Complexity: Beginner
Data Requirement: ArcGIS Tutorial Data for Desktop
Data Path: C:\ArcGIS\ArcTutor\Geocoding
Goal: To create a composite address locator
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a composite address locator.
A composite address locator consists of two or more individual address locators that help match addresses using multiple locators to find the best matches. For example, a composite address locator may include a street address locator and a ZIP Code locator. If an address doesn’t match with the street address locator, it can try to match with the ZIP Code locator.
Like other address locators, composite address locators are stored in a folder of your choice. Before creating a composite address locator, you need to find or create the address locators you want to include in it.
Legacy
Locators should be stored in a file folder to take advantage of new features not supported for locators stored in geodatabases, like performance improvements, multithreading capabilities, and suggestions support. ArcGIS 10.4 is the last version to support storing locators in geodatabases.
Get the data
The data for this tutorial can be downloaded from arcgis.com.
- Go to the item description page of the geocoding tutorial data on arcgis.com.
- Click Open > Download, and save the file locally.
- Unzip the downloaded file.
- It is recommended to save the downloaded Geocoding folder to: C:\ArcTutor\Geocoding. This will be referred to throughout the tutorials, so saving in the same location will make instructions clearer.
Create a composite address locator
To create a composite address locator, follow these steps:
- Start ArcCatalog.
- Browse to the Geocoding folder of tutorial data that contains the Atlanta file geodatabase.
- Right-click in the empty space of the Contents tab inside the Geocoding folder, and click New > Composite Address Locator.
The Create Composite Address Locator dialog box appears.
- Click the browse button next to the Address Locators text box.
The Address Locators dialog box appears.
- Browse to the Geocoding folder containing the Atlanta file geodatabase, choose the Atlanta address locator, and click Add.
Tip:
Tip: You can also drag and drop locators from the Catalog Tree directly into the Participating Address Locator section of the Create Composite Address Locator dialog box.
- Repeat step 4, browse to the Geocoding folder again, choose the Postal_US locator, and click Add.
The two address locators now appear in the Participating Address Locators section. Each locator is given a name automatically. Field mapping for all the participating address locators is also created automatically. These fields become the input fields for the composite address locator.
Changing the Selection Criteria section is optional.
- Make sure the output composite locator will be stored in the folder that contains the Atlanta geodatabase by following these steps:
- Click the browse button next to the Output Composite Address Locator text box.
The Output Composite Address Locator dialog box appears. - Browse to the Geocoding folder that contains the Atlanta geodatabase.
- Type Atlanta_Composite in the Name text box.
- Click Save to accept the changes and close the dialog box.
The output path appears in the Output Composite Address Locator text box.
- Click OK to start creating the composite address locator.
When the process finishes, the new composite address locator appears in the Geocoding folder that contains the Atlanta geodatabase alongside the two locators used to create it.
