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I recently moved to Belgium (Wallonie) coming from France, and it's a nightmare with regards to addresses… Even google has trouble finding my home address, or i

I recently moved to Belgium (Wallonie) coming from France, and it's a nightmare with regards to addresses… Even google has trouble finding my home address, or it's off by a few hundred meters. I can't stress enough that it should be one of the job of the state to do this or make this happen (e.g. in France we have https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_adresse_nationale https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_adresse_nationale which, restrospectively, is probably why I never had any problem with addresses in France).

Uberphallus 5y ago
France is just superior to every other country in regards to address data access, and anything geography really. In the worst offenders, you have UK, where Royal Mail charges you for postcode data [0], or China where private mapping is simply illegal [1] and you have to go through some state-approved cash register (i.e. NavInfo). [0] https://www.poweredbypaf.com/licence-our-products/licence-agreements/pricing/ https://www.poweredbypaf.com/licence-our-products/licence-ag... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_data_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...
- Gys 5y ago
  > France is just superior to every other country in regards to address data access, and anything geography really. That is a very bold statement? Do you have a source for that?
  - maelito 5y ago
    The simple fact that France provides lots of APIs and open data, including the API BAN (Base adresse nationale) one cited above is a first reference which gives confidence from the perspective of a developer. https://geo.api.gouv.fr/adresse https://geo.api.gouv.fr/adresse https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr But you're right, other countries could do as well, in their language. It's hard to be aware of all the initiatives.
  - Uberphallus 5y ago
    It's bold, and in many ways it's just my opinion, but having analyzed the ease data access of most developed nations, the French data sources are the only ones I felt like I wasn't missing some basic data in a significant manner. Cadastre is lacking postcode-wise, but it can be easily complemented with the data here [2]. Sibling parent already mentioned BAN, but you can also check cadastre [0] which is the main source of polygon data for France on OpenStreetMap. Under the general subdomain [1] you have access to all sorts of stuff, but geography wise, there are plenty of geotagged aerial photographs, both historical and current. You also have shapefile data for towns, regions, postal codes, you name it. No shenanigans, all official, verified, and regularly updated. [0] https://cadastre.data.gouv.fr/ https://cadastre.data.gouv.fr/ [1] https://data.gouv.fr/ https://data.gouv.fr/ [2] https://datanova.legroupe.laposte.fr/explore/?sort=modified https://datanova.legroupe.laposte.fr/explore/?sort=modified
    - maelito 5y ago
      You can also visualize the price of all the residential transactions in a given zone. This house was sold twice, in 2015, in 2018, at 350 000€, for 105m² of constructed area, and 150m² in total. I guess it is groundbreaking for most countries. https://app.dvf.etalab.gouv.fr https://app.dvf.etalab.gouv.fr
    - teruakohatu 5y ago
      New Zealand has very high quality data. Every single address is in a open database that can be queried or downloaded. It also includes building outlines, roads, land parcel shapes, aerial photos, elevation data and more. OSM for NZ was originally copied from official data, and even before OSM the community used the open data to make high quality map files for GPS devices that were superior to the paid maps. It would be nice for property prices to be included the central government data. It is free and publicity available but from each municipality or many websites that republish the data along with analytics. https://data.linz.govt.nz/ https://data.linz.govt.nz/
      - Uberphallus 5y ago
        Honestly I hadn't looked into NZ, I centered my attention mostly to NA, Europe and China. It looks pretty good, and in the same level of coverage as France. That's a wonderful surprise! I'll keep that in mind if I ever go back to this subject.
  - lucideer 5y ago
    I don't know who's best in this area today, but anecdotally I would've looked to Denmark as the leader in this area in the past.
    - ochrist 5y ago
      Yeah, agree. There's a government agency taking care of this, and all kind of GIS data is available to everybody: https://www.geodata-info.dk/srv/eng/catalog.search#/home https://www.geodata-info.dk/srv/eng/catalog.search#/home
- lucideer 5y ago
  > In the worst offenders, you have UK, where Royal Mail charges you for postcode data Actually, the UK is kind of a funny situation. A number of years ago the Ordnance Survey began publishing postcode data under a free (CC) licence. Royal Mail wasn't too happy, but as Royal Mail's APIs were a bit simpler and more direct (OS service was SPARQL-only) so I guess they didn't feel threatened enough to change their pricing. I worked for a company that had an account with Royal Mail at the time and I was tasked with parsing OS data. That's many years ago and now that I revisit the OS offerings have changed. They appear to have relicensed, and split their offerings between a free db[0] without full addresses and a commercial db[1] with full addresses. Either way, Royal Mail may have the established customer base but I wouldn't look to them exclusively to see who's "leading the way" in this space in the UK. [0] https://ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/open-map-names https://ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/op... [1] https://ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/addressbase https://ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/ad...
laurensr 5y ago
In Flanders (for non-Belgians: the northern Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) there is CRAB ("Centraal Referentieadressenbestand" / "Central Reference Address File") which contains the lat./long. for every address in Flanders. It can be accessed as a map layer at http://geopunt.be/ http://geopunt.be/ or as open data at https://overheid.vlaanderen.be/informatie-vlaanderen/producten-diensten/centraal-referentieadressenbestand-crab https://overheid.vlaanderen.be/informatie-vlaanderen/product...
dhekir 5y ago
After moving to a newly-finished building, I realized most companies didn't have up-to-date databases and some forms prevented me from correcting the "mis-corrected" addresses. Missed a few deliveries during the first few months/years. On the other hand, having lived in a country where such databases were notoriously unreliable, such automated processing didn't exist, so I didn't encounter that problem. Sometimes, having something work "way too well" can lead people to believe it's perfect, and enforce it too strictly.

Uberphallus 5y ago

France is just superior to every other country in regards to address data access, and anything geography really. In the worst offenders, you have UK, where Royal Mail charges you for postcode data [0], or China where private mapping is simply illegal [1] and you have to go through some state-approved cash register (i.e. NavInfo). [0] https://www.poweredbypaf.com/licence-our-products/licence-agreements/pricing/ https://www.poweredbypaf.com/licence-our-products/licence-ag... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_data_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...

Gys 5y ago
> France is just superior to every other country in regards to address data access, and anything geography really. That is a very bold statement? Do you have a source for that?
- maelito 5y ago
  The simple fact that France provides lots of APIs and open data, including the API BAN (Base adresse nationale) one cited above is a first reference which gives confidence from the perspective of a developer. https://geo.api.gouv.fr/adresse https://geo.api.gouv.fr/adresse https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr But you're right, other countries could do as well, in their language. It's hard to be aware of all the initiatives.
- Uberphallus 5y ago
  It's bold, and in many ways it's just my opinion, but having analyzed the ease data access of most developed nations, the French data sources are the only ones I felt like I wasn't missing some basic data in a significant manner. Cadastre is lacking postcode-wise, but it can be easily complemented with the data here [2]. Sibling parent already mentioned BAN, but you can also check cadastre [0] which is the main source of polygon data for France on OpenStreetMap. Under the general subdomain [1] you have access to all sorts of stuff, but geography wise, there are plenty of geotagged aerial photographs, both historical and current. You also have shapefile data for towns, regions, postal codes, you name it. No shenanigans, all official, verified, and regularly updated. [0] https://cadastre.data.gouv.fr/ https://cadastre.data.gouv.fr/ [1] https://data.gouv.fr/ https://data.gouv.fr/ [2] https://datanova.legroupe.laposte.fr/explore/?sort=modified https://datanova.legroupe.laposte.fr/explore/?sort=modified
  - maelito 5y ago
    You can also visualize the price of all the residential transactions in a given zone. This house was sold twice, in 2015, in 2018, at 350 000€, for 105m² of constructed area, and 150m² in total. I guess it is groundbreaking for most countries. https://app.dvf.etalab.gouv.fr https://app.dvf.etalab.gouv.fr
  - teruakohatu 5y ago
    New Zealand has very high quality data. Every single address is in a open database that can be queried or downloaded. It also includes building outlines, roads, land parcel shapes, aerial photos, elevation data and more. OSM for NZ was originally copied from official data, and even before OSM the community used the open data to make high quality map files for GPS devices that were superior to the paid maps. It would be nice for property prices to be included the central government data. It is free and publicity available but from each municipality or many websites that republish the data along with analytics. https://data.linz.govt.nz/ https://data.linz.govt.nz/
    - Uberphallus 5y ago
      Honestly I hadn't looked into NZ, I centered my attention mostly to NA, Europe and China. It looks pretty good, and in the same level of coverage as France. That's a wonderful surprise! I'll keep that in mind if I ever go back to this subject.
- lucideer 5y ago
  I don't know who's best in this area today, but anecdotally I would've looked to Denmark as the leader in this area in the past.
  - ochrist 5y ago
    Yeah, agree. There's a government agency taking care of this, and all kind of GIS data is available to everybody: https://www.geodata-info.dk/srv/eng/catalog.search#/home https://www.geodata-info.dk/srv/eng/catalog.search#/home
lucideer 5y ago
> In the worst offenders, you have UK, where Royal Mail charges you for postcode data Actually, the UK is kind of a funny situation. A number of years ago the Ordnance Survey began publishing postcode data under a free (CC) licence. Royal Mail wasn't too happy, but as Royal Mail's APIs were a bit simpler and more direct (OS service was SPARQL-only) so I guess they didn't feel threatened enough to change their pricing. I worked for a company that had an account with Royal Mail at the time and I was tasked with parsing OS data. That's many years ago and now that I revisit the OS offerings have changed. They appear to have relicensed, and split their offerings between a free db[0] without full addresses and a commercial db[1] with full addresses. Either way, Royal Mail may have the established customer base but I wouldn't look to them exclusively to see who's "leading the way" in this space in the UK. [0] https://ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/open-map-names https://ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/op... [1] https://ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/addressbase https://ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/ad...

laurensr 5y ago

In Flanders (for non-Belgians: the northern Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) there is CRAB ("Centraal Referentieadressenbestand" / "Central Reference Address File") which contains the lat./long. for every address in Flanders. It can be accessed as a map layer at http://geopunt.be/ http://geopunt.be/ or as open data at https://overheid.vlaanderen.be/informatie-vlaanderen/producten-diensten/centraal-referentieadressenbestand-crab https://overheid.vlaanderen.be/informatie-vlaanderen/product...

dhekir 5y ago

After moving to a newly-finished building, I realized most companies didn't have up-to-date databases and some forms prevented me from correcting the "mis-corrected" addresses. Missed a few deliveries during the first few months/years. On the other hand, having lived in a country where such databases were notoriously unreliable, such automated processing didn't exist, so I didn't encounter that problem. Sometimes, having something work "way too well" can lead people to believe it's perfect, and enforce it too strictly.