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In terms of "good enough", a Canadian postal code, broadly equivalent to a zip code, is much more granular and can often identify an individual apartment buildi

In terms of "good enough", a Canadian postal code, broadly equivalent to a zip code, is much more granular and can often identify an individual apartment building, or single city block. Plenty of large office buildings in major Canadian cities also have their own postal code. The functionality of it is closer to the "Zip+4" with extension used to have a more granular routing of physical mail for USPS. https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/support/articles/addressing-guidelines/postal-codes.page https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/support/articl... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_codes_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_codes_in_Canada

ssl-3 2y ago
Sure, and in the States, ZIP+4 could once nail my postal location to a subset of 4 (of a group of 16) mailboxes within a particular set of entry doors on a particular apartment building. But broadly speaking, nobody knows what their ZIP+4 is, while I imagine that most people in Canada know their postal code by heart. It is interesting.
- bluGill 2y ago
  The plus four changes all the time so it isn't feasable to know it. The use is large mailers can get a discount by looking it up and presorting mail. If the mail coming into my post office has my mail next to my next door neighbors that saves them a lot of time.
  - kstrauser 2y ago
    Is that still true? I would imagine any reasonably modern computer could map every physical address in a huge region to a (route number, stop number) pair. I wouldn't think the +4 would add a lot of value anymore.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      The sort everything outgoing by where it goes on the truck is valuable. sure computers can sort but this is physical things and so mechanical limits apply.
mattforrest 2y ago
Yeah but Zip+4 represent a collection of houses not a polygon so not useful for aggregations or statistical work
throw0101c 2y ago
> In terms of "good enough", a Canadian postal code, broadly equivalent to a zip code, is much more granular and can often identify an individual apartment building, or single city block. To the point that StatCan and other agencies have rules on the number of characters that are collected/disseminated with other data to make sure it's not too identifying: * https://www.canada.ca/en/government/system/digital-government/digital-privacy-playbook/identify-your-personal-information.html https://www.canada.ca/en/government/system/digital-governmen... * https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/ref/DQ-QD/guide_2-eng.cfm https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/ref/DQ-QD/guide_2-e...

ssl-3 2y ago

Sure, and in the States, ZIP+4 could once nail my postal location to a subset of 4 (of a group of 16) mailboxes within a particular set of entry doors on a particular apartment building. But broadly speaking, nobody knows what their ZIP+4 is, while I imagine that most people in Canada know their postal code by heart. It is interesting.

bluGill 2y ago
The plus four changes all the time so it isn't feasable to know it. The use is large mailers can get a discount by looking it up and presorting mail. If the mail coming into my post office has my mail next to my next door neighbors that saves them a lot of time.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  Is that still true? I would imagine any reasonably modern computer could map every physical address in a huge region to a (route number, stop number) pair. I wouldn't think the +4 would add a lot of value anymore.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    The sort everything outgoing by where it goes on the truck is valuable. sure computers can sort but this is physical things and so mechanical limits apply.

mattforrest 2y ago

Yeah but Zip+4 represent a collection of houses not a polygon so not useful for aggregations or statistical work

throw0101c 2y ago

> In terms of "good enough", a Canadian postal code, broadly equivalent to a zip code, is much more granular and can often identify an individual apartment building, or single city block. To the point that StatCan and other agencies have rules on the number of characters that are collected/disseminated with other data to make sure it's not too identifying: * https://www.canada.ca/en/government/system/digital-government/digital-privacy-playbook/identify-your-personal-information.html https://www.canada.ca/en/government/system/digital-governmen... * https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/ref/DQ-QD/guide_2-eng.cfm https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/ref/DQ-QD/guide_2-e...