Why?

Because there is no worldwide quality source for addresses!

Really, that’s no joke. There are many commercial providers for “industrialized countries” of variable quality/pricing but worldwide coverage is lacking, the data formats are diverse and the license terms provider specific.

There are also some open source projects related to addresses though, each with their gochas. Two of these projects are mentioned in the last section “Honorable Mentions” at the end of this article, along with their drawbacks.

This project is born in order to provide quality addresses with worldwide coverage under an open license, by directly extracting addresses from the raw data dumps of OpenStreetMap.

Birth of OpenStreetData.org

How does the it look like? Here is a screenshot, but if you prefer, check out the website directly.

It is divided into two parts: extracts and addresses. Another “points of interest” was planned, but not further developed due to lack of time.

Country dumps

… See full entry