Address Matching

Overview Address matching, a key process within geocodingGeocodingGeocoding is the process of converting addresses or place names into geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude)...., takes textual address records and matches them against a standardized reference database of known addresses with associated geographic coordinates. This process transforms tabular address data into mappable point locations, enabling spatial analysis on data that was originally collected without explicit coordinates, such as customer records, incident reports, or survey responses.

Address matching involves several stages. Address parsing breaks input addresses into components such as house number, street name, street type, direction, city, state, and postal code. Standardization normalizes variations like abbreviations (St vs Street), misspellings, and formatting differences. Candidate selection identifies potential matches in the reference database using indexed lookups. Scoring algorithms rank candidates based on the similarity between the input and reference address components. The highest-scoring candidate above a configurable threshold is assigned as the match, with its coordinates applied to the input record.

Address matching enables spatial analysis across numerous domains. Retail and marketing organizations match customer addresses to map market penetrationMarket PenetrationMarket penetration measures the extent to which a brand, product, or store captures the available demand within a def... and plan store locations. Public health agencies geocode disease reports to identify spatial clusters and environmental exposures. Insurance companies match policy holder addresses to assess geographic risk factors. Emergency services geocode incident addresses for response dispatch and post-incident analysis. Census and demographic analysisDemographic AnalysisDemographic analysis examines the statistical characteristics of populations—including age, income, education, househ... requires address matching to assign population counts to geographic units.

Match rates and positional accuracy vary based on address data quality, reference database completeness, and matching algorithm sophistication. Unmatched addresses may result from misspellings, incomplete addresses, new construction not yet in reference databases, or rural addresses without standard formatting. Match scores should be evaluated to distinguish high-confidence matches from uncertain ones requiring manual review.