Geocoding and geosearch
Locators allow you to find addresses and places that you can visualize on a map, insert as stops for a route, and load as input for spatial analysis. ArcGIS Online locators include geosearch and geocoding as follows:
Geosearch (also known as location search)—Locate an address or point of interest and zoom the map to that location. The result can be displayed on the map, but the result is not stored in any way for later use. Geosearch is available to anyone who accesses Map Viewer or a public app that includes a location search on a map. It does not require an organizational account or consume credits (but you are limited to 1 million geosearches per month).
Geocoding—Convert an address or place to an x,y coordinate and append the result to an existing record in a database. Mapping is not always involved, but placing the results on a map may be part of a workflow. Batch geocoding and reverse geocoding are included in this category. An organizational account with the premium content geocoding privilege is required to access ArcGIS World Geocoding Service, and any views of it, for batch geocoding.
Note:
Some locator view properties are not supported for reverse geocoding.
By default, ArcGIS Online uses ArcGIS World Geocoding Service to find addresses, cities, landmarks, business names, and postal codes in more than 100 countries around the world. Additionally, ArcGIS World Geocoding Service is used to find the location of x,y coordinates using longitude and latitude, as well as coordinate reference systems such as Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) and United States National Grid (USNG).
If your organization wants to optimize search results for addresses and places of interest, members with privileges to create content can create a new view of ArcGIS World Geocoding Service to search only for specific types of locations within an area of interest. For example, you can create a locator view to limit search results to a particular country or area or to only return results that match a specific category such as street addresses or airports. Once you create a locator view, members of the default administrator role can configure the organization so it uses that locator view when members perform geosearches.
Note:
Using ArcGIS World Geocoding Service or views of this locator for batch geocoding (including publishing .csv or Microsoft Excel files as hosted feature layers) consumes credits. Using locators for geosearch does not consume credits.
An organizational account with the premium content geocoding privilege is required to use locator views for batch geocoding.
In addition, if your organization needs to geocode addresses or places based on its own data, administrators can configure the organization to use its own locators running on an ArcGIS Server site for geosearch, geocoding, or both. For example, an oil organization can add locators to search its oil wells, or a city can add a locator to find its fire hydrants.
If you add more locators or locator views, members see an arrow in the geosearch box and can choose which locator or view to use.
Location types and categories
Location types, categories, and subcategories that are available when you configure the locator view are described below.
Addresses, Postal Codes and Populated Places
When you choose Addresses, Postal Codes and Populated Places as the types of locations you want to find, you can further refine the locator view's search results by selecting the categories and subcategories you want to search. The following categories for Addresses, Postal Codes and Populated Places are available:
Address—Selecting this category automatically includes all of the address subcategories listed in the table below. This category limits search results to places that can be categorized as addresses, while filtering out results for places of interest, postal codes, countries, or states. For more precise search results, choose any combination of address subcategories that meet your search requirements.
Postal—Selecting this category limits search results to any type of postal code match, including five-digit and longer postal code formats. To limit search results to matches that are at least this precise, select both the Postal category and the top-level Address category.
Populated Place—Selecting this category automatically includes all of the populated place subcategories listed in the table below. This category limits search results to administrative divisions (or boundaries)—such as cities, provinces, or countries—while filtering out results for addresses, places of interest, and postal codes. For more precise search results, choose any combination of populated place subcategories that meet your search requirements.
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Category |
Subcategory |
Description |
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Address |
Point Address |
A point address is a street address based on points that represent house and building locations. Point addresses represent the rooftop, or actual, location of the address. Typically, this is the most spatially accurate match level. Reference data contains address points with associated house numbers and street names, along with administrative divisions and optional postal code information—for example, 380 New York St, Redlands, CA, 92373. A locator view configured with this subcategory limits results to these highly precise address points, which allows you to avoid matching to any less-precise address points if you require high precision in matching. |
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Street Address |
A street address is different from a point address in that the house number in a street address is interpolated from a range of numbers. Reference data contains street centerlines with house number ranges, along with administrative divisions and optional postal code information—for example, 647 Haight St, San Francisco, CA, 94117. A locator view configured with this subcategory limits results to an interpolated result. If you want to limit results to matches that are at least this precise, select both this subcategory and the Point Address subcategory. |
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Intersection |
An intersection is a street address consisting of a street intersection along with city and optional state and postal code information—for example, Redlands Blvd & New York St, Redlands, CA, 92373. A locator view configured with this subcategory limits results to intersections instead of complete addresses that exist on only one street. |
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Street Name |
A street name is similar to a street address but without the house number. It contains street centerlines with associated street names (no numbered address ranges), along with administrative divisions and optional postal code information—for example, W Olive Ave, Redlands, CA, 92373. A locator view configured with this subcategory limits results to street names only. To limit results to matches that are at least this precise, select this subcategory as well as the Point Address and Street Address subcategories. |
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Subaddress |
A subaddress is a subset of a point address that represents a house or building subset location such as an apartment unit, floor, or individual building within a building complex—for example, 3836 Emerald Ave, Suite C, La Verne, CA, 91750. A locator view configured with this subcategory limits results to subaddress points that include a house number, street name, and subaddress elements, along with administrative divisions and optional postal code information, while leaving out other types of address matches. |
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Postal |
No subcategories |
A locator view configured with the Postal category returns any type of postal code match, including five-digit (for example, 92373) and other postal code formats. To limit results to matches that are at least this precise, select Postal and the top-level Address category. |
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Populated Place |
Neighborhood |
A neighborhood is a subsection of a city, smaller than a district and larger than a sector. |
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City |
A locator configured with this subcategory limits results to cities only—for example, the city of Venice in Italy. |
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Subregion |
A subregion is a subset of a state or province, such as a county in the United States—for example, Adams County in the state of Wisconsin. |
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Region |
A region is a subsection of a country, typically a state or province—for example, the province of Ontario in Canada. |
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Country |
A country is the highest administrative division, also known as a nation—for example, Japan. |
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Sector |
A sector is an administrative division larger than a block and smaller than a neighborhood, representing a subdivision of a neighborhood or district, or a collection of blocks. |
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Block |
A block is the smallest administrative area for a country, representing a subdivision of a sector or neighborhood, or a named city block. |
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District |
A district is an administrative division smaller than a city and larger than a neighborhood—for example, a municipal district. |
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Metro Area |
A metropolitan (metro) area is an urban conglomeration consisting of a large city and the smaller cities surrounding it—for example, Greater Tokyo. |
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Territory |
A territory is a large administrative division, smaller than a country and larger than a state or province—for example, the Yukon territory in Canada. |
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Zone |
A zone is a category representing an unofficial administrative area that does not belong to a country, such as a disputed area or a grouping of other administrative zones—for example, Central America. |
Coordinates
When you choose Coordinates as the types of locations you want to find, you can further refine the locator view's search results by selecting the categories you want to search. These are described in the table below.
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Category |
Description |
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Longitude, Latitude |
This category represents geographic (x,y) coordinates. X refers to longitude (east-west coordinates), and y refers to latitude (north-south coordinates). Coordinates are entered and returned as x,y. |
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Latitude, Longitude |
This category represents geographic (x,y) coordinates. X refers to longitude (east-west coordinates), and y refers to latitude (north-south coordinates). Coordinates are entered and returned as y,x. |
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MGRS |
This category represents Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) coordinates. |
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USNG |
This category represents the United States National Grid (USNG) coordinate system. |
Places of Interest
When you choose Places of Interest as the types of locations you want to find, you can further refine the locator view's search results by selecting the categories you want to search. These are described in the table below.
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Category |
Description |
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Education |
This category represents all types of educational institutions, including universities, primary schools, and vocational schools. |
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Food |
This category represents restaurants of all types. |
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Shops and Service |
This category represents all types of commercial or retail businesses. |
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Airport |
This category represents airports, designated either by name or by airport code. |
Requirements for configuring your own locators
ArcGIS Online supports locators running on ArcGIS Server as locators for geosearch. When used for geosearch, the locators can be internal or external. Internal locators only work for geosearch when Map Viewer or other ArcGIS Online clients have access to those internal locators. For example, if your organization shares apps with the public, only users who have access to your internal locators will be able to find places with those apps.
ArcGIS Online also supports locators running on ArcGIS Server as geocoders for batch geocoding. Unlike geosearch, external locators that are hosted outside your firewall are required for batch geocoding. This is because ArcGIS Online needs to access the geocodeAddresses operation on your locator to perform batch geocoding. If your external locator is secure, you must first create a secure service item in ArcGIS Online that stores the credentials required to access the locator. You can then configure the service URL provided by the secure service item as a locator.
When you configure your own locator for batch geocoding, you should provision sufficient compute resources for the locator. ArcGIS Online submits many concurrent requests when performing batch geocoding to improve performance, so your own locators should have sufficient compute resources to handle concurrent requests without severely affecting processing times for the requests.
ArcGIS Online supports single-field locators and external locators from ArcGIS Server. Internal locators can be used for geosearch but not to batch geocode. Internal locators only work for geosearch when Map Viewer or other ArcGIS Online clients have access to those internal locators. For example, if your organization shares apps with the public, only users who have access to your internal locators will be able to find places with those apps. To batch geocode, the locator needs to be hosted outside your firewall so ArcGIS Online can access the geocodeAddresses operation on the locator to perform batch geocoding.
Enrich layer with address information
When you publish a hosted feature layer from a comma-separated values file, you have the option to include information from the geocoding process as part of the hosted feature layer. This information is generated by the locator and is stored in fields in the hosted feature layer.
By default, only the location information (the x,y coordinates) is included in the hosted feature layer. There are two options to include additional information in the hosted feature layer:
Append four fields that show how well addresses matched—Includes
status,score,match_addr, andaddr_typefields and values. These fields and values are described in the table below.Append 50 fields for full location information—Includes all fields listed in the table below.
Be aware that these additional fields and values will increase the size of the hosted feature layer. How much the layer size increases depends on the number of records in the input file and the option you choose. The following table describes the fields you can append to a hosted feature layer published from a .csv file:
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Field |
Description |
Supported request types |
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The spatial reference of the output match location coordinates as specified by the |
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The complete matching address returned for Example: 380 New York St, Redlands, California, 92373 |
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The full street address of a location, including house number and street name. Example: 380 New York St Note:This is different than the |
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The point coordinates of the output match location as specified by the x and y properties. The spatial reference of the x and y coordinates is defined by the For |
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This is only returned for |
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The name of the locator used to return a particular match result. Note:The |
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Indicates whether a geocode request results in a match, a tie, or is unmatched. The possible values are the following:
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A number 1–100 indicating the degree to which the input tokens in a geocoding request match the address components in a candidate record. A score of 100 represents a perfect match, while lower scores represent decreasing match accuracy. |
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The complete address returned for the geocode request. The format is based on address standards for the country in which the address is located. |
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A longer version of the |
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A shortened version of the |
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The match level for a geocode request. Supported match levels vary in different countries. The possible values are the following:
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The feature type for results returned by a search. The |
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The formal name of a geocode match candidate. Example: Paris or Starbucks. |
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The full street address of a place, including street, city, and region. Example: 275 Columbus Ave, New York, New York. |
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The primary phone number of a place of interest (POI). Example: Knott's Berry Farm, |
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The URL of the primary website for a place of interest (POI), for example, the University of Georgia, |
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A floating-point number value indicating the priority of a result relative to other results with the same name. For example, there are cities in France and Texas named Paris. Paris, France, has a greater population than Paris, Texas, so it has a higher rank. The |
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The name of a building. Example: Empire State Building. |
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The alphanumeric value that represents the portion of an address typically known as a house number or building number. Example: in the address 380 New York Street, This value is returned for |
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A value representing the beginning number of a street address range. It is relative to direction of feature digitization and is not always the smallest number in the range. This value is provided for |
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A value representing the ending number of a street address range. It is relative to direction of feature digitization and is not always the largest number in the range. This value is provided for |
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The full house number range for the street segment that an address lies on, in the format AddNumFrom-AddNumTo. For example, the |
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The side of the street where an address resides relative to the direction of feature digitization. This value is not relative to the direction of travel along the street. Possible values are Note:
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An address element defining the direction of a street and occurs before the primary street name. Example: North in North Main Street. |
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An address element defining the leading type of a street. Example: the Spanish term Avenida in Avenida Central or the French term Rue in Rue Lapin. |
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An address element defining the primary name of a street. Example: Main in North Main Street. |
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An address element defining the trailing type of a street. Example: Street in Main Street. |
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An address element defining the direction of a street, which occurs after the primary street name. Example: North in Main Street North. |
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The name or number of a building subunit. Example: A in building A. |
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The classification of a building subunit. Examples are building, hangar, and tower. |
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The classification of a floor subunit. Examples are floor, level, department, and wing. |
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The name or number of a floor subunit. Example: 3 in level 3. |
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The classification of a unit subunit. Examples are unit, apartment, flat, office, and suite. |
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The name or number of a unit subunit. Example: 2B in apartment 2B. |
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The full subunit value for a candidate with |
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The street address of a place, without city and region. Example: 275 Columbus Ave. |
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The name of the block-level administrative division for a candidate. The |
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The name of the sector-level administrative division for a candidate. The |
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The name of the neighborhood-level administrative division for a candidate. The |
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The name of the neighborhood-level administrative division for a candidate. The Note:This is analogous to the |
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The name of the district-level administrative division for a candidate, such as a subdivision of a city. |
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The name of the city-level administrative division for a candidate. The |
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The name of the metropolitan area-level administrative division for a candidate. It is an urban area consisting of a large city and the smaller cities surrounding it. The value can potentially intersect multiple subregions or regions. An example is Kolkata Metropolitan Area in India. |
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The name of the subregion-level administrative division for a candidate. The |
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The name of the region-level administrative division for a candidate. It is a subdivision of a country or territory. It is typically the largest administrative area for a country if the |
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The abbreviated region name. The |
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The name of the territory-level administrative division for a candidate. It is a subdivision of country. It is not commonly used. The Sudeste macroregion of Brazil—which encompasses the states of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo—is an example. |
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An alphanumeric address element defining the primary postal code. Example: V7M 2B4 for a Canadian postal code and 92374 for a United States postal code. |
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An alphanumeric address element defining the postal code extension. Example: 8100 in USA postal code 92373-8110. |
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A 3-character code for a country. Example: Canada is CAN. A list of supported countries and codes is available in Geocode data coverage. This field is returned by the |
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A 3-character code for a country. Example: Canada is CAN. A list of supported countries and codes is available in Geocode data coverage. Note:This is analogous to the |
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The full country name for an address candidate. Example: 日本 (Japan). The name may be in the same language as the input address or in the language specified by the |
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A 3-character language code representing the language of the address. Example: ENG is English. |
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The physical distance in meters from a candidate to a specified location. The |
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The primary x-coordinate of an address returned by the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service in spatial reference WGS84 (WKID 4326). |
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The primary y-coordinate of an address returned by the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service in spatial reference WGS84 (WKID 4326). |
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The x-coordinate that was submitted in a |
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The y-coordinate that was submitted in a |
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The display x-coordinate of an address returned by the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service in spatial reference WGS84 (WKID 4326). For most types of matches, the |
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The display y-coordinate of an address returned by the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service in spatial reference WGS84 (WKID 4326). For most types of matches, the |
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The minimum x-coordinate for the display extent of a feature returned by the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service. The |
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The maximum x-coordinate for the display extent of a feature returned by the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service. The |
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The minimum y-coordinate for the display extent of a feature returned by the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service. The |
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The maximum y-coordinate for the display extent of a feature returned by the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service. The |
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A collection of strings from the input that could not be matched to any part of an address and were used to score or penalize the result. |
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The minimum bounding rectangle of the output match feature as specified by the |
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A designation for a structure or building that describes its primary usage. These are the possible values:
Only geocoding candidates that have Note:Currently, the |
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Related to For addresses with
For addresses with
Only geocoding candidates that have Note:Currently the |
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