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.

[edit] 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

[edit] AAGC - Alternative Geocode

Contents 1 Comment by Gwillim Law 2 AAGC - Alternative Geocode 2.1 AAGD - Description 2.2 AAGE - Example 2.3 AAGG - Global level 2.4 AAGH - Continent and ocean level 2.5 AAGI - Subcontinent level 2.6 AAGJ - Country level 2.7 AAGK - Subcountry level 2.8 AAGP - rough postal code 2.9 (AAGX - Coordinate system)? 3 Cities

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

• 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)

[edit] AAGP - rough postal code

• if postalcodes are numbers, just put them behind the 2-letter-country-code

[edit] (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)

[edit] Cities

• UN/LOCODE (5-letter system, not covering all cities)

List of "invented" UN/LOCODEs by Tobias, for cities without UN/LOCODE:

AR1BR;AR;1BR;BA;B;Bragado
AR1CB;AR;1CB;BA;B;City Bell
AR1CS;AR;1CS;SF;S;Casilda
AR1GC;AR;1GC;MD;M;Godoy Cruz
AR1FL;AR;1FL;CD;;La Falda
AR1LN;AR;1LN;BA;B;Lanús
AR1LZ;AR;1LZ;BA;B;Lomas de Zamora
AR1MH;AR;1MH;BA;B;Matheu
AR1VL;AR;1VL;BA;B;Vicente Lopez
CO1US;CO;1US;AT;;Usiacurí
CO1CQ;CO;1CQ;BY;;Chiquinquirá
ES1SI;ES;1SI;;;Sitges
FR1PR;FR;1PR;;;Prayssacc
GR1GR;GR;1GR;;;Gerakini
GR1LP;GR;1LP;;;Leptokarya
GR1PR;GR;1PR;;;Paros Island
IT1FZ;IT;1FZ;MS;MS;Fivizzano
IT1CR;IT;1CR;TA;TA;Crispiano
NZ1MB;NZ;1MB;WN;WGN;Martinborough
SE1ST;SE;1ST;SK;M;Stångby