Geocode

Typical geocodes and entities represented by it: The ISO 19112:2019 standard (section 3.1.2) adopted the term "geographic identifier" instead geocode, to encompass long labels: spatial reference in the form of a label or code that identifies a location.

For example, for ISO, the country name “People's Republic of China” is a label.

In theoretical computer science a geocode system is a locality-preserving hashing function.

The actors and process involved, as defined by OGC,[3] are: In spatial indexing applications the geocode can also be translated between human-readable (e.g. hexadecimal) and internal (e.g. binary 64-bit unsigned integer) representations.

A geocode fragment (associated to a subdivision name) can be an abbreviation, numeric or alphanumeric code.

For example DE is Germany, a simple geocode, and its subdivisions (illustrated) are DE-BW for Baden-Württemberg, DE-BY for Bayern, ..., DE-NW for Nordrhein-Westfalen, etc.

Non-global grids also differ by scope, and in general are geometrically optimized (avoid overlaps, gaps or loss of uniformity) for the local use.

Some geocodes systems (e.g. S2 geometry) also use initial prefix with non-hierarchical key schema.

In general, as technical and non-compact optional representation, geocode systems (based on hierarchical grids) also offer the possibility of expressing their cell identifier with a fine-grained schema, by longer path of keys.

[7] The uniformity of shape and area of cells in a grid can be important for other uses, like spatial statistics.

Example: For mnemonic coherent semantics, in fine-grained geocode applications, the mixed solutions are most suitable.

Any geocode system based on regular grid, in general is also a shorter way to express a latitudinal/longitudinal coordinate.

This suggests that a "mixed code" can solve the problem, reducing the number of characters when a name can be used as the "context" for the grid-based geocode.

In fact a methodology exists for hierarchical grid-based geocodes with non-variable size, where the code prefix describes a broader area, which can be associated with a name.

The methods vary, for example OLC can be shortened by elimination of its first four digits and attaching a suitable sufficiently close locality.

This is not the case of the first example because, strictly speaking, "Cape Verde, Praia" is not a code.

Even if the geocode is not the official designation for a location, it can be used as a "local standard" to allow homes to receive deliveries, access emergency services, register to vote, etc.