[OSM-talk] Nominatim & US places

[Anthony]

>>> what i still don't get is how it figures out the correct zip code of
>>> 12018
>>> for the displayed result string, i guess there's some research to be
>>> done yet.
>>
>> I've back ported some code from the new version a couple of weeks back
>> which tries to improve postcode handling for addresses but this is
>> just the first stage.  Really I think the zip code stuff is pretty
>> much a solved problem (or will be shortly)  the post town issues are
>> probably more significant.
>
> from a postal code -> post office mapping issue, in general a postal
> code only maps to one post office, so a table showing 12204, 12205,
> 12206, 12207 and so forth mapping to Albany, NY is an entirely reasonable
> thing to do.

http://www.census.gov/tiger/tms/gazetteer/zips.txt

This only gives one of the possibly many acceptable city names for a
zip code (e.g. for 12205 it gives ROESSLEVILLE).  A zip can have more
than one acceptable city name.  See
http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/citytown_zip.jsp

For geocoding, you probably want to accept any of the alternative names.