Mongolian Government Adopts Universal Address System

February 10, 2009

The Government of Mongolia has passed a resolution to adopt the technology of NAC Geographic Products — the Universal Address System — for all location-related services and products in Mongolia. Universal Addresses not only possess all the functionalities of traditional addresses, but also are unified representations of all locations and areas in the world that can be used by both consumers and professionals to bridge the gaps caused by different representations of locations and areas.

"Wide use of the Universal Address System will dramatically improve the postal service, courier, taxi and delivery services, emergency services, online location based services, navigation and map products, property and public works management systems, transportation and tourism in Mongolia and make Mongolia a truely geo-technology advanced country in the world," said Dr. Xinhang Shen, president of NAC Geographic Products Inc. "As the world is further embracing the Universal Address System, numerous business opportunities will be created for GPS manufacturers, GIS developers, map publishers, mail sorting equipment, and location-based services providers. Its implementation in both GIS infrastructure and physical land will be the most valuable long term investment in the stimulus packages of all governments in the world."

A Universal Address is an eight- or ten-character Natural Area Code (NAC) which can represent both areas and locations anywhere in the world. A two-character NAC can specify any area about 1000 km in length and width, like a province; a four-character NAC represents a 30 km long and wide area (like a city) approximately; a six-character NAC is roughly equivalent to any square kilometer area on the earth; an eight-character NAC can uniquely identify an area 30 meters long and wide (the size of a house or building) in the world; and a ten-character NAC can pinpoint any location in the world to the resolution of one meter. Therefore, Universal Addresses are highly compact codes that can be used as addresses, postcodes, geographic coordinates, area codes, property identifiers, etc.

Marking Universal Addresses on house number plates, street signs, and all other roadside objects will physically digitize the land because Universal Addresses are the coordinates of the Universal Map Grids. These objects because can function as both database keys and coordinates of physical locations. Thus, comparing the Universal Address of any destination and the one marked on the local roadside object can yield the distance and direction to the destination, helping couriers, taxi and delivery drivers, and first responders find locations.

Printing Universal Map Grids on a map can help users pinpoint the location of a Universal Address on the map and avoid looking up the street name on the street index and guessing the location of the street number along the street. Moreover, the location information obtained from different maps with the Universal Map Grids can be directly connected and exchanged, no matter what projections and scales the maps have, while the location information obtained from a country map with longitude/latitude grid, a state map with UTM grid, and a street map with a local grid are nearly impossible to connect.

According to NAC Geographic Products, when Universal Addresses are used as global postcodes for automatic mail sorting, they can sort mail from the world level to the final mailboxes with better coverage and accuracy than any existing postcodes. Since Universal Addresses exist everywhere, mail with Universal Addresses can also be delivered to temporary locations, such as Mongolian yurts.

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