Geocoding

Geocoding is an address search engine for France. Unlike other APIs, it uses a database provided by the french government (Base Adresse Nationale - BAN) as the main source of information and does not impose any limit to the number of queries. The purpose of the project is to supply the needs of french data scientists that rely on geocoded data.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Python version 3 installed locally
• Pip installed locally

For using purposes

The package can easily be installed via pip:

pip install geocoding

Before the first use, you need to download the BAN database and process its files to unlock the functionalities of the package. All of this can be done with the following command (the whole process should take 30 minutes):

geocoding update

Alternatively, you can do it step by step with the following commands:

geocoding download
geocoding decompress
geocoding index

To unlock the reverse search, execute the following command:

geocoding reverse

Usage

The search engine

import geocoding


# -*- Complete search -*-
output = geocoding.find('91120', 'Palaiseau', '12, Bd des Maréchaux')
print(output['longitude'], output['latitude'])  # 2.2099342 48.7099138


# -*- Incomplete search -*-
output = geocoding.find('91120', None, '12, Bd des Maréchaux')
print(output['quality'])  # 1 -> It means that the search was successful

output = geocoding.find('91120', None, 'Bd des Maréchaux')
print(output['quality'])  # 3 -> It means that the number was not found

output = geocoding.find('91120', 'Palaiseau', None)
print(output['quality'])  # 4 -> It means that the street was not found

output = geocoding.find(None, 'Palaiseau', '12, Bd des Maréchaux')
print(output['quality'])  # 1

output = geocoding.find(None, None, '12, Bd des Maréchaux')
print(output['postal']['code'])  # 35800
print(output['commune']['nom'])  # DINARD
print(output['voie']['nom'])  # BOULEVARD DES MARECHAUX


# -*- Search with typos -*-
geocoding.find('91120', 'Palaiseau', '12, Bd des Maréchx')['quality']  # 1
geocoding.find('91120', 'Palaiau', '12, Bd des Maréchx')['quality']  # 1
geocoding.find('91189', 'Palaiseau', '12, Bd des Maréchx')['quality']  # 1
geocoding.find('91189', None, '12, Bd des Maréchx')['quality']  # 1


# -*- Flexible syntax -*-
geocoding.find('91120', 'Palaiseau')['quality']  # 4
geocoding.find(commune='Palaiseau')['quality']  # 4
geocoding.find('91120')['quality']  # 5

args = {
    'code_postal': '91120',
    'commune': 'Palaiseau',
    'adresse': '12, Bd Marechaux'
}
geocoding.find(**args)

The reverse functionality

import geocoding

# longitude and latitude
query = (2.2099, 48.7099)
output = geocoding.near(query)
output['commune']['nom']  # PALAISEAU
output['voie']['nom']  # BOULEVARD DES MARECHAUX

Benchmarks

import geocoding

begin = time.time()
for _ in range(2000):
    geocoding.find('91130', 'PALISEAU', '12 BD DES MARECHUX')
print(time.time() - begin, 'seconds')  # 1.063 seconds

begin = time.time()
for _ in range(10000):
    geocoding.find('91120', 'PALAISEAU', '12 BD DES MARECHAUX')
print(time.time() - begin, 'seconds')  # 1.407 seconds

begin = time.time()
for _ in range(10000):
    geocoding.find('75015', 'PARIS', '1 RUE SAINT CHARLES')
print(time.time() - begin, 'seconds')  # 1.525 seconds

begin = time.time()
for _ in range(1000):
    geocoding.near((2, 48))
print(time.time() - begin, 'seconds')  # 0.922 seconds