iceaddr

Look up Icelandic street addresses, postcodes and placenames

iceaddr is a pure Python >= 3.10 package to look up information about Icelandic streets, addresses, placenames, landmarks, locations and postcodes. The underlying data is contained in a local SQLite database assembled from the following sources:

• Staðfangaskrá, the official Icelandic address registry maintained by Registers Iceland (Þjóðskra, license)
• IS 50V Örnefni from the National Land Survey of Iceland (Landmælingar Íslands, CC BY 4.0)
• The postcode table provided by Postur.is, with supplementary data from Icelandic Wikipedia
• Municipality data provided by the Icelandic Government

Since no networking takes place, lookups are very fast and can be performed offline. The package is useful for geocoding and reverse geocoding of Icelandic addresses and placenames, as well as validating addresses and postcodes. No external dependencies are required.

For joining address results with other Icelandic public datasets, prefer the heinum field when the other dataset identifies the address itself. heinum is the address number (Icelandic: staðfanganúmer or heitinúmer; upstream field name: HEINUM). The hnitnum field identifies the address point coordinate.

Installation

The latest version of iceaddr is available via PyPI.

pip install iceaddr

Examples

Look up address with postcode

>>> from iceaddr import iceaddr_lookup
>>> a = iceaddr_lookup('Austurstræti', number=14, postcode=101)
>>> pprint(a)
[{'bokst': '',
  'byggd': 1,
  'heinum': 1001754,
  'heiti_nf': 'Austurstræti',
  'heiti_tgf': 'Austurstræti',
  'hnitnum': 10083839,
  'husnr': 14,
  'landnr': 100852,
  'lat_wgs84': 64.14752922,
  'long_wgs84': -21.93893947,
  'lysing': 'Miðborg',
  'postnr': 101,
  'serheiti': '',
  'stadur_nf': 'Reykjavík',
  'stadur_tgf': 'Reykjavík',
  'svaedi_nf': 'Höfuðborgarsvæðið',
  'svaedi_tgf': 'Höfuðborgarsvæðinu',
  'svfheiti': 'Reykjavíkurborg',
  'svfnr': 0,
  'tegund': 'Stærra dreifbýli',
  'vidsk': ''}]
>>> a[0]["heinum"]
1001754

Look up address with placename

>>> from iceaddr import iceaddr_lookup
>>> a = iceaddr_lookup('Öldugötu', 4, 'Reykjavík')
>>> pprint(a)
[{'bokst': '',
  'byggd': 1,
  'heinum': 1020228,
  'heiti_nf': 'Öldugata',
  'heiti_tgf': 'Öldugötu',
  'hnitnum': 10017023,
  'husnr': 4,
  'landnr': 100570,
  'lat_wgs84': 64.14848748,
  'long_wgs84': -21.94520729,
  'lysing': 'Miðborg',
  'postnr': 101,
  'serheiti': '',
  'stadur_nf': 'Reykjavík',
  'stadur_tgf': 'Reykjavík',
  'svaedi_nf': 'Höfuðborgarsvæðið',
  'svaedi_tgf': 'Höfuðborgarsvæðinu',
  'svfheiti': 'Reykjavíkurborg',
  'svfnr': 0,
  'tegund': 'Stærra dreifbýli',
  'vidsk': ''}]
>>> a[0]["heinum"]
1020228

Street and place names can be provided in either nominative (nf.) or dative (þgf.) case (e.g. both 'Öldugata' and 'Öldugötu' will work, as will both 'Selfoss' and 'Selfossi').

Please note that iceaddr_lookup() returns a list of zero or more addresses matching the criterion.

>>> from iceaddr import iceaddr_lookup
>>> iceaddr_lookup('Dúfnahólar', 10)
[]
>>> res = iceaddr_lookup('Öldugata', 9)
>>> [(a['postnr'], a['stadur_nf']) for a in res]
[(101, 'Reykjavík'), (220, 'Hafnarfjörður'), (621, 'Dalvík')]

For natural search string queries, the module provides iceaddr_suggest():

>>> from iceaddr import iceaddr_suggest
>>> a = iceaddr_suggest('Öldugata 4, Rey')
>>> [n['stadur_tgf'] for n in a]
['Reykjavík', 'Reyðarfirði']
>>> a = iceaddr_suggest('Öldugö', limit=200)
>>> len(a)
151

The default limit on results from both functions is 50.

Find closest address

Given a set of WGS84 coordinates, the nearest_addr() function returns a list of the nearest addresses in the database:

>>> from iceaddr import nearest_addr
>>> addr = nearest_addr(64.148446, -21.944933)[0]
>>> print(f"{addr['heiti_nf']} {addr['husnr']}")
Öldugata 4

A corresponding function, nearest_addr_with_dist(), returns the same results but also includes the distance in kilometers to each address.

Address Keys

Postcodes

Info about a given postcode

>>> from iceaddr import postcode_lookup
>>> postcode_lookup(400)
{   "svaedi_nf": "Vesturland og Vestfirðir",
    "svaedi_tgf": "Vesturlandi og Vestfjörðum",
    "stadur_nf": "Ísafjörður",
    "stadur_tgf": "Ísafirði",
    "tegund": "Þéttbýli"}
# Accepts string or int
>>> postcode_lookup("107")
{   "svaedi_nf": "Höfuðborgarsvæðið",
    "svaedi_tgf": "Höfuðborgarsvæðinu",
    "stadur_nf": "Reykjavík",
    "stadur_tgf": "Reykjavík",
    "tegund": "Þéttbýli",
    "lysing": "Vesturbær"}

>>> from iceaddr import POSTCODES
>>> pprint(POSTCODES[101])
{   "svaedi_nf": "Höfuðborgarsvæðið",
    "svaedi_tgf": "Höfuðborgarsvæðinu",
    "stadur_nf": "Reykjavík",
    "stadur_tgf": "Reykjavík",
    "tegund": "Þéttbýli",
    "lysing": "Miðborg"}

Get postcodes for a placename ("örnefni")

>>> from iceaddr import postcodes_for_placename
>>> postcodes_for_placename('Ísafjörður')
[400, 401]
>>> postcodes_for_placename('Kópavogi')
[200, 201, 202, 203]
>>> postcodes_for_placename('kópav', partial=True)
[200, 201, 202, 203]

Get postcodes for a region ("svæði")

>>> from iceaddr import postcodes_for_region
>>> postcodes_for_region('Norðurland')
[530, 531, 540, 541, 545, ...]
>>> postcodes_for_region('Höfuðborgarsvæðið')
[101, 102, 103, 104, 105, ...]

Placenames ("örnefni")

>>> from iceaddr import placename_lookup
>>> placename_lookup('Meðalfellsvatn')
[{'flokkur': 'Vatnaörnefni Mið',
  'id': 2339,
  'lat_wgs84': 64.3112049,
  'long_wgs84': -21.5997926,
  'nafn': 'Meðalfellsvatn'}]

If more than one placename match is found, the results are ordered by size, with precedence given to municipalities and densely populated areas.

>>> placename_lookup("Egilsstað", partial=True)
[{'flokkur': 'Þéttbýli',
  'id': 63208,
  'lat_wgs84': 65.2637152,
  'long_wgs84': -14.3931143,
  'nafn': 'Egilsstaðir'},
 {'flokkur': 'Landörnefni Lítið',
  'id': 108285,
  'lat_wgs84': 65.3516154,
  'long_wgs84': -20.610947,
  'nafn': 'Egilsstaðir'}]

Find closest placenames ("örnefni")

Given a set of WGS84 coordinates, the nearest_placenames() function returns a list of the nearest placenames in the database:

>>> from iceaddr import nearest_placenames
>>> pn = nearest_placenames(64.148446, -21.944933, limit=1)[0]
>>> print(pn["nafn"])
Landakotsvöllur

A corresponding function, nearest_placenames_with_dist(), returns the same results but also includes the distance in kilometers to each placename.

Municipalities

Municipality names and corresponding codes are available in the MUNICIPALITIES dict:

>>> from iceaddr import MUNICIPALITIES
>>> MUNICIPALITIES[3609]
Borgarbyggð

Utility functions

>>> from iceaddr import distance
>>> distance((64.1466, -21.9426), (48.8566, 2.3522)) # Between Reykjavík and Paris
2233.1554832351285 # km

>>> from iceaddr import in_iceland
>>> in_iceland((64.1466, -21.9426)) # Reykjavík
True
>>> in_iceland((48.8566, 2.3522)) # Paris
False

Metadata

Get information about the database version, etc.:

>>> from iceaddr import iceaddr_metadata
>>> meta = iceaddr_metadata()
>>> pprint(meta["date_created"].date())
'2025-11-22'

Build process

To build your own version of the package, you need to have Python >=3.10 installed. Then, after (optionally) creating a virtual environment, run the following command from the repository root to install dependencies:

pip install ".[dev,build]"

Then run the following command to build the database:

bash build.sh

This creates an SQLite3 database in the repo root named iceaddr.db. Move this file to src/iceaddr/ and you can now install your own freshly built version of the package:

pip install .

Version History

• 0.6.2: Updated address and placename data. Address lookups now include unique heinum identifier. Now requires Python 3.10+ (04/09/2026)
• 0.6.1: Updated address and placename data. Added iceaddr_metadata function. Better package metadata. (29/12/2025)
• 0.6.0: nearest_* functions now use R-Trees for much faster lookups. Added nearest_*_with_dist functions. Updated address and placename data. (22/11/2025)
• 0.5.10: Updated address and placename data. Added region_for_postcode function. Minor optimizations (07/11/2025)
• 0.5.9: Updated address and placename data. Fixed bug in placename_lookup function (31/07/2025)
• 0.5.8: Updated address and placename data. Added municipality name data to address records. Now requires Python 3.9+ (26/02/2025)
• 0.5.7: Updated address and placename data. Now requires Python 3.8+ (20/09/2024)
• 0.5.6: Updated address and placename data (11/08/2023)
• 0.5.5: Updated address and placename data. Removed ISN93 coords. Now requires Python 3.7+ (11/12/2022)
• 0.5.4: Updated address and placename data (09/11/2022)
• 0.5.3: Updated address, postcode and placename data, various minor fixes (19/05/2022)
• 0.5.2: Updated address and placename data, fixed issue with installing on Windows (25/06/2021)
• 0.5.1: Fixes and additions in placename data (16/10/2020)
• 0.5.0: Support for address number ranges, fix in house number lookup, new nearest_addr and nearest_placenames functions, updated data (15/10/2020)
• 0.4.0: Updated address, placename and postcode data. Better handling of house letters in address lookup (06/05/2020)
• 0.3.3: Minor placename additions, smarter ordering of placename lookup results (08/01/2019)
• 0.3.2: Added municipalities and various BÍN placenames to ornefni database (02/01/2019)
• 0.3.1: Added more placenames from LMÍ data, support for multithreaded use
• 0.3.0: Added placename_lookup to look up coordinates for Icelandic placenames + minor fixes (10/12/2018)
• 0.2.0: Added iceaddr_suggest, result limit, changed key names for postcode dicts (22/10/2018)
• 0.1.2: Initial public release (10/10/2018)

BSD License

Copyright (C) 2018-2025 Sveinbjorn Thordarson

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

3. Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.