Free US Zip Code Database

sosuke — Sun, 31 May 2009 01:28:06 +0000

So as one of my sites grew I quickly found out that my zip code database was horribly incomplete with only 33234 records and it even had duplicates for some zip codes. I did some searching and came across a post about a zip code csv file but the post goes to what looks like an empty page with no file. A little digging lead me to the zip code file download page that gives you a csv with entries like this:

"78701","Austin","TX","30.27127","-97.74103","-6","1"

Awesome! This csv file has 43191 unique records and has entries for each zip code my users have reported as missing. I started by looking up how to import a csv into MSSQL and followed an article called Using BULK INSERT to Load a Text File from which I came up with my query.

BULK INSERT ZipCodes FROM 'c:\zipcodes.csv' WITH (FIELDTERMINATOR = '"",""', ROWTERMINATOR = '\n')

It didn’t work and after a couple hours of trial and error I threw my hands up in the air and abandoned the bulk insert and fell back on another option of using phpMyAdmin. It sounds crazy but I setup the database in MySQL and imported the csv on the first attempt! Now to get it back to to MSSQL I exported the database as single row imports that looked like this:

INSERT INTO `ZipCodes` VALUES('78701', 'Austin', 'TX', '30.27127', '-97.74103', -6, 1);

A few quick find and replaces to change the database name and remove the ` characters and I was able to run them as queries on my MSSQL database in blocks of 5500 to prevent timeouts.

INSERT INTO [databaseName].[dbo].[ZipCodes] VALUES('78701', 'Austin', 'TX', '30.27127', '-97.74103', -6, 1);

It’s crucial to have a fairly complete zip code database for distance searching on my free online dating site and I’m glad I got this sorted out and updated.

Sosuke » mssql

Free US Zip Code Database