[Qgis-user] geocoding

[QGIS]

On 05/14/2012 08:35 AM, M.E.Dodd wrote: 

> Is it possible to
geocode a list of addresses? I have the geocoding plugin loaded and it
works (api key sorted out) but not sure how to get the list of addresses
into qgis as they have no x,y location info at the moment. Am sure this
question asked before but could not find the answer. 
> 
> Dr Mike Dodd

> Department of Environment, Earth and Ecosystems 
> The Open
University
> Walton Hall
> Milton Keynes
> MK7 6AA 
> 
>
http://www.ispot.org.uk/ [1] 
> http://www.floodplainmeadows.org.uk/
[2]

I am aware of two potential solutions:

1) Locate a webservice and
have that produce the Latitude/Longitude coordinate pairs.

This site
has several:
https://webgis.usc.edu/Services/Geocode/About/GeocoderList.aspx

Most as
far as I can tell do not have support outside the United States
however.

Ultimately it would be a nice feature to have added to the
plugin.

2) The solution I had to go with was to use PostGIS outside of
QGIS to generate the Latitude/Longitude pairs. This may not work
depending on your setup, available time, knowledge level, budget, or
level of access within your organization.

The available documentation I
found assumes that United States Census Bureau data is used to geocode
against. This solution could be made to work for other countries if the
same/similar type of data released by the US Census Bureau is made
available by the locality for which you wish to geocode for. Changes
likely will be needed either to the setup scripts or the final database
columns prior to loading data from your locality to take into account
differences between how things are done in the US versus your locality.
Examples might include length and data type of postal codes and
state/provincial abbreviations.

Some information can be found here:
http://postgis.refractions.net/documentation/manual-svn/Geocode.html 

A
setup guide
http://www.letseehere.com/postgis-geocoder-using-tiger-2010-data

--

Dan Dittmann
 

Links:
------
[1] http://www.ispot.org.uk/
[2]
http://www.floodplainmeadows.org.uk/
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