Webservice to get City Names by giving Zip Codes

Question

I need a reliable webserivce which gives corresponding city name by passing zip code. This webservice should work at any time. This webservice will be used in the production also.

either USA or entrire world. First preference is for USA – karthik k Jun 03 '11 at 14:37 — karthik k, Jun 03 '11 at 14:37

score 12 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 23 '13 at 08:52

I found a couple of ways to do this with web based APIs. I think the US Postal Service would be the most accurate, since Zip codes are their thing, but Ziptastic looks much easier.

Using the US Postal Service HTTP/XML API

According to this page on the US Postal Service website which documents their XML based web API, specifically Section 4.0 (page 22) of this PDF document, they have a URL where you can send an XML request containing a 5 digit Zip Code and they will respond with an XML document containing the corresponding City and State.

According to their documentation, here's what you would send:

http://SERVERNAME/ShippingAPITest.dll?API=CityStateLookup&XML=<CityStateLookupRequest%20USERID="xxxxxxx"><ZipCode ID= "0"><Zip5>90210</Zip5></ZipCode></CityStateLookupRequest>

And here's what you would receive back:

<?xml version="1.0"?> 
<CityStateLookupResponse> 
    <ZipCode ID="0"> 
        <Zip5>90210</Zip5> 
        <City>BEVERLY HILLS</City> 
        <State>CA</State> 
    </ZipCode> 
</CityStateLookupResponse>

USPS does require that you register with them before you can use the API, but, as far as I could tell, there is no charge for access. By the way, their API has some other features: you can do Address Standardization and Zip Code Lookup, as well as the whole suite of tracking, shipping, labels, etc.

Using the Ziptastic HTTP/JSON API

This is a pretty new service, but according to their documentation, it looks like all you need to do is send a GET request to http://ziptasticapi.com, like so:

GET http://ziptasticapi.com/48867

And they will return a JSON object along the lines of:

{"country": "US", "state": "MI", "city": "OWOSSO"}

Indeed, it works. You can test this from a command line by doing something like:

curl http://ziptasticapi.com/48867

Very simple API. Thanks. – Paul Chernoch Nov 01 '12 at 19:44 — Paul Chernoch, Nov 01 '12 at 19:44

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 03 '11 at 13:29

5

http://www.geonames.org/

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

has it for multiple countries

answered Jun 03 '11 at 13:29

Daniel A. White

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This looks like a really good bet, you just pass in the ZIP code and then it returns the city name, along with latitude and longitude in a JSON string. – CrowderSoup Jun 03 '11 at 13:47
Getting error while adding this URL as a web reference – karthik k Jun 03 '11 at 14:23
http://www.geonames.org/export/client-libraries.html – Daniel A. White Jun 03 '11 at 14:25

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 03 '11 at 13:18

2

perhaps http://www.webservicex.net/uszip.asmx?op=GetInfoByZIP would work for you

answered Jun 03 '11 at 13:18

Stuart Siegler

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After adding this url as a webreference I am unable to get the methods of the webservice. – karthik k Jun 03 '11 at 14:42
1

http://www.webservicex.net/uszip.asmx will give you the methods. – Stuart Siegler Jun 08 '11 at 21:03
Thanks again Stuart actually +2 – MethodMan Feb 13 '12 at 14:09
Quick note -- that service doesn't currently support CORS (if anyone else is trying to find an ajax solution). – Luke A. Leber Sep 20 '16 at 22:52
This service doesnt give for specific zipcodes. Some examples are :89179, 75965, 72019, 33449, 76549, 75803, 97703, 76210, 84005 – Sana Ahmed Mar 14 '17 at 09:59
@Sana I think this was a sample service designed for testing web service calls and processing. I don't believe it was meant to be an actual zip code support service, and there are better ones now... – Stuart Siegler Mar 14 '17 at 11:31
@StuartSiegler Can you specify some ? – Sana Ahmed Mar 15 '17 at 07:18
1

@Sana, zipwise is free: https://www.zipwise.com/webservices/ – Stuart Siegler Mar 15 '17 at 21:42

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 03 '11 at 13:25

2

The Yahoo PlaceFinder API will work for this type of query.

http://developer.yahoo.com/geo/placefinder/guide/index.html

I believe that

http://where.yahooapis.com/geocode?appid=<appID>&postal=<zipCode>

will get you what you're looking for.

answered Jun 03 '11 at 13:25

Tom Hazel

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 19 '13 at 20:27

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Also http://www.zipwise.com/webservices gives XML and JSON results for free for zip code lookups, radius searches, reverse lookups, and latitude/longitude stuff.

answered Sep 19 '13 at 20:27

CaymanCarver

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 03 '11 at 13:23

0

This may suite your need if you want something to obtain city/state information:

http://www.usps.com/webtools/address.htm

Its a API in which you sign up for.

answered Jun 03 '11 at 13:23

Solaris

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Webservice to get City Names by giving Zip Codes

6 Answers6

Using the US Postal Service HTTP/XML API

Using the Ziptastic HTTP/JSON API

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