zip codes

[MRAB]

Sjoerd Mullender wrote:
> Martin P. Hellwig wrote:
>> Shailen wrote:
>>> Is there any Python module that helps with US and foreign zip-code
>>> lookups? I'm thinking of something that provides basic mappings of zip
>>> to cities, city to zips, etc. Since this kind of information is so
>>> often used for basic user-registration, I'm assuming functionality of
>>> this sort must be available for Python. Any suggestions will be much
>>> appreciated.
>>>
>> There might be an associated can of worms here, for example in the
>> Netherlands zip codes are actually copyrighted and require a license if
>> you want to do something with them, on the other hand you get a nice SQL
>> formatted db to use it. I don't know how this works in other countries
>> but I imagine that it is likely to be generally the same.
>>
> 
> Also in The Netherlands, ZIP codes are much more fine-grained than in
> some other countries: ZIP code plus house number together are sufficient
> to uniquely identify an address.  I.e. you don't need the street name.
> E.g., my work address has ZIP code 1098 XG and house number 123, so
> together they indicate that I work at Science Park 123, Amsterdam.
> 
> In other words, a simple city <-> ZIP mapping is not sufficient.
> 
The same comment applies to UK postcodes, which are also alphanumeric.
My home postcode, for example, is shared with only 3 other houses, IIRC.