How do I get partial zip code typeahead matches in Azure Maps Address Search?

Parker Ben - Nashville 0

I'm new to Azure Maps, and I'm trying to find documentation around the options with typeahead address search.

My use case is this - I want to provide a partial zip code (example: "372") and get zip code results only (screenshot below).

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Google's Places API allows you to optionally pass "postal_codes" as a "types" parameter to only serve zip code results. Is there similar functionality in Azure Maps?

Thanks!

2 answers

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rbrundritt 18,671 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-06-28T15:26:38.8566667+00:00

For this scenario I recommend using the Search Address (V1 search service). With that you can add &entityType=PostalCodeArea to limit the results to postal/zip codes. You can add &typeahead=true to tell it the request is part of an autocomplete scenario and it will be more forgiving on what it would normally consider "garbage" input. Pass your input into the query parameter. Optionally you can use the countrySet parameter to limit the results to a set of countries. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/maps/search/get-search-address?view=rest-maps-1.0&tabs=HTTP
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Parker Ben - Nashville 0 Reputation points

2024-06-28T19:14:39.5266667+00:00

Thanks for the reply - I've tried this and unfortunately it doesn't work.

Here is the url I'm using:

https://atlas.microsoft.com/search/address/json?api-version=1.0&query=372&subscription-key=...&entityType=PostalCodeArea&typeahead=true&countryset=US

Notice the query is "372" - this returns no results

{ "summary": { "query": "372", "queryType": "NON_NEAR", "queryTime": 7, "numResults": 0, "offset": 0, "totalResults": 0, "fuzzyLevel": 2 }, "results": [] }

However, if I supply a full 5 digit zip code (37221), it returns one result

https://atlas.microsoft.com/search/address/json?api-version=1.0&query=37221&subscription-key=...&entityType=PostalCodeArea&typeahead=true&countryset=US

{ "summary": { "query": "37221", "queryType": "NON_NEAR", "queryTime": 15, "numResults": 1, "offset": 0, "totalResults": 1, "fuzzyLevel": 1 }, "results": [ { "type": "Geography", "id": "X2twYzom87j1hBpij4jn8w", "score": 1, "entityType": "PostalCodeArea", "matchConfidence": { "score": 1 }, "address": { "municipality": "Nashville", "countrySecondarySubdivision": "Davidson", "countrySubdivision": "TN", "countrySubdivisionName": "Tennessee", "countrySubdivisionCode": "TN", "postalCode": "37221", "postalName": "Nashville", "countryCode": "US", "country": "United States", "countryCodeISO3": "USA", "freeformAddress": "Nashville, TN 37221" }, "position": { "lat": 36.06803, "lon": -86.95261 }, "viewport": { "topLeftPoint": { "lat": 36.12146, "lon": -87.05466 }, "btmRightPoint": { "lat": 35.99708, "lon": -86.86729 } }, "boundingBox": { "topLeftPoint": { "lat": 36.12146, "lon": -87.05466 }, "btmRightPoint": { "lat": 35.99708, "lon": -86.86729 } }, "dataSources": { "geometry": { "id": "0000544e-3200-2800-0000-00000bf4c6f5" } } } ] }

Is there something I'm missing?

rbrundritt 18,671 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-07-02T14:28:14.77+00:00

Nope, you have it right. It seems like the test zip code I was using seemed to work but most others didn't. Doing more testing, this scenario is not well supported by any of the Azure Maps services at this time. Microsoft has been moving some of the Bing Maps services to Azure Maps. The Bing Maps autosuggest API may be better suited for this scenario. I'll check to see if the team plans on bring that service over (I believe they do).

Timothy Fenton 0 Reputation points

2024-10-16T19:57:07.3666667+00:00

@rbrundritt Just checking in on this -- we are facing the same issue and was wondering if there is some visibility into the migration or some outlook on when an API might be available to allow for partial zip code searches.

rbrundritt 18,671 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-10-17T18:03:13.91+00:00

I'm not on the maps team, so don't have much insight into their roadmap. However, I have noticed they have been bringing over some of the Bing Maps services to Azure Maps, and would suspect that the autosuggest service will be available in the future.

That said, if you only care about zip codes, a fairly easy solution that is both cheap and fast is to download a list of zip codes and use that to power an auto complete scenario. For example these sources:

https://www.geonames.org/postal-codes/

https://github.com/midwire/free_zipcode_data

You could also combine this with regular autocomplete with a bit of logic. For example, if the input string is less than 5 or 6 characters (few places in the world where zip/postal codes are longer than that), you could find matches in this zip data file, and either just show those, or combine them with the results from the search service. That said, if the input is 3 or less characters, I would only loop at the zip code data and save the search service call as that's likely to just be a waste. If you only want the user to be able to search zip codes, then you could skip using the search service all together.
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How do I get partial zip code typeahead matches in Azure Maps Address Search?

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