Data Points

What is a parcel? At Pitney Bowes a parcel can be a couple of different things depending on who is talking. With PB's historical relationship in the mailing industry it is natural to think a parcel is a package being shipped from one place to another via the USPS. However, there is a completely different kind of parcel that doesn't require any postage.

Most everyone is familiar with land parcels, although they may be better known as a house, farm, ranch or just plain a property. The parcel of land for every property in the country is the basic building block of real estate transactions, are covered by insurance policies and make up the boundaries of mobile advertising campaigns. As you can see in the above picture, land parcels come in most every shape and size.

Across the US there are 3,141 counties and county equivalents that create and maintain a combined ~150 million unique land parcels. Some counties maintain parcel definitions as legal descriptions, others have plat maps and many are available as parcel polygons in GIS formats. In all formats, parcel boundaries are created and maintained for the primary purpose to assess and collect property taxes.

Regardless of the methods used to create and maintain parcel boundaries they are simply a polygon describing the perimeter of the property. As such they are good for displaying on a map and performing point-in-polygon analysis. However, to truly understand the property you need more than just the parcel polygon. The property address to identify the right property, ground level elevations for flood risk analysis, the Assessors Parcel Number for access to property and tax information, and a Census ID to identify the demographics makeup of those that live or work there turn a parcel polygon into a data source that helps businesses across many industries understand customers and their needs. 

What is a parcel? At Pitney Bowes a parcel can be a couple of different things depending on who is talking. With PB's historical relationship in the mailing industry it is natural to think a parcel is a package being shipped from one place to another via the USPS. However, there is a completely different kind of parcel that doesn't require any postage.

Most everyone is familiar with land parcels, although they may be better known as a house, farm, ranch or just plain a property. The parcel of land for every property in the country is the basic building block of real estate transactions, are covered by insurance policies and make up the boundaries of mobile advertising campaigns. As you can see in the above picture, land parcels come in most every shape and size.

Across the US there are 3,141 counties and county equivalents that create and maintain a combined ~150 million unique land parcels. Some counties maintain parcel definitions as legal descriptions, others have plat maps and many are available as parcel polygons in GIS formats. In all formats, parcel boundaries are created and maintained for the primary purpose to assess and collect property taxes.

Regardless of the methods used to create and maintain parcel boundaries they are simply a polygon describing the perimeter of the property. As such they are good for displaying on a map and performing point-in-polygon analysis. However, to truly understand the property you need more than just the parcel polygon. The property address to identify the right property, ground level elevations for flood risk analysis, the Assessors Parcel Number for access to property and tax information, and a Census ID to identify the demographics makeup of those that live or work there turn a parcel polygon into a data source that helps businesses across many industries understand customers and their needs.