Libpostal: C library for parsing/normalizing street addresses around the world

Summary

libpostal: international street address NLP libpostal is a C library for parsing/normalizing street addresses around the world using statistical NLP and open data. The goal of this project is to understand location-based strings in every language, everywhere. For a more comprehensive overview of the research behind libpostal, be sure to check out the (lengthy) introductory blog posts: 🇧🇷 🇫🇮 🇳🇬 🇯🇵 🇽🇰 🇧🇩 🇵🇱 🇻🇳 🇧🇪 🇲🇦 🇺🇦 🇯🇲 🇷🇺 🇮🇳 🇱🇻 🇧🇴 🇩🇪 🇸🇳 🇦🇲 🇰🇷 🇳🇴 🇲🇽 🇨🇿 🇹🇷 🇪🇸 🇸🇸 🇪🇪 🇧🇭 🇳🇱 🇨🇳 🇵🇹 🇵🇷 🇬🇧 🇵🇸 Addresses and the locations they represent are essential for any application dealing with maps (place search, transportation, on-demand/delivery services, check-ins, reviews). Yet even the simplest addresses are packed with local conventions, abbreviations and context, making them difficult to index/query effectively with traditional full-text search engines. This library helps convert the free-form addresses that humans use into clean normalized forms suitable for machine comparison and full-text indexing. Though libpostal is not itself a full geocoder, it can be used as a preprocessing step to make any geocoding application smarter, simpler, and more consistent internationally. 🇷🇴 🇬🇭 🇦🇺 🇲🇾 🇭🇷 🇭🇹 🇺🇸 🇿🇦 🇷🇸 🇨🇱 🇮🇹 🇰🇪 🇨🇭 🇨🇺 🇸🇰 🇦🇴 🇩🇰 🇹🇿 🇦🇱 🇨🇴 🇮🇱 🇬🇹 🇫🇷 🇵🇭 🇦🇹 🇱🇨 🇮🇸 🇮🇩 🇦🇪 🇸🇰 🇹🇳 🇰🇭 🇦🇷 🇭🇰 The core library is written in pure C. Language bindings for Python, Ruby, Go, Java, PHP, and NodeJS are officially supported and it's easy to write bindings in other languages. Sponsors If your company is using libpostal, consider asking your organization to sponsor the project. Interpreting what humans mean when they refer to locations is far from a solved problem, and sponsorships help us pursue new frontiers in geospatial NLP. As a sponsor, your company logo will appear prominently on the Github repo page along with a link to your site. Sponsorship info Backers Individual users can also help support open geo NLP research by making a monthly donation: Installation (Mac/Linux) Before you install, make sure y...