The Open Database of Addresses

Catalogue number: 46260001
Issue number: 2021001

The Open Database of Addresses (ODA) is a collection of open address point data and is made available under the Open Government License - Canada.

Statistics Canada acknowledges the many local governments that produce public address listings, which are the source of the ODA. These addresses will also be integrated into a new National Address Register (NAR) of residential and non-residential addresses, to be made available later this year by Statistics Canada. Compiled from a multitude of sources, The NAR will be a comprehensive and standardized source of publicly-available addresses and related geographic coding. It is part of the Data Strategy for the Federal Public Service.

The ODA brings together 99 datasets originating from various government sources of open data. This database aims to provide enhanced access to a harmonized listing of address data across Canada by making it available as open data. This database is a component of the Linkable Open Data Environment (LODE).

Data sources and methodology

The inputs for the ODA are datasets provided by municipal, regional or provincial sources available to the general public through open government portals under various types of open data licenses. The current version of the database (version 1.0) contains approximately 10 million records and includes provinces and territories where open address data were found during the collection period (January to April, 2021).

Individual datasets sourced from their respective open data portals were processed and harmonized into the ODA. The data sources used do not deploy a uniform standardization system. The ODA harmonizes addresses by converting them to a uniform standard.

To see the full list of variables provided by a given data provider, please visit their open data portals which are linked in the metadata document that accompanies the ODA.

The variables included in the ODA are as follows:

  • Source Index
  • ODA Index
  • Group Index
  • Civic Number
  • Street (including street type and direction)
  • Street Name
  • Street Type
  • Street Direction
  • Unit
  • Full Address
  • Postal Code
  • City
  • Processed City
  • Standardized Street Name
  • Standardized Street Type
  • Standardized Street Direction
  • Provider
  • Census Subdivision Name
  • Census Subdivision Unique Identifier
  • Province or Territory Unique Identifier
  • Latitude
  • Longitude

For more information on how the addresses and variables were compiled, see the metadata that accompanies the ODA.

Downloading the ODA

For ease of download, the ODA and accompanying metadata document is provided by province and territory as a zipped CSV.

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