Conversion of German postal zip codes (postl eitzahl) to latitude/longitude (Breite/Länge)
Hugh Eagle
latitude/logitude coordinates.
Is there a data file that can be downloaded from the internet that
gives this information?
Hugh Eagle
Traugott Vitz
LAT/LON basis.
Hugh Eagle schrieb:
Gerard Engelage
news:fcc0fa80.03070...@posting.google.com:
Hugh,
I cannot help you exactly, but on
http://164.214.2.59/gns/html/cntry_files.html you will find a file for
germany (5MB text, zipped) containing longitude and latitude for many, many
locations. Pity the zip code is not part of the table, but the place name
is.
www.postleitzahl.de can help you find a zip code if you know the location
and vice versa.
If you read german, do a google groups search on "PLZ->GPS" and find some
useful info, including a basic program to interrogate some website and
build the table (last article in first thread). But this will depend on
your german and computer skills.
Good luck, Gerard
Bernd J. Kaup
>
> I want to convert a large number of German PLZ post codes into
> latitude/logitude coordinates.
Then do it, you may earn money with such a data base.
>
> Is there a data file that can be downloaded from the internet that
> gives this information?
Any car navigation system will give you GPS-data on any place in
Germany, all navigation software I know is searchable by postal code.
The german discounter ALDI offers such navigation system including GPS
reciever and handhelt computer for just 500 bucks.
There is nothing like a free meal.
mfg
bjk
>
> Hugh Eagle
Hugh Eagle
Thank you very much for your quick reply.
The zip files will be very useful (for other countries as well as
Germany). However, I am still interested in PLZ to coordinate
conversion.
I've tried the Google Groups search. From my limited understanding of
German it looks as if the code is designed to extract coordinates from
the Microsoft Mappoint program. Unfortunately, I do not have Mappoint
(which is quite expensive). I do have Microsoft Autoroute, and I am
able to use a similar kind of script in conjunction with Autoroute to
convert UK postcodes to the "grid references" which are used on GB
Ordnance Survey maps, and then convert the grid references
mathematically into latitude/longitude. However, I cannot see how to
use Autoroute to do anything similar with PLZ codes.
Do you know of a simple web page that takes a PLZ as inoput and gives
the latitude/longitude as output?
Hugh
Gerard Engelage
> Do you know of a simple web page that takes a PLZ as inoput and gives
> the latitude/longitude as output?
>
No, and since I would be interested myself I did some more re-Google-ing,
but still came up empty handed.
And you are right, I just read the thread again and you need mappoint on
your PC (don't have it either). Pity.
Good hunting, I'm still hoping some solution may pop up here.
Gerard Engelage
news:Xns93B353C01...@195.121.6.67:
Did slightly better during early coffee: have a look under "Orte mit
Postleitzahl und Koordinaten als Textdatei" on
http://www.lueftungsnet.de/programmieren/orte_sql.html
Because of the structure of the PLZ you should find duplicates (same PLZ
for different places) so there is still some work left.
Hope this helps better.
Bernd J. Kaup
system behind the structure of german postal codes. The only structure
is that the first two digits of the code are showing one of the 89 post
distribution centers located throufout Germany under logistic
preferences. Thus it happens that e.g. in the Frankfort area two centers
are in walking distance wheras others are more than 100 miles apart.
You may also appreciate that there was distributed a book of nearly
1000 pages to all german households when the last amendment (change from
4 to 5 digits) was made, at a cost of nearly 100 mio DM in 1993. At
that time numerous programs were sold which allowed the insertion of the
new postal code into business letters without looking the code up in the
book.
If you are interested in a map of Germany showing the first two digits
of the postal code I am prepared to send youm a 200 kb jpg file by pm.
This map narrows the area of search in a way as used by the finding
systems of maps so that you will be able to spot the location of the
town you search without the sideway coordinates.
mfg
bjk
Gerard Engelage
@tiscalimail.de:
> you are simply wrong, if you think that there is an understandable
> system behind the structure of german postal codes.
I know that, there may have been people in the German postoffice once who
did understand. You are right that one cannot pinpoint PLZs on a map,
because they are simpy not points but surfaces containing mailboxes that
were convenient to group. But then, for most non-germans, like the OP, it
already helps a lot if instead of knowing 'germany' you know if it was
Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt or 'in the mountains'.
I'm somewhere in between, because I'm 1/32 german, lived in Germany for
over half a year and have several german friends.
One of my longer term targets in genealogy, is to come up with a map
(world?) showing arrows and years to depict the big moves made by Engelage
family members. That explains my interest in lattitude and longitude; for
finding the movers within Germany the last 150 years or so (after my
ancestor moved to Holland)a table as described by OP could be useful for me
(so I put it on by disk for future use).
Mit freundlichen Grüsse,
Gerard
Hugh Eagle
would be nice to have something that would help to pin down locations
within large towns more precisely, but the o-p-k file will be a great
help.
Hugh
Hugh Eagle
individual postcodes (nearly 2,000,000, I think), a typical code
covers several houses so long/lat coordinates can only indicate a
point within the postcode area. However, that can be very useful
information.
The UK Post Office provides a data file for use by businesses and
others who can afford it which gives coordinates for each postcode in
the country. There is a file called PLZREF mentioned many times on the
web that appears to provide broadly similar information for German PLZ
codes. The trouble with these files is that they are quite expensive
to obtain.
However, there are also websites that allow you to look up the
coordinates for one postcode at a time. By applying a suitable script
it is possible to automate the conversion process, provided you only
need to convert hundreds, rather than thousands, of postcodes.
An example of such a web page is
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?GridConvert
Does anyone know of anything similar for German postcodes?
(Incidentally, I posted two messages to this thread earlier today.
Gerard Engele seems to have been able to read at least one of them,
since he has quoted it in one of his posts, but I can't see them on
Google Groups. Does anyone know why this might be? Is it simply
because Google is sometimes slow to pick up new messages?)
Richard F Strait
<g...@genealogy.net>! I fuller explanation can be found at this site!
<http://www.genealogienetz.de/misc/geoserv.html>
rfs in omaha, ne
On 9 Jul 2003 08:31:04 GMT Gerard Engelage <gerarde...@hotmail.com>
writes:
>==============================
>To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy
>records, go to:
>http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237
>
>
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Gerard Engelage
If you've only got the PLZ, this might be the best there is. If you have a
complete address, the situation may be different for finding coordinates. I
will keep reading this thread.
Gerard
Gijs Hesselink
Not exactly what you are looking for, but
http://www.heavens-above.com/countries.asp could be very helpful indeed.
--
Genealogically yours,
Gijsbert Hesselink
Homepage: http://www.geneaal.nl
"Hugh Eagle" <barn...@hotmail.com> schreef in bericht
news:fcc0fa80.03070...@posting.google.com...
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anim...@gmail.com
Here is what works for the US:
protected function getlatlonforzip($zip)
{
$url = "http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?q=select%20*%20from%20geo.placefinder%20where%20text%3D%22".$zip."%22&format=json";
$o = json_decode(file_get_contents($url));
$x = $o->query->results->Result;
return array($x->latitude, $x->longitude);
}
Thank you for your kind support!
Siegfried H.
> Hello, I would like to switch from "zip" codes in the US to PLZ (Postleitzahlen) in Germany. If I enter a German "zip" or "PLZ" code into the code below for $zip, the system is looking everywhere in the world ... including Germany. What would be the proper code to only search within German "zip" or "PLZ" geocodes?
questions and not into a genealogy newsgroup.
Regards, Siegfried
Ha Jahn
mannb...@gmail.com
Google fusion tables has Geocoding built in!!
I had never heard of this Google product, A work collegue told me about it!
https://support.google.com/fusiontables/answer/2571232?hl=en
webtob...@gmail.com
Bernd J. Kaup
it seems to.
I live in Ettringen Rheinland-Pfalz, the postal code is 56729, my
village shares it with 27 more villages spread over more than 50 square
miles. Google shows the zip as belonging to Kirchwald which is in the
east of the pertaining area, so your longitude and your latitude does
not tie in with all of the other villages. Google shows my house at
lat 50.357442 and lng 7.221719 which is true according to my GPS for the
graveyard 200yards east and 300 yards north. My village beeing the most
eastern of the zip code area, others are up to 20 miles west.
The same will apply to most rural areas in Germany. Thus the situation
is shown only vague.
There is an other problem. All towns exeeding about 100.000 inhabitants
will have more than one postal code, and most authorities and bigger
companies have own postal codes.
A rough orientation as to the area is the first digit of the code
showing des biggest community in the area,the second shows a circle of
communities around the biggest, all of those forming 89 delivery centers.
1 is around Berlin, 2 around Hamburg, 3 around Hannover, 4 is the Ruhr
area, 5 around Koblenz, 6 around Frankfurt/Main, 7 around Stuttgart,
8 around Munich, 9 around Nürnberg, the 0 means Saxony.
For genealogy purposes it is neccesary to know, that the 5 digit postal
codes are modern (1993.07.01) and pertain to the current status. Four
digit postal codes existed as of 1967, different systems for
Bundesrepublik and DDR, as of 1920 there existed 2 digit codes, which
were amended after WW II by an "a" or "b", later even "c".
As of 1870 smaller communities had to be addressed with "bei" and the
next bigger town, or by "am Rhein" or an other river.
In the years from about 1870 a first wave of adminstratory reforms
combined new towns from seperate communities, so that documents issues
before may show communities which do not exist anymore. The next wave
combined even very big towns to a single one, for exampls the towns
Charlottenburg and Spandau had each more inhabitants than Berlin to
which the were merged. The next up to now last completed wave was in the
seventies of the twentieth century, when it was decided that all
communities should have at least 10.000 inhabitants so that only about
20p.c. of the former independent units survived, in most cases merged to
a town, which got an entirely new name.
Despite of this, there are many towns having the same or a very similar
name.
So if you find a postal code for a community issuing a document from the
19th century you are either very lucky, or simply ignore facts.
mfg
bjk
govorukha...@gmail.com
http://download.geonames.org/