ZIP / Postal Code + Country to Geo Coordinates

Question

What is the most complete, precise and reliable way to get the coordinates (latitude / longitude) of a given ZIP / Postal Code of a given country? I need to make a lot of reques

Answer 1

The easiest way would of course be finding a high-quality service provider with no request limit. Why not ask Google for an offer? From what I hear, they are quite flexible towards business customers.

If that's not an option, you will certainly be able to get individual data files, and fare cheaper than 33 grand in many countries. I'm quite sure German and Austrian sell data files at 3-figure prices, and for the UK there's the Postcode Address File (PAF) it's data from the Royal Mail, I don't think quality gets better than that. Of course, in addition to the cost and hassle, there would be a lot of converting work to do with 26 individual files from different Post offices and whatnot - work I wouldn't envy anybody for :) If you have the budget, it's probably cheapest to talk to Google or Yahoo.