Create a locator that supports both local city and postal city names

The Create Locator tool allows you to build a locator that supports local city names and postal city names when both names are assigned to the same postal code. This can be achieved by building a multirole locator with data that includes the Point Address, Parcel, Street Address, or POI roles in which each feature in the primary reference data has a postal code, postal join ID, and a primary city name that the postal code is within, as well as postal codes represented in a polygon feature class that contains a postal join ID and another city name associated with the postal code that will use the Zip or Postal locator role. Create this type of locator when there are multiple city names associated with the same postal code, which can occur when there is a legal city or municipality name, an unincorporated city name, a locally known city name, or a postal city name that is assigned to a community by the United States Postal Service.

When city name values are included with the postal codes in the reference data for the Postal role, the city values are stored as postal city values when building a locator. In some countries, including the United States, the postal city is returned by default when geocoding. This affects results returned by multirole locators that include Point Address, Parcel, Street Address, or POI roles. You can change the value that is returned in the locator to the local city or the city that was matched by changing the default value for Preferred city name on the Locator Properties dialog box.

The diagram below shows how the roles are linked together and which fields are needed to use the Preferred city name setting. The fields listed for the feature classes are the fields in the data that should be mapped to locator role fields building the locator. There is a one-to-many relationship between the Ventura_Postal features used for the Zip or Postal role and the Ventura_City_Addresses point features used for the Point Address role, which are linked based on the POSTAL_JOIN_ID field. In the steps below, the local city name, Ventura. is stored in the point layer and the postal city name, San Buenaventura, is stored in the Ventura_Postal polygon layer. In the United States, postal codes are referred to as Zip Codes.

Build the locator

To create a multirole locator using Point Address and Zip or Postal role linking the two roles using the Postal Join ID role field that supports both postal city and local city, complete the following steps:

1. Open the Create Locator geoprocessing tool from the Geoprocessing pane.
2. In the Create Locator tool, click the Role drop-down list, and choose the Point Address role.
3. Click the Browse button next to the Primary Table(s) text box.
4. Browse to the points layer that contains the local city name.
5. In the Field Mapping portion of the tool, select the appropriate field from the Alias Name drop-down menu for each relevant field name in the Role: Point Address section to map the fields.
6. Assign the field from the point reference data that contains the join ID for postal code to Postal Join ID.
7. Click the Role drop-down list, and choose the Postal role.
8. Click the Browse button next to the Primary Table(s) text box.
9. Browse to the postal code polygon layer that contains the postal city name.
10. In the Field Mapping portion of the tool, select the appropriate field from the Alias Name drop-down menu for each relevant field name in the Role: Postal section to map the fields, and do the following:
    1. Assign the field from the postal polygon reference data that contains the join ID for the postal code to Postal Join ID.
    2. Assign the field from the reference data that contains the postal code to Postal.
    3. Assign the field from the reference data that contains the postal city to City.
11. Provide a name for the locator in the Output Locator parameter.
12. Select English from the Language Code drop-down menu.
13. Click Run.
14. Open the Locator Properties dialog box of the newly created locator.
15. On the Geocoding Options page, expand Display Options.
16. Select Postal city name as the Preferred city name option if you want to return the postal city name label in the geocode result when you enter the local city name as part of the input address.

    In the image below, the local city name in the data for the Point Address role is San Buenaventura, and the postal city name in the data in the ZIP or Postal role is Ventura. When you search for 3700 Dean Dr, San Buenaventura, CA 93003 in the Locate pane, the result returned by the locator contains the postal city name Ventura. The postal city name is also included in the suggestions.

    

17. Open the Locator Properties dialog box for the locator.
18. On the Geocoding Options page, expand Display options.
19. Select Local City as the Preferred city name option if you want to return the local city name when the postal city name is part of the input address.

    Now when you search for 3700 Dean Dr, Ventura, CA 93003 in the Locate pane, the result returned by the locator contains the local city name San Buenaventura.