[Talk-us] importing zip codes

Ian Dees ian.dees at gmail.com
Mon Feb 17 19:19:45 UTC 2014


Charles,

The zipcode information from census.gov aren't official zipcodes. Only the
USPS knows those and they don't give them out very often. Also, zip codes
are not polygons, but lines. Also, the data from Census is from 2010 and
hasn't been updated since. It's my opinion that they should not be imported.

To answer your technical question: yes, overlapping boundaries should be
split apart and the pieces put into relations.

-Ian

On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 1:11 PM, <osm at charles.derkarl.org> wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> I have a shape file from census.gov which contains the boundaries for all
> zip
> codes in the US. This data should not need licensing in that it comes from
> the
> us federal census.
>
> I would also like the community to answer this technical question: Each
> boundary obviously shares a border with another zip code. Should those
> shared
> boundaries have the same way, and then each zip code becomes a relation?
>
> Failing any negative replies, I will cook up an implementation and provide
> some .osm files for review before importing.
>
> Charles
> Boulder Creek, CA, USA
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