The South African address standard and initiatives towards an international address standard
Antony K Cooper, Serena Coetzee · 2008
Various countries and international organizations have address standards or are developing them. An address is needed for many more applications than just postal delivery, such as: goods delivery; connecting utilities; opening bank accounts; voting; visiting friends; and providing a reference context for presenting other information. The benefits of an international address standard include: enabling address interoperability across boundaries; reducing service delivery costs; enabling development of addressing tools (including open source); and assisting countries with inadequate addressing systems to implement and maintain them. The idea is not to develop one address structure imposed on everyone, but rather a framework and vocabulary for describing address data around the world, to enable interoperability. The South African address standard, SANS 1883, does not aim at devising a new system of addressing or building a national address database, but rather at enabling interoperability in address data. The standard defines twelve address types currently used in South Africa, both official and unofficial. A paper exploring the possibilities of an international address