  Point of interest (POI) data provide digital representations of places in the
real world, and have been increasingly used to understand human-place
interactions, support urban management, and build smart cities. Many POI
datasets have been developed, which often have different geographic coverages,
attribute focuses, and data quality. From time to time, researchers may need to
conflate two or more POI datasets in order to build a better representation of
the places in the study areas. While various POI conflation methods have been
developed, there lacks a systematic review, and consequently, it is difficult
for researchers new to POI conflation to quickly grasp and use these existing
methods. This paper fills such a gap. Following the protocol of Preferred
Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), we conduct a
systematic review by searching through three bibliographic databases using
reproducible syntax to identify related studies. We then focus on a main step
of POI conflation, i.e., POI matching, and systematically summarize and
categorize the identified methods. Current limitations and future opportunities
are discussed afterwards. We hope that this review can provide some guidance
for researchers interested in conflating POI datasets for their research.
