Automated Processing of Postal Addresses

摘要

Postal addresses are involved whenever post mail is to be delivered to an addressee, or to describe the location of a person or organization. The world-wide adoption of postal addresses and the lack of a centralized control entity led to very heterogeneous postal address formats. Even within a single country various postal address formats may be used. In this paper the main tools for processing postal addresses in an automated fashion are compared: Multidimensional indices, address patterns and gazetteers. Special focus is put upon supporting as many heterogeneous postal address formats as feasible with the various tools.