Virginia geocoding / Returning "city" counties

[Frank Murphy]

Virginia has a large number of independent cities that are considered "county equivalent" entities. For example, there is Fairfax County (FIPS code 51059) and Fairfax City/County (FIPS code 51600). Even though the city is entirely within the borders of the county, both territories are separate county-level entities.

 

Consider the following address: 101 West Franklin Street, Richmond, VA

 

Most geocoders (such as Yahoo, Bing, Mapquest and several others) that return a county-level field will place this in "Richmond City" yet Google does not return a county-level field at all. Note: There is a Richmond County in VA, but it has nothing to do with the city. If it had returned "Richmond" then it would be wrong.

 

Somebody needs to look into this, because it happens all across the state of VA. Those addresses within independent cities do not return county even though it should.

 

Also ... the same thing happens to addresses in Baltimore MD and Saint Louis MO (no county is returned even though the county is technically a county-equivalent city). Carson City, NV worked correctly. New York (in the borroughs) can also be problematic in finding the right county.

 

My sample/test list of addresses is admittedly small, but I was able to duplicate the problem on a fairly consistent basis. It would be one thing if it was specific addresses weren't working, but in these cases it looks like the geocoder just doesn't correctly return the county for any address in certain counties.

[Frank Murphy]

As of Dec 2012, this error still occurs. Richmond (the county) is about 40-50 miles from City of Richmond (which is a county in it's own right).

If anyone reads this and has the power to address the issue where it matters, I would love to collaborate and show you what I've learned. I can force the error to occur, but don't know who to report it to.