Geocoding with Builder using Street Addresses

Apply the Geocode analysis to convert street data into point geometries with CARTO Builder.

Types of Geocoding

Check out this article to learn about all the different ways you can geocode your data using CARTO.

To learn more about our different geocoders that we use in CARTO, check out this article.

To learn more about data best practices for geocoding street addresses, check out this article

Objective

For this guide, let’s apply the Geocode analysis to visualize the street addresses of fire stations within the Austin, Texas area. Different types of street data from Austin’s Open Data Portal is provided.

Geocode an Empty Layer into Street Address Data

This section describes how to geocode an empty layer to visualize street data.

1. Import the template .carto file, packaged from “Download resources” of this guide and create the map.

   Click on “Download resources” from this guide to download the zip file to your local machine. Extract the zip file to view the files used for this guide.

Builder opens with Austin Fire Stations as the first and only map layer. The layer also indicates that no geometry can be shown and provides a shortcut to apply the GEOCODE analysis.

1. Click on GEOCODE from the Austin Fire Stations map layer.

The ANALYSIS tab opens and Geocode is automatically selected. If you switch to the Data View, you will notice that the_geom column contains null values, even though there is an address, city, and state column.

1. Change the geocode TYPE to Street Addresses.

   Once Street Addresses is selected, you are notified how many credits will be consumed from your account.

2. Apply the following street geocoding parameters:

• For the STREET ADDRESS parameter, select the address column from your dataset.
• Click the checkbox next to CITY and select the city column from your dataset.
• Click the checkbox next to STATE and select the state column from your dataset.
• Click the checkbox next to COUNTRY. Since this dataset does not have a country column, you can add a custom column by typing United States. Click to add it as the custom value.

<img src="/help/images/building-maps/geocode-street-addresses-into-point-geometries/custom_country.png" alt="Enter custom geocode value" />

• Click CONFIRM to run the analysis.

1. Switch to the Data View to see how the specified street addresses were converted to points in the_geom column.

   

2. From the Map View, click Center map on layer (next to the layer name) to visualize the street data as points on your Map View.

Concatenate Street Addresses with Advanced Mode

In the example above, we were able to geocode street data in NORMAL MODE, since our map layer contained a complete street address in the address column.

If you have a dataset where street data is fragmented across multiple columns, you need to string together the street values in order to create a geometry. The street geocode option provides an ADVANCED MODE, which enables you to enter free-form text that concatenates street data from multiple columns into the_geom column.

This section describes how to geocode a map layer that contains fragmented street data.

1. From the LAYERS list in Builder, hide the Austin Fire Stations layer.

2. Click ADD NEW LAYER and connect the fragmented_data.csv dataset as a map layer.

   This file is provided from the “Download resources” of this guide.

1. Click the GEOCODE shortcut from the fragmented data layer.

   If you switch to the Data View, you will notice that the_geom column contains null values. The actual street address values are fragmented across multiple columns; steet_no, street_name, street_type, and steet_opt.

2. Change the geocode TYPE to Street Addresses.

   Once Street Addresses is selected, you are notified how many credits will be consumed from your account.

3. Apply the following ADVANCED MODE parameters:

• Click ADVANCED MODE to manually define the street address values.

An example of how columns should be formatted appears.

• Type free-form text by entering the four columns from your dataset that contain street data, as shown in the following example:

• Click the checkbox next to CITY and select the city column from your dataset.
• Click the checkbox next to STATE and select the state column from your dataset.
• Click the checkbox next to COUNTRY. Since this dataset does not have a country column, you can add a custom column by typing United States. Click to add it as the custom value.
• Click CONFIRM to run the analysis.

Street addresses appear as points on your visualization!

External Resources

If you are using the Data Services API with CARTO Engine to manage your data, view the Street-Level Geocoder documentation.