If you’re ready to get down to a granular level of populating roads with the correct towns, here’s how I do it…by using the US zip code boundary map at http://www.usnaviguide.com/zip.htm.
I hope this helps you.
Thanks for the link. Another weapon in our quest for accurate maps 
I also go to either the town website or county website and they usually have some kind of map available, usually a zoning map, but some actually have street maps.
In Minnesota, the Department of Transportation has a great resource for maps. They keep officially surveyed maps of almost every city in Minnesota with streets, railroads, lakes, and highways marked. They also have county and highway maps. http://www.dot.state.mn.us/maps/cadd/html/Cities_alpha.html
Your state may have something similar.
Thanks for the info. This will help a lot
What is Waze’s policy for unincorporated towns that share the same ZIP code? For instance the ZIP code 32940 is officially named Melbourne and it contains parts of that city and the city of Palm Shores (a second acceptable name). The problem is that it contains two unincorporated towns - Viera and Suntree - and only the former is accepted by the USPS as an alternative name.
I haven’t seen much guidance on this issue. I have not been limiting my city labeling to USPS Zip Code names, though I do take the zip code map into consideration and typically have it open when I’m editing. Maybe we’ll have more options when we get the new cartouche. City labels was briefly brought up here, again without much guidance. There is a uservoice suggestion to add a second name field.
I am sticking with the primary acceptable name for a zip code since there are definable borders. There is a lot of subjectivity associated with neighborhood borders within a zip code.
try doing prince george’s county maryland with 10 cities/17 towns and about 50 unincorporated “cdps” i stick to incorporated in this situation with a few minor exceptions.
Got to situations I can think of that makes this pretty tough.
Live in a town that is incorporated but has no separate zip code.
Work at a place that we have a city name as a mailing address but pay taxes to another city that has their own zip code and we are a part of.
Gets confusing very easily.
BTW, I added my small incorporated town even though it has no zip code because I am darn proud of it. They gave back our small property taxes we paid because they didn’t need it for the budget. Thought that deserved to be put on the map just for that.
Here in Pennsylvania, every square inch of the state is either part of a township, bourough or city (and one incorporated town). That seems simple enough, but our zip codes don’t follow these borders at all. So for instance, my town by zip code (Willow Grove) is in parts of 3 different townships. The next zip code north (Hatboro) is a borough in it’s own right, but also covers a significant portion of my township. Yet a third zip code to the east (Huntingdon Valley) covers parts of 4 different townships, including one in another county. As a result, we have a hodge-podge of town designations based on either 1) municipality, 2) unincorporated zip code town, or 3) CDP. Makes clear town identification difficult.
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I find that in Pennsylvania the municipal boundaries are more helpful than the post office boundaries. Not only is every square inch part of a township, borough or city, but also, at least in Southeastern PA where I drive, these municipal boundaries are signed on the major roads. This makes the municipal designations more meaningful to wazers passing through and more likely to be used by the locals.
When I lived in PA, I was in the West Grove ZIP code, but got my mail from the Chatham post office. I never identified the location as West Grove, but rather London Grove, which is the township.
In my area zip codes tend to cover towns and areas that are not really part of a town. For example Vicksburg, MS has 2 zip codes 39180 for the south part of town, and 39183 for the north part of town. However 39180 also inculdes more area outside the city limits than inside and Vicksburg is a smaller percentage of the 39183 zip.
The 39042 and 39047 zips are just as bad. They will return Brandon, MS but cover more area outside Brandon’s city limits than inside.
I wish it were that simple, but unfortunately, it’s not. For example, most people in the area are familiar with the King of Prussia / Valley Forge, yet do they know that the massive interchange there is located partially in Upper Merion Township in Montgomery County and partially in Tredryffrin Township in Chester County? All the highway signs on I- 76, I- 276, US 422 & US 202 all direct you to Valley Forge from several miles away in all directions. This is the most glaring example to me, but is representative of the local issues that prevent us from using incorporated municipalities in many cases. I am of course thinking locally, but Willow Grove is much more easily identified than Upper Moreland, Fort Washington is more easily identified than Upper Dublin or Whitemarsh, etc. I wish there was a more dynamic way of identifying towns vs. municipalities because for places like SE PA, there is a difference.
Oh I didn’t mean to imply that making the city name decisions is simple or that the municipal boundries should be followed without further thought. There are going to be many unincorporated places that would be helpful to have on the map. That being said, I have been eliminating the city designation from freeways and ramps that I edit. The ramp names should be sufficient to match the highway signs.
Here in New Jersey, we have a similar situation to Pennsylvania with unincorporated towns within townships, but New Jersey (and Pennsylvania may do this too - I’ve just never seen it there) takes the headache a step further by allowing multiple townships in multiple different counties to use the same name as long as all the mailing address in all those townships are still unique. Has anyone tried to count how many Washington Townships there are in New Jersey? There’s at least 2 Springfield Townships, too. In light of that, a strict “municipal” guidance will not work in New Jersey, as Waze will attempt to “connect” those overlapping township names, even though they are not the same township.
Zip codes and USPS-approved “city” names solve this problem by fulfilling the USPS requirement that all “city” names within the same state are unique. However, if you look closely at a zip code map of New Jersey, you’ll notice that, like Pennsylvania, many zip codes span parts of multiple municipalities, and in some cases multiple municipalities in different counties! A glaring example that comes to mind is that almost the entire eastern half of Old Bridge Township (Middlesex County) uses the Matawan zip code, and consequently Matawan as it’s USPS “city,” but Matawan is actually an incorporated borough in neighboring Monmouth County. So the shortcoming of a strict “zip-code” guidance is that Waze loses its geopolitical boundaries in the cities layer.
In the end, though, other than displaying nearby city names on the map, I would imagine the biggest use for the city name in Waze is to eventually help find addresses once Waze is self-sufficient enough to not need to cross-lookup Bing or Google. Also, in many townships here in New Jersey, people are more familiar with its composite town names than the actual township itself. For example, most people I know around here are more familiar with where Monmouth Junction is than where South Brunswick Township is, even though Monmouth Junction is actually just an unincorporated town within South Brunswick Township. So if we really need to choose one or the other and stick to it, I’d say in New Jersey, the zip-code methodology is probably more relevant and useful.
For what it’s worth, the NavTeq systems (Google, et al) use both names, e.g. Monmouth Junction, South Brunswick Twp, NJ. Joy…
I used to live in Union NJ. Union Twp in Union County. Not Union Twp in Hunterdon County less than 40 miles to the west. Not Union City in Hudson County less than 20 miles to the east. Not Union Beach in Monmouth County less than 30 miles to the south.
And historically, there used to be 4 other Union Twps which have been disolved, absorbed, or just changed their names.
Minor nit. AFAIK PA has zero unincorporated land. We have plenty of boroughs inside of townships of the same name though. So we either append Borough to one or Township to the other. We us Buckingham, Bucks (the county) to differentiate it from other Buckingham cities.
Same for NJ actually… all land is incorporated. A better way to say it is “unofficial” towns within townships.
Similar situation here in TN would be former towns that get annexed by a larger city. People here in Knoxville use legacy names for areas that have officially been Knoxville for decades.
If the intent is to be able to look up an address – possibly a big assumption on my part – there’s one thing we know: The address has a zip code. There may be hamlets, dales, villages, townships, and centers assigned the same zip code, but a letter mailed to a zip code using the ‘preferred’ USPS city name will get delivered to any of the political, emotional, whimsical, or generational named locales within that preferred city name and zip code.
The only way these differences can be overcome in a consistent manner, is to “err” on the side of using the ‘preferred’ or ‘acceptable’ USPS city name associated with the zip code.
Examples (we all have them don’t we? )
ACCEPTABLE CITY NAMES
- A section of Alpharetta, GA known as John’s Creek, GA, divorced Alpharetta and became its own township, but still has the same zip code: 30022. The USPS treats Alpharetta as the ‘preferred’ city name for that zip code, but John’s Creek is an ‘acceptable’ name. A letter mailed to Alpharetta 30022 destined for an address in John’s Creek is going to get there.
UNACCEPTABLE CITY NAMES
2. A section of Framingham, MA 01701, known as “Saxonville,” has existed for over a century. However, Saxonville (http://www.saxonville.org/) is considered an ‘unacceptable’ name, so a letter addressed to Saxonville 01701 may be returned to the sender. (Sometimes I’ve found this to be up to the local Postmaster.) Interestingly, no one has labeled it in Waze. I’m tempted, but that temptation is based on an emotional attachment to the place, so I won’t and trust no one else would, either. (Right.)
Bottom line: If it isn’t a USPS preferred or acceptable city name, we should not propagate other names if the intent is accurate address search results. For any other intent, ignore every pixel, above.
The problem I see with relying on this is, it’s great for states where everything belongs to an incorporated area, But I have areas where multiple towns are covered by one zip code. And with the Post Office needing to find ways to make cuts we may see more of this.
For example look up 84065, this zip is officially for Riverton Ut, but covers the incorporated cities of Riverton and Bluffdale, the Camp Williams National Guard base and a segment of neighboring Herriman city. Now Herriman has it’s own zip, but right in the middle of it is an Island of 84065.
And immediately to the south is 84043 for Lehi Utah, but it covers Lehi, and either non-incorporated or recently annexed areas surrounding two neighboring cities Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain.
Several other neighboring Zips also cover multiple cities besides the one actually assigned to the city. The post office is able to deliver the mail accurately because each post office knows how to differentiate within their zip which cities it really covers.
And then there is the Salt Lake valley in general, most of the north eastern portion of the Valley with multiple zip codes and city names can all be addressed to Salt Lake and in fact will often return better search results if you just put Salt Lake City after the address, rather than the actual city names. But you ask the locals where they live, and they want the city they LIVE IN shown on the maps. Not what was arbitrarily assigned to them by the Post Office.
Doing city assignments based on official zip code assignments alone like this would really mess up the city layers in those areas. This site is a tool in our toolbox but use it with extreme caution.
I’ve been told that post office boundaries are too unstable - as in they change way too frequently - to use as primary city names. Rather, municipal names are preferred (or check the box with no city name for areas in states that have completely unincorporated areas - but that would be up managers in those states; New Jersey is comprehensively incorporated). Municipal names also respect county lines, at least in New Jersey, which many post office zip codes do not.
To make POI look-ups work, I was told that any other acceptable “city” names for an area, be it official USPS or other colloquial means, should be put into the secondary city names. Of course, for roads that with a local name, multiple highway makers, and straddling township lines, this list of secondary names can get epicly long covering each combination, but that’s what I was told it’s for.