| --- |
| license: cc-by-4.0 |
| pretty_name: GeoNames Postal Codes (Parquet) |
| tags: |
| - geospatial |
| - postal-codes |
| - pincode |
| - geocoding |
| - geonames |
| size_categories: |
| - 1M<n<10M |
| configs: |
| - config_name: default |
| data_files: postal_codes.parquet |
| --- |
| |
| # GeoNames Postal Codes — Parquet |
|
|
| The [GeoNames postal code dataset](https://download.geonames.org/export/zip/) |
| (`allCountries.txt`) converted to a single sorted, zstd-compressed Parquet file. |
| It is used as a postcode → lat/lon lookup table for joining tabular locations |
| onto gridded weather data (e.g. ERA5 Zarr) in |
| [zarr-datafusion](https://github.com/stratoscale-io/zarr-datafusion). |
|
|
| | | | |
| |---|---| |
| | Rows | 1,826,904 (one row per **place**, not per postcode) | |
| | Distinct `(country_code, postal_code)` | 1,080,715 | |
| | Countries | 121 | |
| | File | `postal_codes.parquet`, ~19 MB, zstd(3), sorted by `country_code, postal_code, place_name` | |
| | Source snapshot | GeoNames export of 2026-09-22 | |
|
|
| ## Schema |
|
|
| | column | type | nullable | notes | |
| |---|---|---|---| |
| | `country_code` | string | no | ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 | |
| | `postal_code` | string | no | text — many countries use letters (`EC1A`, `100-0001`) | |
| | `place_name` | string | yes | locality / post office | |
| | `admin_name1` / `admin_code1` | string | yes | state / province | |
| | `admin_name2` / `admin_code2` | string | yes | county / district | |
| | `admin_name3` / `admin_code3` | string | yes | community / sub-district | |
| | `latitude`, `longitude` | float64 | no | WGS84 decimal degrees | |
| | `accuracy` | int8 | yes | 1 = estimated, 4 = GeoNames place id, 6 = centroid of addresses or shape | |
|
|
| ## Caveats |
|
|
| - **One row per place.** A postcode can have many rows (Delhi `110001` has 21); |
| collapse to one point per `(country_code, postal_code)` before joining. |
| - **`accuracy` describes the method, not the error.** Countries without published |
| postal geometry are geocoded by place name. India, for example, has no |
| accuracy-6 rows, and over 100 Bengaluru `560xxx` pincodes share one fallback |
| district point ~28 km north of the city centre — including rows marked 4. |
| - **UK, Canada and the Netherlands** are outward/short codes only here; GeoNames |
| publishes full codes separately (`GB_full`, `CA_full`, `NL_full`), not included. |
|
|
| ## Usage |
|
|
| Direct HTTPS (supports range requests): |
|
|
| ``` |
| https://huggingface.co/datasets/Stratoscale/GeoNamesPincode/resolve/main/postal_codes.parquet |
| ``` |
|
|
| ```python |
| import duckdb |
| duckdb.sql(""" |
| SELECT * FROM 'hf://datasets/Stratoscale/GeoNamesPincode/postal_codes.parquet' |
| WHERE country_code = 'IN' AND postal_code = '110001' |
| """) |
| ``` |
|
|
| ## Reproduce |
|
|
| ```bash |
| curl -O https://download.geonames.org/export/zip/allCountries.zip |
| unzip allCountries.zip allCountries.txt |
| zarr-cli cookbook/pincode-lookup/build_postcodes.sql |
| ``` |
|
|
| ## License and attribution |
|
|
| Licensed under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), the |
| license of the source data. Contains data from |
| [GeoNames](https://www.geonames.org/) (© GeoNames, CC BY 4.0). The data is |
| provided "as is" without warranty of accuracy, timeliness or completeness. |
| Changes from the source: converted from TSV to Parquet, typed columns, sorted; |
| no rows added, removed or modified. |
|
|
