Shapefile

The Platinum Postal Suite is comprised of Multiple Enhanced Postal Codes, Local Delivery (LDU) unit boundaries, and Forward Sortation Area (FSA) boundaries throughout Canada.

The Multiple Enhanced Postal Codes is precision-based point file representing over 1 million postal codes across Canada. The Multiple Enhanced Postal Code product allows for a one to many relationship. For example, one postal code may represent more than one postal code location. This dataset is provided as one point file covering all of Canada. The FSA boundaries represent the first three characters of a postal code. FSA boundaries are relatively large, so this dataset is provided as one polygon file covering all of Canada. The LDU boundaries represent the geographic location of the 6 digit postal code. LDUs are relatively large and very numerous, so a separate shapefile is provided for each province.

Other attributes associated with this dataset include: Points of Call (number of points serviced by the postal code) for apartments, businesses, houses, farms, and in total; Birth date and (when applicable) date of retirement; and dominant delivery mode (direct, lock box, rural route etc.).

To complement this dataset, DMTI also provides a "Postal2Census" translation table, which can be used to join MEPs to various levels of census geography.  This table is included with the 2006-2008 datasets, but is provided separately (and therefore, but be specifically requested) for the 2009 dataset onwards.  More information about this table can be viewed at the following link: http://library.mcmaster.ca/maps/geospatial/postal2census-translation-table.

Available to Canadian universities under DMTI Spatial SMART Consortium agreement (http://prod.library.utoronto.ca:8090/maplib/DMTI/).  The earliest version of this data available through McMaster University Library is 2006. Annual updates are received in October or November of every year, so a version is available for each year after 2006.

The newest version of this dataset contains 3654 unique Neighbourhood Boundaries and 2936 unique Community Boundaries.  The dataset is not continuous.  Neighbourhood coverage is provided for the top 25 Census Metropolitan Areas (CMA) and most of the highest populated Census Subdivisions (CSD) across Canada.  Community Boundaries are provided for both urban and rural areas.

Available to Canadian universities under DMTI Spatial SMART Consortium agreement (http://prod.library.utoronto.ca:8090/maplib/DMTI/).  The earliest version of this data available through McMaster University Library is September 30, 2002. Annual updates are received in October or November of every year, so a version is available for each year after 2002.

This large dataset includes recreational, institutional and business points of interest.  The points are broadly divided into large categories such as Accomodation, Aerodromes, Border Crossings and Customs, Education, Financial Institutions, Golf Courses, Health Care, Police Services etc.  Each location is also given a Standard Industrial Classification code (or SIC code) which gives very specific information about the location's business (e.g. the types of crops grown or livestock kept on a farm, the type of ore extracted at a mine, the type of dairy product processed at a factory etc.).  From 2004 onwards, the points are also classified into intermediate categories called "SIC Division" and "SIC Major Group".  A complete list of the SIC codes is provided in the metadata.

This product is extremely comprehensive.  The most recent dataset contains over 400 000 points for the Province of Ontario.

Older datasets only provide the data in ASCII text format.  Instructions for importing the data into ArcView/ArcMap are provided in the metadata.

Attributes associated with this dataset: national, provincial, territorial, municipal, public and private level parks and recreation areas, sports and race tracks, swimming pools, golf courses and driving ranges.

Available to Canadian universities under DMTI Spatial SMART Consortium agreement (http://prod.library.utoronto.ca:8090/maplib/DMTI/). Annual updates are received in October of each year.