Address Guidelines for France
The Enterprise Geocoding Module offers several FRA databases including HERE street and point databases. Contact your sales representative for more information about licensing these databases. Your Enterprise Geocoding Module database release notes identify the current database vintages.
Follow these guidelines to provide input that GeocodeAddressGlobal can successfully geocode. For additional information about the French postal system, see the La Poste website: http://www.laposte.com/.
- Required fields—Addresses must contain either a city or a postal code.
- Virtual town names—Some areas are generally recognized as cities even though they are not truly administrative cities. These areas represent Artificial City Areas, or Virtual Towns. Since these virtual town names are commonly used by the public, they are supported and treated as aliases for any of the encompassed towns. Returned candidates have the correct real town in place of the input virtual town.Note: Virtual town names are supported in TomTom database only. The HERE databases (streets or points) do not support virtual town names.
Table 1. Virtual Towns in France Virtual Town Name
Encompassed Real Towns
Défense (La)
Part of: Nanterre, Puteaux, Courbevoie
Sophia Antipolis
Part of: Valbonne, Mougins, Vallauris, Antibes, Biot
Cergy-Pontoise
Menucourt, Courdimanche, Puiseux-Pontoise, Osny, Pontoise, Cergy, Vauréal, Neuville-sur-Oise, Saint-Ouenl'Aumône, Jouy-le-Moutier, Eragny
Marne-la-Vallée
Bry-sur-Marne, Villiers-sur-Marne, Noisy-le-Grand, Champs-sur-Marne, Emerainville, Noisiel, Lognes, Croissy-Beaubourg, Torcy, Collégien, Ferrières, Bussy- Saint-Georges, Bussy-Saint-Martin, Saint-Thibault-des-Vignes, Gouvernes, Conches, Guermantes, Jossigny, Lagny-sur-Marne, Montévrain, Chanteloup-en-Brie, Serris, Chessy, Coupvray, Magny-le-Hongre, Bailly- Romainvilliers
Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
Elancourt, Verrière (La), Trappes, Montigny-le- Bretonneux, Guyancourt, Voisins-le-Bretonneux, Magnyle- Hameau
Sénart
Tigery, Combs-la-Ville, Lieusaint, Moissy-Cramayel, Saint-Pierre-du-Perray, Savigny-le-Temple, Réau, Nandy, Cesson, Vert-Saint-Denis
Evry
Evry, Bondoufle, Courcouronnes, Lisses
Etang de Berre
Fos-sur-Mer, Miramas, Vitrolles, Istres
Isle-d'Abeau
Four, Isle d’Abeau (L’), Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, Vaulx-le- Milieu, Villefontaine
- Common words and abbreviations—The geocoder handles common abbreviations that are used in French addresses. It supports all the official French street type abbreviations plus a number of unofficial street types to help improve geocoding efficiency. A partial list is:
Table 2. Common French Address Abbreviations Street Type or Name
Abbreviation
Hauts
No abbreviation.
appartement
APP, APT, APPART
Saint
ST
Sainte
STE
rue
r
Charles de Gaulle
CDG
Regiment D’Infanterie de Marine
RIMA
Division Blindée
DB
- Directionals in addresses—Abbreviated street directionals are also handled on input and the returned candidate displays the complete directional.
Table 3. Street Directionals N
N.
Nord
S
S.
Sud
E
E.
Est
O
O.
Ouest
NE
N.E.
Nord-Est
SE
S.E.
Sud-Est
NO
N.O.
Nord-Ouest
SO
S.O.
Sud-Ouest
- Ordinals and numbered street names—Input addresses can include ordinals such as 1er, 2e, 2nd, 2nde, 3e. All subsequent ordinal street names are designated with "e" or "ème". You can also specify numbers in street names or express the numbers as words. For example, the following street names are equivalent and can both be geocoded as part of an input address:
Rue du 4 septembre
Rue du quatre septembre - House numbers with letters—House numbers can include letters, such as 85B Ave des provinces.
Postal box addresses—Geocode Address Global for France can geocode to addresses containing either a BP (Boîte postale) or CS (Course Spéciale). Each type can only match to the same type. BP cannot match to CS and vice versa. A successful match returns a result code of B2 along with the output that is standardized according to French address formats. The priority of PO Box matching over streets is set in a preference in Management Console.
- CEDEX addresses—The geocoder does not use CEDEX for geocoding and will not
interfere with geocoding. CEDEX can be entered in AddressLine1, City, or
PostalCode fields. The CEDEX itself is not returned. For the following input
address, a close match candidate is returned with a result code of
S5HPNTS--A.
AddressLine1: 17 Rue Louise Michel
The postcode is returned but not a postal centroid (there is no Z in the ninth position of the return code). The CEDEX itself is not returned.
PostalCode: 92301 CEDEX
City: Levallois-Perret - Paris address formats and arrondissements—Paris addresses typically have a different input format. The house number appears after the street name rather than before the street name. The geocoder handles this input format and geocodes correctly. Arrondissements (the last two digits of the postcode) can be entered and the complete locality and postcode information is returned. For the following input address, a close match candidate is returned with a result code of S5HPNTSCZA.
AddressLine1: 7 Rue Beranger
The returned Locality field includes the arrondissement (district) information. The Paris region includes 20 arrondissements, which are represented by the last two digit of the postcode (the first three digits are 750). A Paris address may be written with the last two digits only. For the following input address, a close match candidate is returned with a result code of S5HPNTSC-A
PostalCode: 75003
City: ParisAddressLine1: 51 Rue Lafitte
The complete postcode (75009) is returned even though 09 (representing the ninth arrondissement) was entered.
PostalCode: 09
City: Paris - Military addresses—Military addresses (including typical military address abbreviations) are handled. The first two digits usually represent the department. The digits 00 represent military addresses.
- Monaco addresses—The geocoder handles Monaco addresses. You can specify Monaco (or the MCO or MC country codes) in the StateProvince input field. If you input a Monaco address as France, the geocoder attempts to identify this and returns the Monaco candidate if possible. All Monaco postcodes begin with the number 98.
- Overseas Territories addresses—The geocoder covers several French overseas
territories. The geocoder recognizes the unique French territorial ISO codes,
and you can use these codes with input addresses. The territories use the French
5 digit postal code system, but each territorial postal code starts with 3
unique digits. The accompanying table summarizes the ISO codes, data vintages,
and unique postal codes of the covered French territories.
You can also use the country code for France (FRA or FR). In that case, you can get candidates from France, Monaco, and the territories if that city/town name occurs in both France and in one or more of the territories. However if you explicitly specify MCO or a territorial country code, you will get candidates from the specified country only, and not from France.Table 4. French Overseas Territories Territory Name ISO 3116-1 Alpha-2 ISO 3116-1 Alpha-3 First 3 Digits of Postal Code Guadeloupe GLP GP 971 Martinique MTQ MQ 972 French Guiana GUF GF 973 Réunion REU RE 974 Mayotte MYT MY 976 - Placename Support for User Dictionaries—If your user dictionary includes placenames, you can geocode these placenames and that information is returned with candidates.
- Additional Fields for Address Range and User Dictionaries—Additional fields can be created and returned for both Address Range and Point user dictionaries. These additional fields can contain any special information associated with an address. You cannot geocode using additional fields, but additional field content is returned with each candidate
- Address point data— The FRA HERE Points database includes address point data. Address point candidates return an S8 result code.