:
PreDirection:
PreType:
Street Name: Jarnigan
SuffixType: Ave
SuffixDirection:
SuffixQualifier:
City: CHATTANOOGA
State: TN
Zip: 37405
So – I await the Happy hacking of tools and scripting…..I’m halfway tempted now to pretend I could write a QGIS Plugin or an arctoolbox model!
