At a Glance

ZipMonster is a library that simplifies work with zip codes and addresses in the United States. This solution is a reliable replacement for paid APIs that you can find on the Internet.

How to Get Started

Type in Terminal:

npm install --save @simplisticated/zip-monster

or, if you prefer yarn over npm, type:

yarn add @simplisticated/zip-monster

Then add import instruction to your code:

import ZipMonster from '@simplisticated/zip-monster'

Requirements

It's strongly recommended to add NODE_OPTIONS flag to your .env file:

NODE_OPTIONS=--max-old-space-size=<AVAILABLE RAM SIZE IN MB>

For example, if you have 2GB RAM:

NODE_OPTIONS=--max-old-space-size=2048

Usage

Everything starts from ZipMonster object.

The main method is ZipMonster.find. It's a super flexible way to search the information.

---

Search by zip code

If you know exactly what zip code you're looking for, simply write:

ZipMonster.find({
    zip: "91360"
})

In response, you will receive an array of ZipInformation objects that correspond to your search request. Each object includes the following data:

{
    stateCode: "CA",
    city: "Thousand Oaks",
    county: "Ventura",
    zip: "91360",
    zipType: "Non-Unique",
    location: {
        latitude: 34.2090940366232,
        longitude: -118.875059125606
    }
}

To get city name, you can write:

const zipCodes = ZipMonster.find({
    zip: "91360"
});
const city = zipCodes[0].city // Thousand Oaks

---

Search by city

You can also search by city:

ZipMonster.find({
    city: "Thousand Oaks"
})

The expression above will return array of ZipInformation objects related to Thousand Oaks.

Also, you can search by part of city name:

ZipMonster.find({
    city: {
        value: "THOUSAND",
        caseSensitive: false,
        wholeMatch: false
    }
})

which returns zip code information for all cities that contain THOUSAND in the name.

---

Search by county

ZipMonster.find({
    county: "Vermont"
})

or

ZipMonster.find({
    county: {
        value: "vermont",
        caseSensitive: false,
        wholeMatch: true
    }
})

---

Search by state

ZipMonster.find({
    stateCode: "CA"
})

---

Search by location

Let's find cities that are further to north than Palo Alto. That's a very simple task:

const PaloAlto = ZipMonster.find({
    city: "Palo Alto",
    stateCode: "CA",
    withLocationOnly: true
})[0];
const placesFurtherToNorth = ZipMonster.find({
    location: {
        latitude: {
            value: PaloAlto.location!.latitude,
            direction: "to-north"
        }
    }
});
placesFurtherToNorth.length // 21404 places are further to north than Palo Alto

---

Combine search parameters

You can also combine search parameters with each other:

const result = ZipMonster.find({
    city: {
        value: "THOUSAND",
        caseSensitive: false,
        wholeMatch: false
    },
    county: {
        value: "Vent",
        caseSensitive: false,
        wholeMatch: false
    },
    stateCode: "CA"
})
const city = result[0].city // Thousand Oaks

---

What about more complicated logic?

Let's find all zip codes between Austin and Oklahoma City:

// Take the first zip code in Austin
const Austin = ZipMonster.find({
    city: "Austin",
    stateCode: "TX",
    withLocationOnly: true
})[0];

// Find places to north and east from Austin
const placesToNorthFromAustin = ZipMonster.find({
    location: {
        latitude: {
            value: Austin.location!.latitude,
            direction: "to-north"
        },
        longitude: {
            value: Austin.location!.longitude,
            direction: "to-east"
        }
    }
});

// Take the first zip code in Oklahoma City
const OklahomaCity = ZipMonster.find({
    city: "Oklahoma City",
    stateCode: "OK",
    withLocationOnly: true
})[0];

// Find places to south and west from Oklahoma City, but stop at Austin
const placesBetweenAustinAndOklahomaCity = ZipMonster.find({
    location: {
        latitude: {
            value: OklahomaCity.location!.latitude,
            direction: "to-south"
        },
        longitude: {
            value: OklahomaCity.location!.longitude,
            direction: "to-west"
        }
    },
    source: placesToNorthFromAustin
});

placesBetweenAustinAndOklahomaCity.length // 79 zip codes found

---

Other cases

If you don't use any filter with the method, it will return information about all existing zip codes:

const zipCodes = ZipMonster.find();
zipCodes.length // more than 40k zip codes in the array

---

License

ZipMonster is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.