Did you know that 851 addresses in New Zealand contain macrons? And there is a good chance that we will see this number growing in the future.
What is a Te Reo macron?
A macron is the line above a vowel that indicates that it should be pronounced as a long vowel, like the ō in Taupō, and the ā in Māori.
Where did these Māori macrons come from?
Since the New Zealand Geographic Board has made a move to ensure correct spelling of Māori street names, the dataset of LINZ has been updated from only using A-Z data, to now allowing macrons.
Aligned with these changes, AddressFinder has updated its address search to support street names with macrons.
How to add macrons to your addresses:
For most of our customers, this change of the dataset won’t require any changes. Modern database systems and ecommerce platforms have supported macrons for many years.
What does this mean for you if you’re using AddressFinder on your website?
This means that your end-users will be able to:
- search and find street names using a macron
- search and find street names using a non-macron character
For example:
Your user can search without macrons using “41 Purakaunui Road” and yet still find “41 Pūrākaunui Road” which includes macrons.
The opposite is also supported. An address that has not yet had macrons applied can be found using macrons. An example is “9 Taupō Road” could be used to find “9 Taupo Road” which is currently missing macrons.
How to add macrons to your address (non AddressFinder customers):
If your address verification / internal address autocompletion systems do not support macrons within addresses, it could be for a number of reasons.
- Your system doesn’t have access to the LINZ dataset which now contains maori macrons
- Your system doesn’t have the functionality to use non A-Z data, and cannot utilise the macrons found in the LINZ dataset.
- Your system has access to the dataset and ability to support macrons, but doesn’t currently offer this feature.
Reach out the owners of your address system to to find out if macrons can be supported within your solution.
Te Reo macrons are hugely important to NZ address data. If using true address names and supporting Te Reo is important to your organisation, consider adding AddressFinder to your CRM or internal address system.
Testing your platform for macron compatibility
We recommend that you test this data by searching the following addresses on your own platform:
- 41 Pūrākaunui Road, Mihiwaka 9081
- 22 Mānutewhau Road, Massey, Auckland 0614
- 1 Waitā Lane, Hobsonville, Auckland 0618
Perform a search for one of these addresses on your website. Select an address with a macron, and then complete your checkout, customer onboarding, or whichever way you may use AddressFinder. You will want to confirm that the address records are saved correctly in your form throughout this process.
These changes only apply to addresses from the LINZ database. If none of these addresses appears in your search results, it’s likely that you are using a filter to search for Post addresses only.
Do you integrate with other systems and share the address with them? You should confirm that these systems are also compatible with macrons.
If you integrate with a vintage database system, you may need to take a closer look.
What is AddressFinder doing to support these changes from LINZ?
- We have enabled our system to support macrons for autocomplete lookups on 4 March 2021
- We are currently working on uniquely matching macron addresses with their non-macron equivalents. These changes are expected to be updated with our next data release in April 2021
- We will enable verification API calls to verify addresses with macrons. This is expected to be released at the end of March
What support can AddressFinder provide to our customers?
If you would encounter any problem testing the above addresses with AddressFinder on your platform, we are here to help you.
Get in touch and we will help you find a solution for this data to work with your address search.
