User:Tobias Conradi/Free geocodes
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For interaction in the field of spatial data geocodes are very helpful. At continent and subcontinent level the 3-digit codes used by UN and on country level the ISO 3166-1 codes do a good job. Unfortunately I do not know any codes on a subcountry basis that are freely available and cover all countries.
The ISO 3166-2 codes are not free, NUTS does not cover all countries. Even without backing of a big organization it should be possible to develop such free geocodes.
Everyone who is also in the need of free geocodes is invited to post comments and suggestion on this page here. I think there are enough Wikipedians to maintain such a code list. Maybe one day we can have a regular entry on wikipedia.
Regards Tobias Conradi 19:36, 2004-03-15 (UTC) supplemented 2004-03-20
You can also help by checking whether codes in the ISO_3166-2 Matrix are free or not. A lot of freecodes in the 2-letter constant length field would be nice. Like for CH and US.
Comment by Gwillim Law
The comp.std.internat newsgroup has a discussion on whether the ISO 3166 codes can be used without paying royalties. You can read the discussion at http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&th=bd06421fbf3dc3d6&seekm=blsh97%24op0%241%40cesium.transmeta.com&frame=off ... My take on it is that you are allowed to use ISO 3166-2 codes, but if you use them in commercially distributed software, you are expected to contribute your share to the maintenance of the standard by buying a hard copy of the document.
I question the value of a new set of codes for primary administrative subdivisions of countries, since there are already several such standards in existence (ISO 3166-2, FIPS 10-4, SALB, HASC). There may, however, be a need for international code sets representing geographic regions, postal codes, ocean areas, etc. I would always ask first, "who needs it, and for what purpose?" Region codes present a special difficulty, because there are many different ways of dividing the world or a country into geographic regions, and disputes will arise over the actual extent of a given region. For example, I've seen heated and unresolvable debates over whether Cyprus (respectively, Georgia) is in Europe or Asia.
Supplemented 2004-11-24
AAGC - Alternative Geocode
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AAGD - Description
- 4-letter system
- 2-letter-2-number system for postal codes
- In order not to collide with ISO 3166-1 take one of the reserved codes e.g. AA, QM...QZ,XA...XZ and ZZ and put every above country level stuff inside.
- let's take AA
- a list will be written which contains the code and a parent code for each code. Parent for USCA (California) is USQQ (United states). Parent for USQQ is AAMQ (the americas). An entry can have two parents if also postcodes are taken as parents.
The letter G in third position after AA is reserved for the definition of the Geocode set. (AAG-range)
Special letter for use in third position is
Q all (whole country, whole continent...)
Special letters for use in fourth position are
E east (AAyE, xxQE) N north (AAyN, xxQN) Q all (AAyQ, xxQQ) S south (AAyS, xxQS) W west (AAyW, xxQW)
where xx stands for any country and y for any above country-level area.
AAGE - Example
Los Angeles AAGG=AANQ (continent is America|North America) AAGH=AANN (subcontinent is Northern America) AAGI=USQQ (country is US) AAGJ=USCA (state is California) AAGP=US90 (first two digits of postcode)
AAGG - Global level
Q is reserved for global level. AAQQ whole planet AAQN northern hemisphere AAQS southern hemisphere AAQE eastern hemisphere AAQW western hemisphere AAQO all oceans AAQC all continents AAQI all islands AAQT tropical zone
AAGH - Continent and ocean level
AAQC Continents: AAEQ Europe AAFQ Africa (AALQ Latin America) (temporary reserved ) AAMQ America (for people considering it to be a continent) AANQ North America AAOQ Oceania AARQ Antarctica AASQ Asia AAZQ South America AAQO Oceans: AAPQ Pacific AAIQ Indian ocean AATQ Atlantic ocean AATN North atlantic
Thus E,F,G,I,(L,)O,P,Q,R,S,T following AA in the third position are assigned. The system is partially hierarchical, because the first 3 letters give a continent and the fourth specifies which part (or whether the whole) is meant.
AAGI - Subcontinent level
3-digit code from http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm
002 Africa AAFQ 014 Eastern Africa AAFE 017 Middle Africa AAFC 015 Northern Africa AAFN 018 Southern Africa AAFS 011 Western Africa AAFW 019 Americas AAMQ 003 North America AANQ 021 Northern America AANN 029 Caribbean AANE 013 Central America AANS 005 South America AAZQ (419 Latin America AALA and the Caribbean 029 Caribbean 013 Central America 005 South America) Antarctica AARQ 142 Asia AASQ 030 Eastern Asia AASE South Asia AASS 062 South-central Asia 035 South-eastern Asia 145 Western Asia AASW 150 Europe AAEQ 151 Eastern Europe 154 Northern Europe 039 Southern Europe 155 Western Europe 009 Oceania AAOQ 053 Australia and New Zealand W Pacific AAOP 054 Melanesia AAO? 057 Micronesia AAO? 061 Polynesia AAOE
AAGJ - Country level
- take 2 letter system ISO 3166-1 alpha-2
- conversion to 4-letter: add 2 QQ, e.g. USQQ is for whole US. (problem: could coincide with subcountry)
AAGK - Subcountry level
- 4-letter system covering the whole world (Like USTX for Texas) would allow 676 entries for every country.
- with Q reserved for parts of the country, this would still be 650 for divisions
- largest set of ISO 3166-2 codes is with above 100 for Slovenia. Mostly ISO 3166-2 only has less than 50 entries
- system covers different levels, thus one cannot recognize from watching 2 codes from one country, whether they are on the same level.
- France has regions and departements. 2 digit departements codes already exist.
- possible conversion for department codes: replace 1234567890AB by ABCDEFGHIJKL (2A and 2B already exist, so A and B have to be transformed)
- Code for a department could be FRAG for a region could be FRBR -> one cannot see the level
- alternative: use primary codes from HASC (see http://www.statoids.com/statoids.html)
- France has regions and departements. 2 digit departements codes already exist.
- Q-leaded ISO 3166-2 codes:
- 1 letter conflicts: AR-Q, MZ-Q, PA-Q, SE-Q
- 2 letter conflicts: AU-QL, CA-QC, GT-QC, GT-QZ, GW-QU, IQ-QA, MU-QB, SY-QU, UZ-QA, UZ-QR (A:2 B:1 C:2 L:1 R:1 U:2 Z:1)
- 3 letter conflicts: 7x AZ-Q.., CO-QUI, MX-QUE, PH-QUE, PH-QUI,
- conflicts with HASC? primary Q-leaded codes?
- not easy to answer, no full primary list available (only for money)
AAGP - rough postal code
- if postalcodes are numbers, just put them behind the 2-letter-country-code
(AAGX - Coordinate system)?
- Map longitude and latitude to codes in the XA...XZ, X0...X9 (36 characters! very good for the 360 degrees of the numeric coordinate system)
Cities
- UN/LOCODE (5-letter system, not covering all cities)