Address Guidelines for France

Address Guidelines for France

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 French postal system, see the La Poste website: 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 the TomTom geocoding dataset only. The HERE geocoding datasets (streets or points) do not support virtual town names.

    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:

    Street Type or Name

    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.

    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—The geocoder can match to addresses containing 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 format 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 it will not interfere with geocoding. CEDEX can be entered in mainAddress, areaName3, or PostalCode fields. The CEDEX itself is not returned but the complete postcode is returned. For the following input address, a match candidate is returned with a result code of S5HPNTS--A.

    mainAddress: 17 Rue Louise Michel
    postalCode: 92301 CEDEX
    areaName3: Levallois-Perret

    The postcode is returned but it is not considered to have matched to the postal code (there is no Z in the ninth position of the return code). The CEDEX itself is not returned.
  • 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 areaName1 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 country 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 country codes, data vintages, and unique postal codes of the covered French territories.
    Territory Name ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 ISO 3166-1 Alpha-3 First 3 Digits of Postal Code
    Guadeloupe GLP GP 971
    Martinique MTQ MQ 972
    French Guyana GUF GF 973
    Réunion REU RE 974
    Mayotte MYT MY 976
    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 either France or 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.
  • 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.