Italy (ITA)

This section defines the supported geocoding datasets, operations, and input and output field information for Italy.

Supported Geocoding Datasets

The following table lists the supported geocoding dataset(s) with the available geocoding levels for Italy.

Note: Custom User Dictionaries are not supported.
Geocoding Dataset City Centroid Suburb/Village Centroid Postal Centroid Street Centroid Interpolated Street Address Point-level Address Point of Interest
TomTom Italian, French, German Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
HERE No No No No NO Yes Yes

Supported Operations

The following operations are supported for Italy:
  • Geocoding—Takes one or more addresses as input and returns latitude/longitude coordinates and other information.
  • Reverse Geocoding—Takes one or more latitude and longitude coordinates as input and returns the address of the location.
  • Interactive Geocoding— Returns potential match candidates as the adddress is typed in.
  • Global Key Lookup—Returns geocode candidates when given a unique key as input. USA MLD and AUS GNAF data only.

Input Fields

The input address may contain some or all of the following address elements.

Parameter Type Description
placeName String Specifies the building name, place name, Point of Interest (POI), company or firm name associated with the input address. Optional.
mainAddress String Single Line Input—If no other address field is populated, then the mainAddress entry will be treated as a single line input. Single line input can consist of multiple input address fields ; these should be entered in the typical address order for the country. For more details, refer to the section "Single Line Input" below.

Street Address—If the post address components (city, postalCode, etc.) are provided separately or in the lastLine field, then the contents of mainAddress will be treated as the street address part and can include company name, house number, building names and street names. Optional.

Street Intersection Input—To enter an intersection, specify the two street names separated by a double ampersand (&&).
lastLine String The last line of the address. Optional. For example:

Belvedere Aldo Nardi 1
20124 Milano
areaName1 String Specifies the region. Optional.
areaName2 String Specifies the province. Optional.
areaName3 String Specifies the comune. Optional.
areaName4 String Specifies the locality. Optional.
postalCode String Specifies the 5-digit postal code. Optional.
country String The three-letter ISO 3166-1 Alpha-3 country code. For Italy, the country code is ITA. Required for forward geocoding.

Address Guidelines for Italy

Follow these suggestions to ensure that your input address data is in the best format possible for optimum matching and geocoding. For additional information about the Italy postal system, see the Posteitaliane website: www.poste.it.

  • Required fields—Addresses must contain either a city or a postal code.
  • German language addresses—German address formats (common in the South Tyrol area of Italy) are handled and geocoded correctly. Typical German thoroughfare types and abbreviations are supported. For example, the street name Marienstraße could be abbreviated as Marienstr, and the same candidate is returned. Note that regardless of whether strasse or straße is entered as input, strasse is returned in the output candidate.
  • Aliases for regions, localities, and provinces—Aliases can be used on input. For example, Tuscany is an alias for the region of Toscana. When you geocode, the returned candidate matches the user input. That is, if aliases were used then aliases are returned.
  • Regions and provinces—For street geocoding, region names (which are entered in the StateProvince field) are not used for geocoding purposes, but are returned. Province abbreviations consisting of two letters are returned in the County field. Italy has 20 regions and 110 provinces.
  • PO Boxes—Post Office Box numbers are not used for address matching or geocoding purposes, but this does not interfere with matching or geocoding. The PO Box information is not returned.
  • Thoroughfare types—Thoroughfare types (pre and post thoroughfare types) and their common abbreviations are recognized and fully supported on input and output. Both Italian and German thoroughfare formats are supported.
  • Common words, abbreviations, and directionals—The geocoder recognizes common words, directionals, house number indicators, and abbreviations used in addresses and can geocode these addresses successfully.
  • Numbers, numeric equivalents, and ordinals—Numbered streets are mapped to the named equivalents. For example, if you enter the street name Via 42 Martiri, the street name QUARANTADUE MARTIRI is returned. Ordinals are also recognized in input addresses.

Single Line Input

Instead of entering each address component in separate fields, you can enter the entire address in the mainAddress input field with the address elements ordered as follows:

[street_info][address_number][postal_code][area]

Where:
  • [street_info] consists of the street name, street type and any pre- or post-directional information (e.g. East, West, etc.). Optional.
  • [address_number] is optional.
  • [postal_code] is the postal code.
  • [area] is the city only, or city plus supporting information, such as state, province, locality.
  • Either the [area] or [postal_code] is required.

For best results, put a comma between the street information and the last address line information.

Custom Options

There are no options specific to Italy.

Output Fields

The following table lists the address fields returned for a candidate located in Italy.

Note: The placeName, addressNumber, unitType and unitValue field values are only returned when a geocoding dataset that supports street address interpolation is installed.
Field Name Description
mainAddressLine The street address which may include company name, house number, building names and street names.
addressLastLine The last line of the address.
placeName The building name, place name, Point of Interest (POI), company or firm name associated with the address.
areaName1 The region.
areaName2 The province.
areaName3 The comune.
areaName4 The locality.
postCode1 The 5-digit postal code.
postCode2 Not used.
country The three-letter ISO 3166-1 Alpha-3 country code. For Italy, the country code is ITA.
addressNumber The address number.
streetName The street or road name.
unitType The unit type such as APT, STE, etc.
unitValue The unit value/number, such as "3B".
customFields The following table lists the custom fields for Italy.

Custom Output Fields

The following table lists the output fields that are unique for Italy. Unless otherwise noted, these fields can be returned for both forward and reverse geocoding.

Name Description
HISTORICALPOSTCODE When the input postal code is a historical postal code, returns the previous postal code for this address.
Note: Supported only in forward geocoding.