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Also known as: Postal Address, Street Address
Structured location descriptors used to identify and deliver to physical places.
DESCRIPTION
Addresses encode location details, typically including street, number, city, region, and postal code. They are crucial for delivery, compliance, customer records, and geocoding. Address data varies by country and can be messy, requiring parsing, normalization, and validation. High-quality addresses improve routing, fraud detection, and customer experience.
ALTERNATIVE DEFINITIONS
Wikipedia
An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used to identify a location of a building, apartment, or other structure.
Highlights structured information format for identifying locations.
Universal Postal Union
Postal addressing systems define the structure and components of addresses to enable efficient processing and delivery.
Focuses on address structure for postal operations.
RELATED TERMS
Postal Codes ZIP Codes Cities-Towns Geocoding Reverse Geocoding Address Standardization Gazetteer Parcel Building Footprint Place Name
COMPETING TERMS
KNOWLEDGE AREAS
Reference & Master Data Data Integration & Interoperability Data Quality Data Modeling
TARGET AUDIENCE
Data Steward Data Engineer Data Analyst Information Analyst BI Specialist
EXTERNAL SOURCES
- Wikipedia - Address
- Universal Postal Union - International address standards
- Libpostal - Open-source address parser
- OpenStreetMap - OSM address tagging
TOP QUESTIONS
Why are Addresses critical in data management?
They underpin delivery, compliance, and geocoding. Clean addresses improve customer operations and analytics.
Category: Relevancy
What’s a common mistake with Addresses?
Treating them as free text without normalization. Ignoring country-specific formats causes parsing and matching failures.
Category: Mistakes
How to standardize Addresses?
Use parsers like libpostal, reference dictionaries, and postal standards. Apply validation and normalization rules per country.
Category: Management
How do Addresses relate to Postal Codes?
Postal codes are components aiding sorting. Codes often determine routing and regional grouping.
Category: Example
What are privacy considerations for Addresses?
Addresses can identify individuals. Apply masking, minimization, and consent controls where required.
Category: Risks
How should Addresses be stored?
Store structured fields with canonical formatting and country metadata. Preserve original text for auditability.
Category: Requirements
What is a hot topic around Addresses?
Using machine learning for address parsing and deduplication. Leveraging open data to validate at scale.
Category: Topic
Where to learn about Addresses?
Study UPU guidance and OSM tagging. Experiment with libpostal on diverse datasets.
Category: Example
How do Addresses compare to Geographic Coordinates?
Addresses are human-readable descriptors; coordinates are precise numeric positions. Both are complementary in systems.
Category: Example