Zipcodes are not necessarily unique WITHIN a country

My recommendation would be to omit the city data for postal codes that apply to more than one city and to allow (or require) users to enter a city name when entering such a zipcode. For postal codes in your data that only apply to one city, you can still leave the city name in the table data, and the location module will use it whenever a city-name has been left out. In cases where the city name is left out in an address, but the postal code applies to more than one city, you'll have to either allow the user to leave it blank, or configure your location module settings to require the entry of a city name.

If anyone is willing to do this work, let me know. You'd have to implement a function in location.fr.inc of the signature:

function location_get_postalcode_data_fr($location = array());

See location_get_postalcode_data_us() defined in the file supported/location.us.inc for reference.

-Ankur

This is actually still something to consider. Assigning to data update and bumping.

http://drupal.org/node/214244 marked dupe.

Raising priority.

Also applies to Australia. My 'zip' covers pretty much what we called a 'county' back in the states. My recommendation for import is to allow non-unique zip/post codes in the schema, provide tabular (multiple) results on searches and if going straight to a map, limit to the first entry if the results are ambiguous. I worked out something like this a few years back at http://macgirvin.com/zipcode - enter 2577 to see what I mean.

As it turns out, a Google map by zip code for a multi-zip region returns a map of a general area with the pointer in a non-specific area; as you would see with http://maps.google.com.au/?q=2577 - which is good enough for most uses.

Same problem for Belgium.

I try to use your howto :http://drupal.org/node/138006
but i have an error when i use the myql script : #1062 - Duplicate entry 'fr-01000' for key 1

any idea ?

I've been playing around with this issue. I'm based in Australia and have create a zipcode_au.msql containing all of the relevant info: postcode data is freely available for download from Australia post. I then added the long/lat info by using the geocoder here: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/geocoder/

I managed to get this data into the database by changing the primary key to 'state,zip,city' (instead of just 'zip'). It had to be this because some towns/postcodes exist in two states (border towns) so just using zip/city didn't work. My sql file contains 16944 records (all towns/cities & post office postal codes). The data is (as far as I know) accurate to 'post code' level..... eg. Where there are postcodes with multiple towns, the geocode data will be the same for all of them (non-specific as mention by macgirvin above.) but this is good enough for most purposes.

I can do basic searches: Node by postcode, etc but could use some help creating a proper location.au.inc (my php skills are limited). I looked at the US/CA versions but the geocoder sites used for lookups appear to be specific to those countries... Does anyone know if there is a 'geocoding' site that works for australia, using basically the same settings as the US or CA version (by changing the URL used for queries?) ...... as I said, my skils in this area are limited but I am learning...

If anyone wants/needs a copy of my geocoded database for Australia, let me know.

I just added an update to the Drupal 5 version to stop using a primary key on zipcodes.
http://drupal.org/cvs?commit=170639

This *should* fix any remaining problems, I hope.

adding location.xx.inc so people can search for that and find this issue no matter their particular country. Also, marking fixed. If it is not fixed, please just reply back.

this #175193: Zip code database out of date might be related.