How Can I Design a Global Street Address Database Efficiently?

Common Database Design for Global Street Addresses

When storing street addresses from different countries, a standardized database design is essential for ease of use, query speed, and storage efficiency. The following design provides a practical approach for accommodating a wide range of address structures:

Fields:

• Address Lines 1-4: Capture address components such as building, house number, thoroughfare, and sub-thoroughfare.
• Locality: Name of the city, town, or village.
• Region: Sub-national administrative division (e.g., province, county, state).
• Postcode/Zipcode: Alphanumeric code used for postal delivery.
• Country: Name of the sovereign state.

Additional Considerations:

• Address lines can handle additional information using commas as line separators.
• Locality can sometimes have multiple meanings, but postcodes typically resolve discrepancies for accurate delivery.
• Postcodes and regions may not be universally used, so allow for optional entry.

UPU Address Data:

The Universal Postal Union (UPU) provides a standardized format for address data from many countries. This relational format contains all addresses within a country, but for storing customer addresses, a single table with one address per row is generally more practical.

Advantages:

This design simplifies data entry, allows for focused analysis based on locality, region, postcode, and country, and provides flexibility to accommodate different address formats.

The above is the detailed content of How Can I Design a Global Street Address Database Efficiently?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!