LINZ maintains a point layer of primary address points allocated by local councils for rateable properties. The principle purpose of this dataset is to allocate voters to the correct electorate. The set is actively maintained, but is still incomplete and some locations are incorrect. Nevertheless it is by far the most comprehensive address database available.

It includes all (allocated) rural address points (RAPID numbers), commercial addresses and many flat numbers. So numbers are not numeric, there are all sorts of formats included here, sorry. Addresses are not unique. The points are "location addresses", not "postal addresses". For residential town addresses this is normally the same, but for commercial and rural locations they are not the same.

Primary addresses are only the number and alpha parts. Not included is a flat, unit, apartment, floor or other subdivision of the main property address. They should also not be a range, simply the entrance to the property.

Address points only have a number and a key to a road centreline segment. They did not contain a full address or postcode as you see here.

Road names in the address are joined from the road centreline segments All road names in this database are official, with a locality (suburb or town) allocated to make the complete address unique within a local council district. Road names are unique if you include the location and local authority name as part of the name. The postcode alone does not make an address unique because they cover too large an area and NZPost use a different surburb/mailtown/postcode composite key.

The locality is not derived from the road centrelines. These are not useful because the do not have a left and right and do not reflect common usage. Instead the Fire Service locality polygons have been used to tag the addresses with the preferred name. I know it may not be the name used elsewhere, so a geocoder allows for alternatives.

These addresses are a "situation" or "location" address, not a "delivery address" or "property identifier". It does not have complete flat or unit numbers, although there are some due to confusion in the purpose of the database, so you will see some.

NZ Post uses this dataset to maintain their GeoPAF file which is a subset of this data because they only supply 'deliverable' addresses where they deliver mail. Therefore no commercial or rural addresses are included in the PAF (PO Boxes are the postal address for these properties). The postcode has been added from an authoritative postcode map. Postcodes are for bulk mail sorting, not for defining a unique location address. (NZPost will supplement the PAF with all address points for a significant fee.)

Note that an address number is related to the road centreline. No road - no address. It is a linear referencing system, starting at one end, continuing in sequence to the end of the road with odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other. In towns the spacing is approximately 20 metres, and in the country it is 200 metres.

Addresses are NOT related to parcels and should not be a property key because they are not unique, consider a corner section. They do not define property boundaries. Think of addresses as the location of the letterbox marking the entrance to the property, not the building. The mapped point is generally located 15 metres from the centreline at the entrance or at the neck of a rear section. Address ranges on a point are deprecated in the NZ address standard, a single number should be allocated to the principle entrance so the fire service can find it quickly and unambiguously.

This is different from base address ranges with parity and direction on a road centreline which would be really useful and are common overseas but do not exist for NZ. Even private sets are not done properly. A base address is a simple integer with a range of 1 - 99999.

See Where The Hell Are You? for more explanation on the confusion between an address and a property and the NZ Address Standard AS/NZS 4819:2003.

Meshblock codes for the 2013 census have been added.

Source LINZ Bulk Data Extract August 2014, Postcodes Feb 2014