Addresses in Pakistan
Addresses in Pakistan can be quite variable in their format, and it may not be easy to find a distinct address for many features. Pakistan is a predominantly rural country, and deliveries to small villages may not necessarily require an address to a specific building if the person taking an item to its destination knows where to find the intended recipient, or who to ask if not. Locations in urban centers are more likely to have specific assigned addresses, and can include any number of specifiers to narrow down a location.
See the Universal Postal Union document on the Pakistani addressing standard as a reference point for what may be included in an address where available.
The primary postal operator in Pakistan is Pakistan Post. You can find a listing of post offices and post codes on their website here: [1]. Major hub post offices in this listing are suffixed with "GPO" (General Post Office), and smaller post offices are each assigned to a hub.
Pakistan is divided into provinces and districts. The province can be tagged with addr:province=*, but it is not necessary if the district (addr:district=*, city, and/or postcode is specified. "Distt." is a common abbreviation for district in Pakistani addresses, though if tagged in OSM it should be unabbreviated as is convention. Districts are further divided into tehsils, which are in turn divided into union councils, but these are typically not included. addr:place=* may be necessary for addresses which involve a place name rather than a street name, or addr:full=* for addresses which are challenging to describe with the existing address tagging scheme. Addresses in larger cities such as Islamabad can be quite elaborate, and may include features such as a block number, which can be tagged with addr:block=*, or a sector number, which as of the time of writing (May 2022) does not have a single/standard tagging scheme. At the moment, the most common places sectors have been included in addresses in OSM are in addr:place=*, which is technically not correct as "places" are intended to be mutually exclusive to street names and sectors are typically supplemental to them, or included at the end of the street name itself. addr:sector=* (undocumented) has been used 3 times in Pakistan, but has been used in Guatemala ~2000 times. It is likely addr:sector=* is the clearest way to tag the sector number to avoid conflation with tags intended for other purposes, but feel free to contribute to the discussion on the talk page at Talk:Addresses#Addresses_with_sector_numbers if you have thoughts on how to approach these.
The below table includes a few examples of some actual addresses and tag lists to demonstrate some of the idiosyncrasies you may come across. Supplementary tags for these POIs are also shown as they may be a helpful reference point for other details like the international dialing code or some common naming schemes for official entities.
| Point of interest at address / source | Address provided | OSM tag list | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jaranwala city local government (LG) headquarters |
Jhumra Road |
name=Local Government Unit Jaranwala
name:en=Local Government Unit Jaranwala operator=Municipal Committee Jaranwala addr:street=Jhumra Road addr:city=Jaranwala addr:district=Faisalabad District addr:postcode=37250 website=http://www.mcjaranwala.lgpunjab.org.pk/ phone=+92 41-4313066 email=mcjaranwala1@gmail.com |
The name is tagged twice here as is convention in multilingual regions, once as the "default" name as it is provided by the source, and once with the English suffix on the key to specify the language of that name.
The postcode was not provided by the source but it could be looked up. |
| Commercial mailbox operator in Islamabad |
Office No 61. |
nohousenumber=yes
addr:unit=Office 61 addr:floor=Lower Ground addr:place=Al Anayat Mall addr:sector=G-11 Markaz addr:city=Islamabad addr:postcode=46000 |
Islamabad is an independently administrated city not part of another province. "Islamabad, Islamabad" here may have just been to a way to meet an online form requirement; the address would typically just include the city. Country is optional (can be inferred from location here).
"Markaz" is a common way the commercial zone of a sector is designated. Residential sectors are often given numbered designators, like G-11/1. |
| Dubai Islamic Bank, Urdu Bazar Lahore Branch |
Dubai Islamic Bank |
name=Dubai Islamic Bank
branch=Urdu Bazar Lahore operator=Dubai Islamic Bank Pakistan Limited operator:type=private operator:short=DIPL addr:housenumber=S-III-30-S-18 addr:plot=18 addr:street=Cattle Park Road addr:neighbourhood=Urdu Bazar addr:city=Lahore postcode=54000 phone=+92 42-37361811-2 |
House numbers can take on a wide variety of formats, and may include letters, numbers, hyphens, and/or roman numerals. They may be prefixed with Property #, House #, nothing at all, or something else.
Plot numbers and survey numbers are sometimes part of an address. The "Road" suffix here was ommitted in the given address, so this is a good example as to why it is good to check what a name refers to as it may not be obvious that is a street name to the unacquainted. |
| Pakistan State Oil (PSO) petrol/gas station in Chilas, Diamer Distt. |
Marjan F/S |
name=Marjan Fuel Station
name:en=Marjan Fuel Station operator=Pakistan State Oil Company Limited operator:en=Pakistan State Oil Company Limited operator:ur=پاکستان اسٹیٹ آئل کمپنی لمیٹڈ operator:short=PSO addr:milestone=KM 427/428 addr:street=Karakoram Highway addr:street:en=Karakoram Highway addr:street:ur=شاہراہ قراقرم addr:city=Chilas addr:city:en=Chilas addr:city:ur=چلاس addr:city:scl=چلاس addr:district=Diamer District addr:district:en=Diamer District addr:district:ur=ضلع دیامر addr:province=Gilgit-Baltistan addr:province:en=Gilgit-Baltistan addr:province:ur=گِلگِت بَلتِسْتان phone=+92 355-5405050 |
Any address could be given multilingual tags. This seemed like a good example to demonstrate because even though the source is in English, it contains a number of romanized Urdu transliterations which can be inconsistent and hard to interpret. (Shahrah-e-Karakuram is one of many ways the Urdu name for Karakoram Highway could be romanized.) English and Urdu were both tagged where possible, and the city name was also tagged with addr:city:scl=*, for the Shina language, which is locally spoken in Chilas.
Instead of a house number, B/W KM 427/428 means between kilometre 427 and 428 of the highway. addr:milestone=* was proposed for this but at the time of writing this is not well standardized. "Northern Areas" is an older, deprecated name for the territory of Gilgit-Baltistan. The current standard name has been used instead. |
| Government Girls Primary School Chak 360 GB Turbala Town | GGPS Chak 360 GB Turbala Town
Chak 360 GB Turbala Town Toba Tek Singh Tehsil District T.T.Singh |
name=Government Girls Primary School Chak 360 GB Turbala Town
short_name=GGPS Chak 360 GB Turbala Town operator=Government of Punjab School Education Department operator:short=PSED grades=0-5 ref=33330439 addr:place=GGPS Chak 360 GB Turbala Town addr:city=Chak 360 GB Turbala Town addr:subdistrict=Toba Tek Singh Tehsil addr:district=Toba Tek Singh District start_date=2000 phone=+92 333-9084330 |
This is an example of a school in a rural village. Many rural village locations do not have house numbers or street names, so here addr:place=* is used for the school itself as it is named in the source material.
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