GEOCODING BASED ON NEIGHBORHOODS AND OTHER UNIQUELY DEFINED INFORMAL SPACES OR GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS

摘要

A computer-based method (700) for creating a data structure (360) for informal geographic spaces for use with geocoded databases (374). Data (316) is stored in memory (312) for a geographic region, and a plurality of neighborhoods is identified (730) in the geographic region based on processing of the stored set of data (352). The method includes generating (736) a boundary definition for each of the neighborhoods by processing neighborhood definition information. A data structure (360) is created (760) in the memory (350) for containing neighborhood data content (366) with at least one record for each of the neighborhoods. The data structure (360) is populated by storing (760), for each neighborhood, the generated boundary definition along with a neighborhood name and identifier in the records of data structure (360). The boundary definition (356) may be created by combining two or more definitions identified for a single neighborhood to provide a more inclusive geometry such as by aligning the geometries and performing an additive algorithm.