List of zip codes and their longitude/latitude?

February 18, 2004 11:47 AM

I've been charged with writing a program to find customers within a certain radius of a given zip code using their zip code. I was wondering if anyone could point me to a free list of zip codes as well as their latitude and longitude coordinates. [more inside]

Google seems to abound with results that will provide this for a fee, but I'm assuming (or hoping) that a free database exists somewhere. Please note that I am looking for a complete database, and not web-based applications into which you can input a single zip code and obtain the coordinates as output. Thank you very much in advance.

posted by alphanerd to Grab Bag (4 answers total)

Kevin Roth's Zip Code Search may be what you're looking for.

For reference, Google: "zip code" latitude longitude database. Sixth result is a discussion site called dBforums, wherein the author provides a link to his free db in response to a commercial announcement.
posted by Danelope at 12:09 PM on February 18, 2004

Response by poster: Wow, Danelope. This is pretty much everything I was looking for and includes some stuff I was planning on doing from scratch. Thanks a bunch.
posted by alphanerd at 12:30 PM on February 18, 2004

One caveat on zip code search tools: the database will get out-of-date quickly, especially if you allow for 9 digit searches. Not sure how much they want for a zip code subscription, but it might be worth it. It would appear the Zip Code Search files are from 2000 (the readme references this URL as a source.
posted by yerfatma at 1:00 PM on February 18, 2004

Josh Schachter (of GeoURL fame) has a "geowanking" list where they discuss questions just like this.

http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
posted by adamrice at 1:53 PM on February 18, 2004