[Talk-us] [Imports] Zipcode Import

[Anthony]

On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 12:29 PM, Jeremy Adams <milenko at king-nerd.com>wrote:

> One can easily figure out what town someone is from based on their ZIP
> Code.  Is this not the case everywhere?
>

Certainly not.  There are lots of zip codes which represent multiple towns,
and lots of towns which represent multiple zip codes.

You can usually find out an approximate geographical location from a zip
code (at least if it isn't an APO/FPO zip code).  But if that's all you
want, you're best off just representing zip codes as single points in the
approximate geographical center of all post boxes which receive mail to that
zip code.  Going in the other direction, from lat/lon to zip code (assuming
your lat/lon is the location of a building and/or post box), requires a much
more specialized database which isn't currently available as public domain.
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