[OHM] Falsehoods programmers believe about geography/addresses

[Richard Welty]

On 5/1/15 11:47 AM, todd.d.robbins at gmail.com wrote:
> Richard,
>
> Great point about administrative boundaries and ZIP code boundaries.
> It'd be really interesting to see the evolution of ZIP codes over the
> decades.
>
> Has anyone seen visualizations of ZIP changes previously? Or know
> whether there are historical datasets of ZIP boundaries?
>
the USPS has historically held zip code data closely as it's a profit
center;
they sell it to shippers under fairly restrictive terms of service.
additionally, they maintain it as a set of routes, not as a set of polygons;
there are reasons why a poly representation of the data can only be
approximate.

the Census Bureau has their ZCTA data set, which is a polygonal
approximation of zip code data that they use for various statistical
exercises. but it only goes back as far as the TIGER effort goes, so
far as i know. or at least, any pre-TIGER data isn't readily available.
ZCTA is public domain and available in various formats on the
TIGER download site.

richard

-- 
rwelty at averillpark.net
 Averill Park Networking - GIS & IT Consulting
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