Business Locations

Cognised existence: A business location is the physical place where an enterprise conducts its activity — a shop, a factory floor, an office. It is not the business itself (that’s legal registration), not the building (that’s Buildings), and not the service provided (that’s Services). It is the operational presence of economic activity at a point in space.

Question: Where does a business physically operate?

What is a Business Location?

A business location answers “where is this enterprise, physically?” This is deceptively complex because a single company can have one registered office but dozens of production sites. Many national business registries separate these two concepts — and choosing the wrong one produces misleading maps.

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Critical Distinction: Firm Address vs Production Unit

Address Type	Entity	Meaning	Use When
Firm address	Virksomhed → Adressering	Legal/administrative presence (registered office)	“Where is the company registered?”
Production unit address	Produktionsenhed → Adressering	Physical operational location	”Where are the restaurants/factories/shops?”

Always decide which address type matches your question before geocoding. For “where are the restaurants?”, you want production unit addresses. For “where is the company registered?”, you want firm addresses.

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Realisations

1. CVR (CentraleVirksomhedsregister) — Registered Addresses

The authoritative realisation. CVR records addresses for both firms and production units.

Spatial Access Path

Produktionsenhed (or Virksomhed)
  │  FK: → Adressering (text-based address components)
  │         kommunekode + vejnavn + husnummer + postnummer
  │
  │  Geocode via DAR match:
  │  FK: adresse → husnummer → adgangspunkt.position
  ▼
adgangspunkt.position (point geometry via DAR)

3+ levels of joins to geometry. CVR addresses are text-based — they store kommunekode, vejnavn, husnummer, postnummer as separate fields. Coordinates require joining to Addresses (DAR):

1. Normalize CVR address components (strip whitespace, standardise case)
2. Match to DAR using kommunekode + vejnavn + husnummer
3. DAR resolves to husnummer → adgangspunkt.position (entrance point) or vejpunkt.position (road centreline point)

Level	Entity	Role	Cardinality
1	Produktionsenhed	Operational location record	—
2	Adressering	Text address fields	1..1 per P-enhed
3	DAR husnummer	Matched via address components	1..1 (when matched)
4a	adgangspunkt	Entrance coordinate	1..1 per husnummer
4b	vejpunkt	Road centreline coordinate	1..1 per husnummer

Key Attributes

Attribute	Description	Notes
kommunekode	Municipality code	4-digit, zero-padded (e.g., 0101 for Copenhagen)
vejnavn	Street name	Danish characters
husnummer	House number	May include letter suffix (e.g., 12A)
postnummer	Postal code	4-digit
bynavn	City/town name	May differ from municipality name

Access

• GraphQL: Datafordeleren GraphQL — query Produktionsenhed or Virksomhed with address subfields
• File Download: Bulk Produktionsenhed + Adressering exports, join locally
• Semantic map: CVR Semantic Organisation

2. OpenStreetMap — Commercial POIs

OSM records business locations as tagged features with direct geometry.

Spatial Access Path

OSM node/way with commercial tags → direct point/polygon geometry

No joins needed — the mapped feature IS the business location and carries its own geometry.

Relevant Tags

OSM Tag	Meaning
shop=*	Retail premises
office=*	Office locations
craft=*	Workshop/trade premises
industrial=*	Industrial sites
amenity=restaurant|cafe|bar	Food/drink premises
building=commercial|industrial|retail	Building-level classification

OSM coverage is volunteer-driven — complete in urban areas, patchy in rural zones. No authoritative provenance.

3. BBR (BygningerOgBoliger) — Buildings by Use Code

When the business location is the building, BBR’s byg_anvendelse (building use code) identifies commercial/industrial premises.

Spatial Access Path

bygning (building with use code filter)
  │  FK: → GeoDanmark footprint polygon (via building ID)
  │  or: → grund (plot) → DAR adgangspunkt
  ▼
GeoDanmark building footprint polygon / DAR adgangspunkt

1–2 joins to geometry. See Buildings for the full BBR spatial access path.

Relevant Use Codes

byg_anvendelse range	Meaning
300–399	Commercial buildings (offices, shops)
400–499	Industrial buildings (factories, warehouses)
500–599	Cultural and institutional buildings
210–219	Production-related agricultural buildings

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Combining Realisations

Need	Best Realisation	Why
Authoritative business registry with attributes	CVR	Complete, official, includes P-enheder
Quick geocoded point map	OSM	Direct geometry, no joins
Building-level analysis (area, age, type)	BBR	Physical structure attributes
Complete picture	CVR + DAR + BBR	Business attributes + coordinates + building characteristics

Cross-Domain Relevance (Threads)

• Toposphere: Business locations relate to terrain and elevation context (e.g., flood-exposure analysis for operational sites).
• Socio-Technical Perception & Thematics: Business density and spatial distribution directly shape thematic urban interpretation layers — retail corridors, industrial zones, office districts.

Classical Theme References

Standard	Theme	Link
INSPIRE	Production and Industrial Facilities	|Production and Industrial Facilities
INSPIRE	Utility and Governmental Services	|Utility and Governmental Services

Temporal Model

Business locations are bitemporal. A business can move. Historical spatial analysis requires virkningFra/virkningTil filtering to reconstruct location at a given point in time. Both Adressering and Produktionsenhed carry their own temporal fields.

Realised By Links

• CentraleVirksomhedsregister (collection)
• Bygninger og boliger (collection)
• Skatteforvaltningens Virksomhedsregister (collection)

Unmatched Realisations

• OpenStreetMap

Realised By Links

• CentraleVirksomhedsregister (collection)
• Bygninger og boliger (collection)
• Skatteforvaltningens Virksomhedsregister (collection)

Unmatched Realisations

• OpenStreetMap