About geocoding a table of addresses

Many organizations manage records of information containing locational coordinates, place-names, or addresses of customers, businesses, patients, or homeowners in databases. Converting the records into features that contain the location and spatial geometry can be done by matching the table of addresses in ArcMap, in ArcCatalog, or with a geoprocessing tool. When you geocode a table of addresses, you use a locator to create point features that represent the locations of the addresses.

After a table of addresses is geocoded, the output feature class contains a copy of the address fields from the address table. One purpose of carrying over the address fields is for rematching. The names of this set of address fields are prefixed with ARC_. When an address is modified during rematching, the new address is saved in these fields.

Alternatively, a relationship class between the input address table and output feature class can be created so that edits to the addresses in the input address table are automatically updated in the output feature class. This option is supported only if the input address table and output feature class are in the same geodatabase workspace.

In addition, here are the other fields created in the output feature class for the geocoding results:

• Loc_name—The name of the participating locator that is used for matching the address. This field is available only if the locator that is used for matching the table is a composite locator.
• Status—A code indicating whether the address was matched. This attribute has values of
  • M—Matched. The address is matched.
  • U—Unmatched. The address is not matched.
  • T—Tied. The address has more than one candidate with the same best match score, but at different locations.
• Score—The match score of the candidate to which the address was matched. The score can be in a range of 0 to 100, where 100 indicates that the candidate is a perfect match.
• Match_type—A code showing how an address was matched. You can group the results based on this attribute to show how the addresses were matched or use the grouping to select records for rematching.
  • A—Automatically matched or rematched.
  • M—Manually matched or unmatched. If the geocoded feature classes is rematched using the Interactive Rematch dialog box, the field may have the code M when you manually match or unmatch using the Match or Unmatch button.
  • PP—Pick by Point. The address was matched to the click point using the Pick Address from Map tool in the Interactive Rematch dialog box in ArcMap.
  • PA—Pick by Address. The address was matched to closest address with the Pick Address from Map tool in the Interactive Rematch dialog box.
• Match_addr—The address where the matched location actually resides based on the information of the matched candidate. For example, an input address 123 Main St N is matched to a candidate with the suffix direction NW and all other components matched correctly. The Match_addr field will contain 123 Main St NW as the actual address that was matched.

• Addr_type—The type of address that was geocoded. This attribute indicates to what kind of feature the address was matched. You may study the accuracy of the matched addresses and pattern of the matches based on the values. This attribute may have the following values:
  • AddrPoint—Point address, such as 783 Rolling Meadows Lane, that can be a roof-top address or a point near to the exact location. It is usually a precise location of the address.
  • StreetAddr—Street address, such as 320 Madison St, that represents an interpolated location along a street given the house number within an address range.
  • BldgName—Building name, such as CN Tower.
  • StreetName—Street name only, such as Orchard Road. The street name feature may be a feature of many street segments chained together based on the name. The geocoded location is usually placed on the middle of the street feature.
  • Admin—A high level administrative area, such as a State or Province.
  • DepAdmin—A secondary administrative area, such as a county within a State.
  • SubAdmin—A local administrative area, such as a city.
  • Locality—A local residential settlement, such as a colonia in Mexico or a block (chochomoku) in Japan.
  • Zone—An alternative name of a locality, or a subdivision within a locality, such as a sub-block (gaiku chiban) in Japan.
  • PostLoc—A city or locality representing a postal administrative area.
  • Postal—Basic postal code, such as 60610.
  • PostalExt—Full postal code including its extension, such as a ZIP+4 code—91765-4383.
  • Place—A place-name in a gazetteer.
  • POI—A point of interest or landmark.
  • Intersection—Intersection address that contains an intersection connector, such as Union St & Carson Rd.
  • Coordinates—Geographic coordinates, such as -84.392 32.722.
  • SpatialOperator—The location that contains an offset distance from the found address, for example, 30 yards South from 342 Main St.
  • MGRS—A Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) location, such as 46VFM5319397841.
• Side—The side of the street the address was matched to. This field is available if the address locator that was used to match the table contains address information for both sides of the street. This attribute has values of
  • L—The address is matched to the left side of the street.
  • R—The address is matched to the right side of the street.
  • No value—The address is not matched, or the locator could not determine the side of the street.

There are also some optional fields if the Output Fields options were checked in the address locator's properties during geocoding:

• Pct_along—For address locators that use feature classes with polyline geometry as reference data, Pct_along (percent along) specifies where the matched address is located along the reference feature as a percentage of the feature's total length. The percentage is measured along the digitized direction of the line feature.
• Ref_ID—The reference ID of the matched feature.
• Stan_addr—The standardized address.
• X—The x-coordinate of the matched address.
• Y—The y-coordinate of the matched address.

Learn more about geocoding a table of addresses in ArcMap

Learn more about geocoding a table of addresses using a geoprocessing tool