Mapping Hacks - CivicSpace ZIP Code Database
"About four years ago, Civic Space Labs commissioned me to provide them with a freely available database of US ZIP code centroids. For a while, it was hosted on their site, but at some point the link was broken. Since then, I’ve gotten about an email a month from people looking for the database.
For future reference, the free US ZIP code centroid database is now hosted here on the Mapping Hacks site. From the README:
The ZIP code database contained in ‘zipcode.csv’ contains 43204 ZIP
codes for the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico,
and American Samoa. The database is in comma separated value format,
with columns for ZIP code, city, state, latitude, longitude, timezone
(offset from GMT), and daylight savings time flag (1 if DST is observed
in this ZIP code and 0 if not).This database was composed using ZIP code gazetteers from the US Census
Bureau from 1999 and 2000, augmented with additional ZIP code information
from the Census Bureau’s TIGER/Line 2003 data set. Timezone information
was added using cartographic data sets from nationalatlas.gov. The
database is guaranteed to exclusively contain information gathered from
sources in the public domain, and thus be legal to redistribute.The database is believed to contain over 98% of the ZIP Codes in current
use in the United States. ......
The database and this README are copyright 2004 CivicSpace Labs, Inc.,
and are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
license, which requires that all updates must be released under the same
license......."
This could come in handy...
Hook in the LinqToCSV project (via WindowsClient.net - LINQ to CSV library) and you've got a real winner.
Related Past Post XRef:
The Code Project - ZIP Code Utility
USZip Web Service by WebServiceX.Net
I wrote a small article on how to use CC-licensed data to create a geo-location application:
ReplyDeleteI hit all your links to their end and found none of this zipcode info you are touting. Bummer. I could have used them.
ReplyDeleteGo to the original article (link at the top) and then click on its "free US ZIP code centroid database" link. That links directly to the Zip dnowload...
ReplyDeleteI did not link directly to the download as I didn't want to leach their traffic too much...
Pando, I think the correct link for your geo-location application is, http://ergo.rydlr.net/?p=35, right?
ReplyDeleteawesome we need this shit all the time in data analysis
ReplyDeleteYou can find the geo-location formula written in several programming languages free from the following URL.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.zipcodeworld.com/developers.htm
Hi, I cannot seem to find the zip code file anymore. I clicked on the link at the top as Greg said on April 29, but there is no link there as he stated. So it must have moved again. Anybody know where it is now?
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Scott
@Scott,
ReplyDeleteYeah, it looks like the post, link and download have been pulled.
Hopefully someone cached the data somewhere and can repost it.
If/when I find it I'll update this post.
Thanks for pointing out it's gone....
Okay, found the data...
ReplyDeleteOn the top of the page, in the header, there's a geodata link.
This will take you to a list of their geodata files.
The one you want is the http://mappinghacks.com/data/zipcode.zip
I hope this helps,
Greg
The CSV zip code DB is way-useful stuff, dude. Thanks much for putting this out there. Now if only I can figure out how to import a CSV into Derby/Java DB, my weekend will be complete...
ReplyDeleteYou can get the free monthly updates database list from the following URL.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.zipcodeworld.com/zipcodefree.htm
Here is a free one that is kept up-to-date. http://greatdata.com (see free menu at top)
ReplyDeletebetter yet, here is the direct link: http://greatdata.com/free-zip-code-database
ReplyDelete