PROC GEOCODE street vs plus4

[elmoreoocyte]

I am working on a project merging multiple data sources.  My data has street addresses with a 5 digit zip code.  1 external source has state+county FIPS codes.  1 external source has 9 digit zip code.

I was able to get a pretty successful result using proc geocode on my data with SAS StreetLookupData file and street level lookup.  With this I can successfully link the external data that has the state+county FIPS codes to my data.

I am against a wall with the data that has only 9 digit zip.  I retrieved the SAS U.S. Census TIGER data file (2006_ZIP4) but the file seems incomplete.  I get errors attempting to reference the file using proc geocode.  When viewing the .csv of the TIGER data, there are no headers.  I have deciphered some of the headers by comparing to known information in my street-level geocode results.  With that I managed a proc import of the file, but I do not seem to have enough information available in the 2006_zip4 file to complete a street level match using geocode (things like city are missing).

I cannot use the 9 digit zip to geocode my data because my source only has a 5 digit zip, so the 10 hours it took SAS to execute the plus4 match was successful only at matching a 5 digit zip code.

I am (probably obviously) very new to proc geocode and am wondering if there is anywhere I can source a more complete ZIP9 file.  I keep seeing things like Melisa Data pop up when searching, but I don't think we have a budget to pay for a data source.

Any help is appreciated.  

[ballardw]

I would suspect that part of  the issue is using a vintage 2006 file. It is quite likely that Zip codes have been added in the 18 years (2024 is the latest data shown on the Census site) so would have issues. 

I would suggest looking at the 2024 Shapefiles. Proc MAPIMPORT should be able to handle the file to create the needed SAS data sets.

Plus the documentation for the file contents is at https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/technical-documentation/complete-technical-documen... ;

Note from having worked with Census zip files and mapping that if you are working in part of the country with extreme low density population such as Idaho, Nevada, Montana and Wyoming that the Zip code mapping files do not include every geography.

[elmoreoocyte]

Thank you!  I'll take a look.