ArcGIS Geocoding Tools

Geocoding Tools
The geocoding tools are part of Esri’s ArcGIS suite of geospatial processing programs. The geocoding tools can be accessed from ArcCatalog and is also available through the ArcMap Catalog window.

Geocoding is the process of assigning a location to an address and the creation and maintenance of address locators, geocoding addresses, and getting addresses for point locations.

The Geocoding toolbox contains tools to assist in accomplishing these tasks.



Tools and Description

 * Create Address Locator - An address locator can be used to find a location of an address, geocode a table of addresses, or retrieve the address of a point location.


 * Create Composite Address Locator – Addresses geocoded against the composite address locator are matched against each of the individual address locators and services and stores only references to the participating address locators and geocode services. No actual address information, indexes, and data of the individual locators are contained..


 * Geocode Addresses - This tool matches the addresses to be geocoded against an address locator or a composite address locator and saves the result for each input record in a new point feature class.


 * Rebuild Address Locator - Updates the address locator with the current reference data. An address locator contains only a snapshot of the reference data when it is created and does not geocode addresses against the updated version until it is rebuilt. Geocode addresses.png


 * Rematch Addresses - Rematches addresses in a geocoded feature class when the results of a table of addresses do not match or have been modified.


 * Reverse Geocode - The reverse geocoding process creates addresses from point locations based on specified search distances in a feature class by searching for the nearest address or intersection.


 * Standardize Addresses - Addresses may contain various abbreviations of words and are presented in different forms based on the address style. This tool standardizes the address information in a table or feature class. Standardize addresses.png