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February 8, 2010

Free download: All Australian postcodes geocoded ready for data mash-up visualisation

As the analyst geeks among you probably know from experience, geocoding address data is pretty easy but sometimes it can take a while especially if you have a lot of addresses to process and clean. 

To save time we have downloaded the latest postcode file from the Australian Post website and geocoded it for you. Using the below file you can now at least visualise data on a postcode level, not ideal but at least something.

ZIP file containing all Australian postcodes geocoded
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10822/Datalicious/All-Australian-Postcodes-Geocoded.zip

Australia Post download website for latest list of postcodes
http://www1.auspost.com.au/postcodes/index.asp?sub=2


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Posted by Christian Bartens 

Comments (19)

Feb 08, 2010
Ian Lyons said...

Awesome - good to see you're repurposing the effort of a long rainy weekend :)

A followup post on how to use excel to pull in this data (dynamic lookup) would be very helpful for us mere mortals 


Feb 08, 2010
Christian Bartens said...
Thanks Ian, feeling a bit of a looser spending my weekend in Tableau but was fun, I have to admit. Appreciate the comment below but would not recommend to use the geo data in Excel, way too hard, instead I'd just recommend people download a http://www.tableausoftware.com/ trial and teach themselves (will save time in the future).
Mar 08, 2010
Stephen Foxworthy said...
Thanks for posting this Christian, I've been trying to map some data based on your file without success in Tableau...
Have you managed to import and preview these?
I keep getting Tableau errors when I try to import them...
It tells me it can't be used 'because it did not define any geographic roles.'
I stripped out all fields but postcode, lat and long to remove any confusion, and de-duped the lot so there's only a single unique postcode reference with loc details.
Any ideas?

Also, if you have used these details, has the standard map in Tableau been good enough for you data, or have you used a separate map server file?
Thanks,
S

Mar 08, 2010
Christian Bartens said...
Hi there, 

Are you trying to import custom geocoding for Australia or just map some geocoded data?

The built in mapping function works fine anywhere in the world as long as you have data points with longitude and latitude - if not, you need to geocode your data first (i.e. add two columns for longitude and latitude for each line item). If you have a postcode then you could just use the file from our blog and do a VLookUp in Excel. 

Actually, maybe what you're referring to is the automatic geocoding in Tableau based on any available state and postcode fields - that only works in the US, you're right. What you have to do is disable the automatic geocoding (i.e. change the geographic role of whatever postcode or state fileds you have to none) and upload your own geocoded data for Australia (i.e. longitude and latitude columns as described above).

It would be easier if you could send me your Tableau workbook or maybe a data extract to cbartens@datalicious.com.

Cheers, Chris

Mar 08, 2010
Stephen Foxworthy said...

Actually I have a dataset with Aus postcodes, and your postcode Geocoded data and I was trying to get them to see eye to eye within Tableau and it was proving difficult...<o:p></o:p>

So thanks for the VLookup suggestion... That’s solved it reasonably well.<o:p></o:p>

I was hoping that I could have just uploaded the Geocode file (like your excel) and then just align the Postcode value with the Lat/Long in the GeoCode file, rather than having to add the actual lat/long to my data prior to uploading. <o:p></o:p>

Anyway, excellent work on the Geocoding, it’s made my life much easier. Thanks again for your reply and your help.<o:p></o:p>

Steph.<o:p></o:p>

From:

Mar 08, 2010
Christian Bartens said...
No worries, glad we could help. We're working on a custom geocoding file that can be uploaded into Tableau but not ready yet, hence the VLOOKUP workaround.
Jun 02, 2010
David Feldman said...
Really helpful. thanks and the data is in pretty good shape too..
Jun 03, 2010
Christian Bartens said...
Thanks, would be keen to hear what you're using it for, always looking for examples.
Jun 08, 2010
Joe the support guy said...
Hey guys,
Love your work. I've just been asked to create a macros where one of the requirements is within 100km proximity of major city, and no budget... so its great that you guys have done this... saves me alot of pain and stress!
Jun 08, 2010
datalicious said...
Thanks Joe, we also have a file that shows proximity between all Australian post codes but it's over 150 MB. We've been meaning to put this up online but given the bandwidth we need to charge a little. What do you think a file like that would be worth (even to someone with no budget ;)?
Jun 16, 2010
Rob Fearn said...
:-))))) you guys are total schiz! - cheers for the file - how much for the 150Mb file? was thinking of using MS SQL 2k8 Geo-Spatial features so probably wouldn't be required but worth considering as an option... Thanks again :-)
Jun 16, 2010
Christian Bartens said...
Thanks Rob! The 150 MB file needs a bit of work to get it ready but not much, what do you think we should charge? Don't want to get rich here but it does take some time to get ready and maintain.
Jun 16, 2010
Rob Fearn said...
Umm.... How is it structured i.e. what column data is in the file? I am assuming it is a single row for each A-to-B combination... also is it repetitive in the sense that it contains every combination A-to-B and B-to-A (just thinking about how easy it to search in DB terms - whether you have to search for a single postcode in both columns or whether every postcode is in both columns the latter being more logical)
Jun 16, 2010
JohnS said...
Hate to rain on your parade, but the lat & long is up to 30km off target for a number of towns.
Check Dubbo NSW, Parkes NSW, Wallsend NSW, Kunda Park QLD.
Jun 16, 2010
Christian Bartens said...
We can structure the file any way we want, doesn't take too long. At the moment there are 5 columns, A is the origina postcode, B the destination postcode, C distance in kilometers, D in miles and E in nautical miles. Email us on insights@datalicious.com and I'll email you a sample if you want.
Jun 24, 2010
Jesse Gebhardt said...
Hey guys, I took the excel file from the link above and manipulated it to import into Tableau smoothly. I just made it 1 row per post code and included lat and lon in the other columns.
In version 5.2 of Tableau, you can import numerical geographic roles (like post codes) without having to write a schema.ini file. Just choose to import custom geocoding and point it at a new folder with just this file in it. No more v-lookups or table joins. Enjoy!

http://www.4shared.com/file/_kf8T9Ow/Australian_Postcodes.html

Jun 24, 2010
Christian Bartens said...
Sweet! Thank you very much. And yes Tableau 5.2 improved mapping a lot, much more granular now and also Australian maps.
Jun 29, 2010
Bryan Hill said...
Fantastic Christian!!! Thanks guys for doing this - I have a project where I am on zero budget and they want to order all search results by proximity to input search region!!!
Jul 23, 2010
Din Freebies said...
Fantastic Christian!!! Thanks guys for doing this

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