Latitude / Longitude Questions
Q: Isn't all latitude and longitude about the same?
A: Absolutely not! We were the first company to provide this data on the Internet and believe that ours is the best. Some competitors have actually taken our data and used it in their products without our permission! Others use generic government data which isn't always accurate. We continually verify our data by hand in order to give you the best product possible.
For instance, we have about 99% of our Pro-Zipcode lat./long. points are unique. and
over 634,000 unique Canadian points.
Also, one customer who purchased the competition's data said they had over 450 Los Angeles area ZIP Codes with the same latitude and longitude! This will never work in real world applications. Only a few of our records have the same coordinates. They are usually for Post Office boxes with more than one ZIP Code served by the same post office.
Download our demo data, which has thousands of records for you to
test with. One low-price competitor provides only a few sample records.
We looked at one of their coordinates and it was off by over 650 miles!
Q: What is latitude and longitude used for?
A: Latitude/Longitude is used to calculate the distance between one ZIP Code and another. Latitude and Longitude is primarily used for locators: for finding the nearest store or dealer to your ZIP Code. It is also used for finding all the ZIP Codes within a certain radius.
Q: Where can I find the formula for calculating the distance between one ZIP Code and another, or for developing a locator?
A: Please download a demo version of the file from our Download Page.
With the demo, we include 'readme' help files, including a file called
'lat-long.txt'. This has the formula for calculating the distance
and general logic on how to develop a locator.
Q: How many unique latitude and longitude points do you have in your data?
A: In the U.S., we currently have over 41,300 unique latitude and longitude points. For Canada, we have over 634,000 unique points. For Mexico, we have over 12,300 unique points.
Q: What format is your latitude/longitude data in?
A: The format of our Latitude/Longitude information is decimal degrees, not degrees minutes and seconds.
Q: Do you have geocodes?
A: Yes, we do have geocodes. "Geocodes" is just another
name for a Latitude/Longitude pair.
Q: What's a centroid? What center point do
you use for each ZIP Code?
A: A centroid is a center point. We use centroids in our ZIP Codes.
We try to use a population-based centroid rather than a physical centroid
when possible, since that's where most of the people are. When this
is not possible, we use a physical centroid.
Q: You have the same latitude & longitude for more than one ZIP Code in some cities. Why?
A: When we have the same Latitude and Longitude for more than one
ZIP Code in the same city, it is usually because of multiple Post
Office Boxes at one location or new ZIP Codes that just came out which
we can't map. But generally, all ZIP Codes should have a unique Latitude/Longitude.