When sending mail to a foreign country the last address line should include?
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e.g. ABBEY, ACRES, ALLÉE, ALLEY, AV, AVE, BLVD, CTR, CIR, DR, PL, RD, RTE, ST, WAY, etc. Some standard abbreviations for French-language addresses differ from the English-language. Show Of the form: N, E, S, W, NE, NW, etc. The one exception is, in French-language addresses Ouest is represented by an O. These are: APT, APP, SUITE, BUREAU, UNIT, UNITÉ "Provincial and State Abbreviations"Effective Addressing for International Mail• SAVE THE POST OFFICE • WHY THE POST OFFICE MATTERS • A World Without the Post Office• US Mail Not For Sale • APWU • NALC • Postlandia • Smithsonian National Postal Museum • The United States Postal Service: An American History• USPS Officials Order Historic Murals Covered in 12 States Author:Frank da CruzNew York City [email protected] Update:Mon Jun 20 15:10:57 2022 Eastern USA timeQuick Access:Go to the and click on a country name.Para los latinoamericanos: Disclaimer:MAINTAINANCE OF THIS DOCUMENT IS WAS A PUBLIC SERVICE OF the ex-KERMIT PROJECT AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. It was was originally written for our own business purposes (international shipping of our software in the pre-Internet days) and does not claim to be definitive, complete, systematic, up to date, or unopinionated. All opinions and conclusions are those of the author (or the contributors or references cited). Apologies for any inappropriate terminology, especially since this document aims to eradicate it. Format: handmade HTML with accented or non-Roman characters encoded in UTF-8, properly announced to allow inclusion of text in many languages and scripts. For more information about UTF-8 CLICK HERE and HERE.Background:This document started in the 1980s as a short tip-sheet, organized geographically, with sections for regions or specific countries. Then about 1990, everything changed – the breakup of the Soviet Union, the reunification of Germany, the breakups of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. This document reflects the changes, rather than simply starting over, because at the time we were faced with a big address conversion problem. Such events will continue to happen as time goes on so it's useful to recall their impact, even on this tiny area of human endeavor. Hence the sections labeled The Former Soviet Union, The Former Yugoslavia, etc.Updates:The 14 November 2000 edition adds links to postal authorities in many countries, which are recapitulated alphabetically (in English) in the at the end. The 15 May 2001 edition adds ISO 3166-1 codes to the country list in Index; this is the familiar Internet top-level domain (TLD) for each country (in most cases), and these are also used on international mail containers, machine-readable passports, and in national currency identifiers. Lots of corrections and expansion in January 2003. The February 2003 version is much expanded, including new tables and sections for Africa, the Mideast, Latin America, and with each country name in the Index linking back to the relevant section of the main document. In June 2003, the tables of English, Scottish, and Welsh counties, which are no longer used in UK addresses, was moved out to a separate file and the UK section was modernized. The UTF-8 conversion was done on 20 January 2003; the previous ISO-8859-1 Latin Alphabet 1 version, current as of that date, remains available HERE (but won't be updated). The UTF-8 version includes text in Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, Thai, Khmer, and other scripts that can't be represented in Latin-1 but are easily accommodated by UTF-8. Most of this text is in the . Anybody who can supply missing country names or other relevant items in native language and script is welcome to send them in; I'll be glad to add them (with credit, of course). Periodic updates of any postal reference are necessary because countries change, provinces within countries change, postal codes change, addressing standards and recommendations change. The Internet makes matters simultaneously better and worse: better because now we can link to the postal authorities in each country and to other relevant sites, worse because web addresses change out from underneath us constantly. Thus any document like this is doomed to decay over time if it's not constantly maintained. The last update time is shown . Feel free to report stale links, or send corrections, suggestions, or new information, by e-mail to [email protected]. Acknowledgements:Aleida Morel (Dominican Republic),Mari Carmen Fonseca, Juan Castro, Patrick Decker, Andrew Leonard, Beth Espy, Tom Doan (México). Fernando Cabral, Steve Slayton (Brazil). Roberto Homs (Cuba), بهاء عبيدات / Baha Obeidat (Palestine), Felipe Zapata Roldán (Colombia), Josh Gross, Kevin Tarr (Costa Rica); Johnny Franco Arboine (Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Ecuador); Craig Hartnett, Doug Ewell, Alexis Hunt, John Sawyer, Benoît Le Nabec (Canada), Irineu de Assis (Bolivia, Paraguay, and Colombia), Cord Wischhöfer, ISO 3166/MA-Secretariat (Europe & North Africa). Gerhard Helle, First Secretary, Universal Postal Union, Berne. Kjetil Torgrim Homme (Norway). Xander Jansen, Gert Grenander, Abigail, Sjoerd Cranen, Reinier Olislagers, Ken Martin, Roland Witvoet, Richard Paul, Liza R, Marco van der Wal, Jan Kamphorst (Netherlands). John Klensin, Alexander Svensson, Alex Bochannek, Asmus Freytag, Otto Stolz, Claus Langhans, Clemens Gutweiler, Ralph Babel, David Krings, Jens Peter Hammer, Christian Asche (Germany). Christoph Päper (Liechtenstein, Lëtzeburg). Marco Cimarosti, Peter J. Russell, Guido Camilla (Italy). Александр Лысиков / Alex Lisikov, Bill Conerly (Russia). Олександр Лисіков / Alex Lisikov (Ukraine). Алег Гайко / Aléh Haikó (Belarus). Peter Russell (Lithuania). Klein Tamás Márton, Zsbán Ambrus (Hungary). Eduard Vopicka, Radovan Garabík (The Czech Republic and Slovakia). Dustin Du Cane (Poland). Marjan Baće, Sindi Keesan, David Vidmar, Bojan Milenkovic (The Former Yugoslavia). Վաչէ Գունտաքճը / Vaçe Kundakçı (Armenia). გიორგი ლებანიძე / Georgi Lebanidze (Georgia). روزبه پورنادر / Roozbeh Pournader (Iran). Sannidhya Misra, Stewart Evans, Yateendra Joshi (India). Eric Nedervold, Dieter Walter (Nepal). Anthony Fok Tung-Ling, Stephen Yang, Tom Tschritter, Henry Groover, Ed Callaway (China). Paul Hastings (Thailand). Graham Rhind, Arthur Marsh, Doug Moncur, Kevin K., Andrew Donnellan (Australia). Elizabeth Eggers, Ken Westmoreland, Ben Arnold, Derek Sivers, Andrew Kerkham, "Paul" (New Zealand). Peter Reynolds (Nigeria). Ken Westmoreland (Kenya). Eberhard W Lisse, Ken Westmoreland (Namibia). Topi Linkala, Miikka-Markus Alhonen, Jarkko Hietaniemi, Era Eriksson (Finland). Craig Hartnett (Zambia, Zimbabwe, Rhodesia, Nyasaland). John Hagerson (Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Vietnam, Israel, Serbia, Egypt). Mordecai Glickman (Israel). Avery Yen (Taiwan). Kenneth Joseph Vella (Malta). Andy Bell (Hong Kong). Samuel Dickey, “Agroni” (Kosovo). Joshua Holman (St. Martin & St. Barthélemy; Diego García) Fridjon Gudjohnsen (Iceland). Gerben Vos, Ir. P. (Peter) Mazereeuw, John Robertson (the ex-Netherlands Antilles). Pekka Pihlajasaari (Malaysia). Giselle Vassallo Pitto, Ken Westmoreland (Gibraltar). Darrell K. McKown, US Army Postal Operations, Germany (APO/FPO/DPO). Gabriel Sroka, California State University. Ed Callaway (Kyrgyzstan). Ken McSwain (Philippines, Australia). Andrew Liepins (Mauritius). Johnny Franco Arboine (El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua). Ken Westmoreland (Faroe Islands, Greenland). Britain and Ireland: John Benton, Ross Chandler, Craig Cockburn, Peter Crabb-Wyke, David Levy, James Grinter, Ian Morrison, Shane Wilson, George D, Hugh Dunne, David Goddard, Johannes Eggers, Christy Looby, Finlay Smith, Gerard Lardner, Robert Gormley, G.S. Sinclair, Chris Cooke, Colin Russ, Stewart Potter, Bill Bedford, Chris Harrison, P. Breathnach, Michael Everson, Mark Dyche, David Gowdy, Guy Burgess, Alan Berry, Ken Westmoreland, Jonathan Nigel, Peter Reynolds, Martin Spamer, Chris Davies, Benjamin Brundell, Mark Jolly, Liam McGee, William Wallace, Andy Paterson, Sarah Woodhouse, Mark Brader, Paul Black, Bernard Treves Brown, Greg Boettcher, Peter Kirk, Michael T. Farnworth, Andrew Leonard, Chris Woodhouse (Royal Mail), Philip Woods, John Marsh, Paolo Montanelli, Angela Watts, Gary Delaney, Kevin Tarr, "Rick", Cian Brennan. General information and corrections: Daniel Schwarz, Marty Simon, Linda Beek, Dan Olsson, Peter Russell, Ken Westmoreland, Gert Grenander, Marcy Strawmyer, Mark Brader, László Kende, Tex Texin, Helgi Jonsson, Roozbeh Pournader, Tom Gewecke, Magda Danish, Stuart Brown, Noah Levitt, Herman Ranes. Miikka-Markus Alhonen, Marco Cimarosti, Kent Karlsson, Celvin Niklas Jojakin Ruisdael, Hans Schievelkamp, Pete Russel, Doug Ewell, Philip Newton, Jim Brent, Christian Rosner, Howard Laker, Cassandra Phillips-Sears, Austin Knight, G. Herbke, Joshua Holman, George Rhoten, Jay Davis, Tom Richards, Malik Kalfane, Jean-Christophe Deschamps, Chris Morris, Bettina Morton, Gregg Lobdell, Paul Buhler, Steve Williamson, John Sawyer, Anthony P. Lew, the IBM International Components for Unicode (ICU) library, and the Web page Country names in various languages by Werner Fröhlich for several of the native-script country names (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc). Reference:Law, Gwillim, Administrative Subdivisions of Countries, McFarland & Company (1999). Updates available on the Web at http://www.statoids.com. See this reference for states, provinces, or other subdivisions of any country (website updated frequently).Resources:Issues:[ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ]This document tries to describe – or invent when necessary – conventions for addressing postal mail from within the USA to other countries that are both (a) effective (i.e. have a good chance of working), and (b) as inoffensive as possible when addressing choices might be controversial. Note that the general problem – how to address mail from country A to country B, for all A's and B's – is an n × n problem, of which this document attempts to address only one dimension: mail from the USA to elsewhere. But even this is a moving target as addressing guidelines and formats of each country are constantly revised. The very term country can be controversial. Who decides what is a country and what isn't? The criterion used in this document is simple: if the USPS lists it in its Index to Countries and Localities, we treat it as a country. Thus some localities (such as Reunion Island) that are not distinct countries are listed, whereas other localities that consider themselves countries (such as Western Sahara) are not listed (but still discussed). Rationale: if you address mail from the USA to WESTERN SAHARA, the USPS won't know what to do with it. If you want to send mail to SAINT PIERRE AND MIQUELON (a part of France that is in Canada) from the USA, it doesn't make sense for the mail to go all the way to France and back. The best international addressing strategy is one that is not only consistent and inoffensive, but that also achieves to whatever degree possible several potentially conflicting goals:
When this document was first written for internal use in the late 1980s, the United States Postal Service (USPS) had no published guidelines for addressing international mail – if it did, we'd have just used them. There were no standard or recommended names for countries. The situation has improved since then with the appearance of the USPS International Mail Manual (IMM), including an index of countries and localities, first discovered (by me) in 2000, newly available in HTML so we can link directly to it and to sections of it. The new HTML version also seems to be greatly expanded over the earlier versions, for example containing long lists of cities with postcodes for each country (e.g. Russia). ISO International Standard 11180, Postal Addressing (1993) (withdrawn 15 Jan 2004), by the way, was no help at all, except that it contained a reference to the Universal Postal Union: http://www.upu.int/ which provides tip sheets for addressing mail to each country. But there is no way to tell how authoritative or current the UPU guidelines are – they are not dated, and they give no references. But for some countries, the UPU provides the only guidance available. It should also be noted that addressing guidelines are incidental to the UPU's primary mission, which is creating standards for the description of postal addresses (that is, defining and naming the elements), not for their rendition, which is left to each country. August 2006: The UPU's website has changed a lot since I wrote the previous paragraph. The addressing recommendations for each country, which are found HERE, now have dates, and have more information (e.g. lists of state/province abbreviations, additional examples), and there is a comprehensive page of links to postcode lookups for each member country HERE. USPS Service Updates The United States Postal service delivers mail to most of the countries on earth, but there are some exceptions and restrictions owing to politics (), war (Gaza), natural disasters (Haiti), or other factors such as isolation (Pitcairn Island). To see the current list of affected countries, visit the USPS Service Updates page. Note: At some point USPS converted its website from http: to https:, but without forwarding the old URLs to the new ones, thus breaking every USPS link in this page, and in many other pages too, no doubt. All USPS links in this page were converted to https in July 2017, but not every single one of them has been tested; if you find nonfunctional USPS (or any other) links, please let me know. Abbreviations and Acronyms: IMMInternational Mail Manual (USPS)ISOInternational Organization for StandardizationPDFPortable Document Format (Adobe Acrobat)UPUUniversal Postal UnionUSAUnited States of AmericaUSPS United States Postal Service[ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] As a basis for discussion, let's begin by looking at a typical international address: JOE BLOGGSPerson's nameCOMPUTER CENTERDepartment (if any)CURTIN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Institution or Company (if any)309 KENT STREETStreet Address (or Post Office Box)BENTLEY WA 6102City Line (WA = Western Australia)AUSTRALIACountry Name It illustrates several points, all of which are discussed later in greater detail: Order of PresentationIn the USA, we write addresses in minor-to-major order, with the most specific (smallest) item (e.g. person's name) at the top, proceeding to the most general (largest) item (i.e. country name) at the bottom. This order is not necessarily used in other countries (e.g. Iran, Russia), but since we are sending mail from the USA, it might be safer to use it in all cases because our own postal service must process the address first.The Country NameFor domestic mail (mail within the USA), we omit the country name. For all other countries, we write the country name as the last line, by itself, in all CAPITAL LETTERS, with no accompanying notations such as postal codes, or hints as to which continent the country is on. We use country names consistently; they are listed in the . In the USA and many other countries, postal sorting machines read and sort by the country name. Thus within each country, the country name list must be well-known and standardized.According to USPS officials that I interviewed in 2002: unless the country name is CANADA, the USPS does not read and does not care about anything that appears above it. International mail from the USA to any country but Canada goes to a single location in that country for sorting and separation. Thus when sending mail from the USA to any other country we are free to format the address according to the requirements of the destination country (for mail to Canada, the addressing requirements conform to our own; for details see the ). I'm not sure it is still true (in 2004) that the USPS does not care about different destinations within a big country. Recent editions of the IMM seem to imply otherwise, e.g. by including long lists of cities in different countries, complete with postcodes. See the section on the .The City LineThe line just above the country name shows the town, and sometimes the major subdivision of the country, known as the state, province, county, district, territory, land, shire, department, canton, prefecture, oblast, autonomous region, etc, depending on the country, and often a postal code to aid in automated sorting. We call this the City Line. Since the USPS does not read or care about this line (except in mail to and, by some accounts, the ), it can and should be formatted as required by the destination country. A handful of national postal authorities now recommend writing postal code on a line by itself, above or below the city line (Ecuador, Ukraine, Hungary... and now also the UK). In such cases, the City Line occupies two lines. As far as I can tell, this is a recent development and is largely ignored in many of the countries that recommend it (e.g. Russia). In any case, it makes formatting and parsing international addresses all the more complicated, and might also cause addresses to exceed address-line limits, where they did not before (e.g. for postal scanners, databases, forms, or window envelopes). Hungary is a special case. Zsbán Ambrus reports (December 2016): Postal addresses in Hungary have the town name above the street address, unlike most countries. So a full destination address to Hungary is usually made of at least four lines: While the United States might ignore the destination city in international mail, other countries do not necessarily do so. For example, mail from England to Los Angeles is sent directly to Los Angeles, whereas a letter to New York goes on a flight to New York. The journey of a letter from Nome (Alaska) to Provideniya (Siberia), if sent westward rather than east, could be 23,000 miles shorter if the USPS processed the city line. The following table shows a sampling of City Line formats. Punctuation shown in the Format column is to be taken literally: FormatExamplestown, province postalcodeIndiatown province postalcodeUSA, Canada, Australiapostalcode town-provinceBrazilpostalcode town, provinceChina, Méxicopostalcode town (provincia) Italypostalcode townMost other European countries & ex-USSR; Israeltown postalcodeNew Zealand, Thailand, Japan, Singaporetown, countyIreland (except Dublin)town In the formats above, province stands for whatever each country calls its subdivisions (e.g. state in the USA), and often is abbreviated according to local postal standards. Here are some variables in City Line format, all of which are illustrated later in this document: Upper and Lower CaseThe postal authorities of the USA, Canada, UK, and many other countries recommend that the City Line (and preferably the entire address) be written in ALL UPPERCASE. In the UK, the City Line (Post Town) and postcode should use only capital letters, but the remainder of the address can (but need not) be in mixed case.State/ProvinceIn some countries (like the USA, Canada, and Australia) the province (state, county, etc) is necessary, in others it is omitted, and in others it is either optional, or needed in some cases but omitted in others.PunctuationIn some countries (like Ireland) punctuation must be used in the City Line, but in others (like the USA, Canada, and Australia), it should not be used.Postal CodesPostal codes, in countries that have them, are usually numeric, sometimes containing a space or a hyphen. Different countries use different terms for postal codes (e.g. Zone Improvement Plan, Postleitzahl) and different abbreviations for the terms (e.g. ZIP, PLZ, CEP, CAP, PIN). See the Wikepedia page on Postal codes.European postal codes can have an alphabetic prefix, denoting the country, separated by a hyphen (such as DK-1234 in Denmark), but this seems to be going out of style (more about this in the ). Canadian, UK, and some other postal codes contain mixtures of digits and letters. Depending on the country, the postal code can go in the city line (left or right of the city), above it, or below it. In most countries where the postal code is on the right, we separate it by two (2) spaces (unless it is really a zone, like Dublin 4, and not a postal code) (Dublin reference semi-obsolete as of July 2015, see ). For the lines above the city line, each country has its own standards, which are discussed to some extent in the sections on individual countries such as and , but for details consult the postal authority websites of each country, which are accessible from the tables at the beginning of each main section of this document. For the purposes of international mail, the main thing is to get the country line right so the USPS sends it to the right country, and city line right so the main receiving depot in the country can route it to the right town or city, whose local post office will deal with the rest. In the years and decades since I started working on this page in the 1980s, resources have appeared that today are likely much more current, comprehensive, and well-maintained; for example the Wikipedia List of Postal Codes, its pages for each country, its page on the Universal Postal Union, etc. When sending international mail:
When sending mail to Russia, Israel, Greece, Armenia, China, etc, it is perfectly acceptable to write the lines above the City Line in the native script. According to the USPS IMM, it is also OK to write the City Line in the native script, but it must also be written in English below the native script and above the Country Line (USPS guideline (d) below): 198156 САНКТ ПЕТЕРБУРГ 198156 SAINT PETERSBURG RUSSIA Obviously if you don't have a way to write the address in Cyrillic, Hebrew, Greek, etc, it can be transliterated in whatever way is most acceptable at the receiving end. Most countries that use non-Roman writing systems can deliver letters that are addressed in Roman transliteration – Russia, Greece, Israel, most Arab countries, Japan, Korea, and both Chinas among them. For mail to México, Italy, France, etc, if you can print accented Roman letters, all the better. If you can't, leave off the accents or transliterate according to language-specific rules (as in German ä to ae – see section on ). Never put ATTN: person's name or any other notations such as apartment number below the City or Country Line. This interferes with automatic sorting and can slow down delivery. (Personally, I think bureaucratic notations like ATTN are useless – if you have addressed your mail to a person, then of course it is for their attention.) Americans should avoid referring to other countries' postal codes as Zip codes, and also should not call other countries' administrative subdivisions states. These are common errors on address forms. Use "State or Province" and Zip or Postal Code on your address forms. It's not perfect, but it indicates that we understand that other countries can have their own terminology. The USPS used to list the following general addressing guidelines (2019); most (but not all) of these points apply also to international mail:
The following additional guidelines are given in Section 122 the IMM for addressing international mail:
In the absence of more-specific guidelines, don't put more than six lines (including the country name) in an international address, nor more than 38 characters in any line (these are the requirements for France). Pieces that do not follow the guidelines are liable to be rejected by automatic sorting machines, slowing down their delivery. Here's an example of a well-formed address for mail from the USA to Canada: PROF FRED FOO 1. Most specific line at the top DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 2. Less specific... MOUNT ROYAL COLLEGE 3. Less specific... 4825 RICHARD ROAD SW 4. Street Address CALGARY AB T3E 6K6 5. City Line CANADA 6. Country Line (not used in domestic mail) It conforms to both US and Canadian postal addressing guidelines. It's printed in a fixed font with all capital letters and contains absolutely no punctuation. The lines go from most specific at the top to most general at the bottom. The City Line includes the official province abbreviation with no comma and two spaces before the postal code, which is the format recommended by Canada Post. The country line is at the bottom. The postal code goes in the City Line, not the Country Line, on the left or right according to the standard of the destination country. Link This document considers mainly regular street addresses, but there are other classes of delivery, such as the post office box (where the addressee has a locked mail box is in the post office) and general delivery (where the post office holds the mail for pickup by the addressee). Different countries use different terminology and notation for these forms of delivery:CountryTerm for post office boxTerm for General deliveryUSAPO BOXGENERAL DELIVERYUnited KingdomPO BoxPOSTE RESTANTEMéxico, Spain, ...ApartadoPoste RestanteFranceBP (Boite Postal)Poste RestanteNetherlandsPostbusPoste RestanteNorway, Denmark, ...PostboksPoste RestanteGermanyPostfachPostlagernd For general delivery (poste restante – to be called for), the addressee's name must match the name on the proof of identity (such as a passport) that the addressee will show upon picking up the mail. In the United States, the +4 part of the ZIP+4 code for General Delivery is 9999, and for a Post Office Box, the last four digits of the PO Box number. [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ] [ Google Map ]USA address format is: town ST nnnnn-nnnn where ST is the official USPS 2-letter state or territory abbreviation from the table below with no comma preceding it, followed by the ZIP or ZIP+4, for example: JOHN DOE ACME INC 123 MAIN ST NW STE 12 ANYTOWN NY 12345 in which ST, NW, STE, and NY are abbreviations recognized by USPS (for Street, Northwest, Suite, and New York, respectively). If ZIP+4 is used, the two parts of the ZIP code must be separated by a single dash (and no spaces). The state abbreviation and ZIP code should be separated by one or two spaces (depending on which recommendation you read). Examples: OSHKOSH WI 54901 (5-digit ZIP) FRANKLIN SQUARE NY 11010 (5-digit ZIP) NEW YORK NY 10025-7799 (ZIP+4) FORT RICHARDSON AK 99505-5700 (ZIP+4) Uppercase is used, as recommended by the USPS, for ease of automatic scanning and application of bar codes. See the USPS ZIP Code directory or other relevant publications for additional addressing recommendations such as the format of street addresses, recommended abbreviations, etc, all of which help to keep your mail from being rejected by the automatic sorters. Some useful information on USA addresses can be found at the USPS Website: https://www.usps.com/ In cases where the street name and number might be too long (e.g. for a database field, or for an automatic reader), any part of this line that denotes a sub-part of the main address (e.g. an apartment or suite number) can or should be put on a separate line above the street name and number: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS0 Don't spell out state names or use old-fashioned state abbreviations for them like Ala, Miss, or N.Y.. Here is the table of states and other postal entities of the USA with their official 2-letter abbreviations (source: USPS National ZIP Code Directory) that are recognized by the USPS and its postal sorters: AAArmed Forces AmericasAEArmed Forces EuropeAKAlaskaALAlabamaAPArmed Forces PacificARArkansasASAmerican SamoaAZArizonaCACaliforniaCOColoradoCTConnecticutDCDistrict of ColumbiaDEDelawareFLFloridaFMFederated MicronesiaGAGeorgiaGUGuamHIHawaiiIAIowaIDIdahoILIllinoisINIndianaKSKansasKYKentuckyLALouisianaMAMassachusettsMDMarylandMEMaineMHMarshall IslandsMIMichiganMNMinnesotaMOMissouriMPN. Mariana IslandsMSMississippiMTMontanaNCNorth CarolinaNDNorth DakotaNENebraskaNHNew HampshireNJNew JerseyNMNew MexicoNVNevadaNYNew YorkOHOhioOKOklahomaOROregonPAPennsylvaniaPRPuerto RicoPWPalauRIRhode IslandSCSouth CarolinaSDSouth DakotaTNTennesseeTXTexasUTUtahVAVirginiaVIUS Virgin IslandsVTVermontWAWashingtonWIWisconsinWVWest VirginiaWYWyoming Military addresses use APO (Army or Air Force Post Office) or FPO (Fleet Post Office for the Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard) instead of the city name, and then the state name is AA (for Americas), AE (for Europe), or AP (for Pacific), e.g.: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS1 Or: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS2 Most overseas military addresses are loaded into the USPS Address management system (AMS) so if you dont know the ZIP Code for a particular PSC or CMR number you can look it up on USPS look up a ZIP code:
Mail addressed to Overseas Military members must be addressed to a specific individual. Mail addressed to “Any Service member”, “Occupant” or similar type generic name will not be processed or delivered to the address listed on the mail piece. As of 2009, certain diplomatic sites have DPO (Diplomatic Post Office) addresses, similar to APO addresses (DPO AA, DPO AE, DPO AP, followed by Zip or, preferably, Zip+4), as in this example for the US Embassy in Rabat, Morocco: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS3 DPO Addresses do not use PSC or CMRs in their addressing system. Diplomatic installations that don't have DPO addresses can be mailed to in care of the US State Department in Washington DC. All others require international mail. APO/FPO/DPO addresses can be used only from the USA or other areas served by the US Post Office, or from other APO/FPO/DPO addresses. Mail from elsewhere to these locations must be addressed through the town, city, and country in which the military or diplomatic installation is located, e.g.: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS4 (That is the address given by the embassy, but it should have postal code.) You can always refer to the USPS Postal Bulletin (see References below) published every two weeks to see if APO/FPO/DPO zip codes are valid and refer to the restrictions or limitations on certain articles and sizes of articles that could be prohibited. References:
Links: For more about automatic sorting of US mail, see the Kermit News article, . [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ] [ Google Map ]The Canada city line format is like the USA format: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS5 No commas or other punctuation*, postal code on the right separated by two spaces. Upper case is preferred but not required except in the postal code. Example: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS6 Canada has 2-letter abbreviations for its provinces and territories, just like we have for our states, and which do not conflict with ours: SymbolEnglish NameFrench NameInuktitut NameABAlbertaAlbertaBCBritish ColumbiaColombie-BritanniqueMBManitobaManitobaNBNew BrunswickNouveau-BrunswickNL (3)Newfoundland and LabradorTerre-Neuve-et-LabradorNT (1)Northwest TerritoriesTerritoires du Nord-OuestNSNova ScotiaNouvelle-ÉcosseNU (1)NunavutNunavutᓄᓇᕗᑦONOntarioOntarioPEPrince Edward IslandÎle-du-Prince-ÉdouardQC (2)QuebecQuébecSKSaskatchewanSaskatchewanYTYukonYukon Notes:
Canadian postal codes are always LNL NLN (Letter, Number, Letter, Space, Number, Letter, Number). (In this context, Number means Digit.) The first segment is the Forward Sortation Area; the second is the Local Delivery Unit. The postal code is placed two spaces to the right of the province/territory abbreviation. All letters in the City Line (and preferably the entire address) should be uppercase. Examples: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS7 Doug Ewell has written a report on the semantics of Canadian postal codes; CLICK HERE for details. The city or town name must not be translated. If the official name of the municipality is French, it must be written in French including accents; if it is English, it must be written in English. Canadian postal policies emphasize equal treatment of English and French, but they do not mention other languages of Canada such as Inuktitut, Cree, Lakota, Micmac, Ojibwa, etc. I assume that locality names must be written in Roman letters and not Canadian Syllabics, although I could not find any statements to that effect at the Canada Post website. In Nunavut, the Inuit languages Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun are official languages, along with French and English; road signs are in both Roman and Inuit Syllabics – what about mail? By the way, it turns out that even French town names with accents are stored internally in uppercase ASCII without accents, as you can see in postcode lookup. (In February 2020, Benoît Le Nabec clarifies: "In fact, both are accepted. If you enter the city name with accents the application ‘Find a Postal Code’ will return the city name with or without accents as a choice." Links (last checked: 22 September 2017): Canadian postal humor: Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents for postage and 30 cents for storage. (Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 31 Dec 1983 Financial Post) [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ]Here's a summary table of Caribbean localities showing the USPS country name (see for local, long, and other forms), ISO 3166 Alpha-2 Code, United Nations Car Code (these codes are explained in the section on ), postcode format (if any), and sample City line. As far as I can tell, neither ISO nor Car codes are used in Caribbean postal addresses. The right two columns are taken from the Universal Postal Union, when available (a surprising number are not). In the postcode format, n indicates a digit and L indicates an uppercase letter; italic words like town and island are to be replaced by actual town or island names. Country names link to the country's postal authority website, if known, or other relevant site, if any. From Gerben Vos: “Since 10 October 2010, the Netherlands Antilles don't exist any more as a country. Curaçao and Sint Maarten have become countries just like Aruba and Netherlands proper. The three islands Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (the "BES islands") have become "special municipalities" of the Netherlands. USPS NameISOCarCity Line FormatCity Line ExampleANGUILLAAI--town AI-2640THE VALLEYANTIGUA AND BARBUDAAG--townSt. John'sARUBAAW--townOranjestadBAHAMASBSBStownNASSAUBARBADOS (*)BBBDStown BBnnnnnCheapside, Bridgetown BB11000BERMUDA (*)BM--town LL nnHamilton HM 12BONAIRE (*)BQ??townKralandijkBRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDSVG--town, island, VGnnnnRoad Town, Tortola, VG1110CAYMAN ISLANDS (*)KY--po-box Don't write ANTILLES, CARIBBEAN, LEEWARD ISLANDS, VIRGIN ISLANDS, WEST INDIES, BRITISH WEST INDIES, or BRITISH ISLANDS under the country name, despite advice to that affect that can be found elsewhere, since the USPS operates on country names, not on names of regions or areas. Notes:
Here's a summary table of Latin American countries showing the USPS country name (see for local, long, and other forms), ISO 3166 Alpha-2 Code, United Nations Car Code (these codes are explained in the section on ), postcode format (if any), and sample City line. As far as I can tell, neither ISO nor Car codes are used in Latin American postal addresses. The right two columns are taken from the Universal Postal Union except where I had better information. In the postcode format, n indicates a digit and L indicates an uppercase letter; italic words like town and district are to be replaced by actual town or district names. Non-italic letters, spaces, and hyphens are to be taken literally (such as CP, which stands for Código Postal, Postal Code). Country names link to the country's postal authority website, if known, or other relevant site. USPS NameISOCarCity Line FormatCity Line ExampleARGENTINAARRALnnnnLLL townS3000ADQ SANTA FEBELIZEBZBHtownBELIZE CITYBOLIVIABOBOLtownCOCHABAMBABRAZILBRBRnnnnn-nnn town-LL40301-110 SALVADOR-BACHILECLRCHnnnnnnn town6500709 SANTIAGOCOLOMBIACOCOtownBOGOTÁCOSTA RICA*CRCRnnnnn town10104 SAN JOSÉCUBACUCCP nnnnn townCP 10600 CIUDAD DE LA HABANADOMINICAN REPUBLIC DODOMnnnnn town10902 SANTO DOMINGOECUADORECECLnnnnL Buscar códigos postales en Latinoamérica y NorteaméricaEn la Internet suele pasar que, al comprar en algún website como Amazon.com te piden un "Zip code" o código postal, y en muchos de los países la gente no conoce lo suyo porque no se usa en los correos en la vida real. Sin embargo, hay que ponerlo en los formularios del Web. Aquí se busca. Para buscar un código postal en algún país latinoamericano, haz clic en el nombre del país, si es un enlace, para accessar un sitio del correo del país (si lo hay). Fíjate en que las direcciones de Internet se cambian con una frequencia frustrante, de modo que un clic podría resultar en un error como "The page cannot be found" (la página ya no existe... el estatus es "desaparecido"). Además, no todos los países ofrecen listas o búsquedas de códigos postales.Ésta es nueva sección del documento, todavía le falta mucho trabajo y averiguaciones. Al alcanzarme el tiempo voy a mejorarla, buscando nuevos enlaces para los países "desaparecidos" o sin enlaces. Mientras tanto si tienes mayor información favor de mandármela, gracias. 2011 / 03 / 01 Detailed sections on México, Brazil, Cuba, and Colombia follow this section. When addressing mail to a Latin American country, don't write SOUTH AMERICA or CENTRAL AMERICA under the country name. Venezuelan city lines include the city name, then the 4-digit postal code, then either ESTADO followed by the state name or else DISTRITO CAPITAL (formerly DISTRITO FEDERAL) for Caracas. The postcode might have a letter suffix: 198156 САНКТ ПЕТЕРБУРГ 198156 SAINT PETERSBURG RUSSIA1 You can address French Guiana through France; it's part of the French postcode and delivery system. You should also be able to address it directly too, thus avoiding the double ocean crossing. Note that Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Uruguay (according to the UPU) write the postal code on its own line. As always, postcodes are in flux. The examples above (current as of January 2003) are contrasted with examples from our own database from just a few years prior: 198156 САНКТ ПЕТЕРБУРГ 198156 SAINT PETERSBURG RUSSIA2 The postal system of Costa Rica is notoriously quirky. A system of postcodes is being instituted in two steps, beginning in 2007. A video (narrated in Spanish) is available on the Correos de Costa Rica website explaining the steps. The first is 5 digit postal code (código postal) in which the first digit is the province (provincia), the second and third denote the county (cantón), and the last two the district (distrito) within the cantón. Then, since few Costa Rican streets have names and houses do not tend to have house numbers; a second step will create numeric codes for streets and addresses covering the whole country. Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ]For purposes of addressing mail from within the USA, the name of the country is MEXICO. In Spanish, the 'e' has an acute accent: México. In Spain and parts of Latin America, some people prefer the more phonetic spelling, "Méjico" (just as in the USA, some Texans might prefer to write "Tejas"). México has states (estados) like Jalisco, Sonora, etc, which are included in the address. The state for México City is DF (Distrito Federal = Federal District), similar to Washington DC in the USA or Canberra ACT in Australia. DF is divided into Delegaciones including México City, San Jerónimo, etc. Postal codes are 5 digits. Examples: 198156 САНКТ ПЕТЕРБУРГ 198156 SAINT PETERSBURG RUSSIA3 Here are the states of México and their abbreviations (source: Wikipedia 22 May 2019): NameConventional2-letter3-letterAguascalientesAgs.MX - AGMX-AGUBaja CaliforniaB.C.MX - BCMX-BCNBaja California SurB.C.S.MX - BSMX-BCSCampecheCamp.MX - CMMX-CAMChiapasChis.MX - CSMX-CHPChihuahuaChih.MX - CHMX-CHHCoahuilaCoah.MX - COMX-COAColimaCol.MX - CLMX-COLDurangoDgo.MX - DGMX-DURGuanajuatoGto.MX - GTMX-GUAGuerreroGro.MX - GRMX-GROHidalgoHgo.MX - HGMX-HIDJaliscoJal.MX - JAMX-JALMexico CityCDMXMX - DFMX-CMXMéxicoEdomex. or Méx.MX - EMMX-MEXMichoacánMich.MX - MIMX-MICMorelosMor.MX - MOMX-MORNayaritNay.MX - NAMX-NAYNuevo LeónN.L.MX - NLMX-NLEOaxacaOax.MX - OAMX-OAXPueblaPue.MX - PUMX-PUEQuerétaroQro.MX - QTMX-QUEQuintana RooQ. Roo. or Q.R.MX - QRMX-ROOSan Luis PotosíS.L.P.MX - SLMX-SLPSinaloaSin.MX - SIMX-SINSonoraSon.MX - SOMX-SONTabascoTab.MX - TBMX-TABTamaulipasTamps.MX - TMMX-TAMTlaxcalaTlax.MX - TLMX-TLAVeracruzVer.MX - VEMX-VERYucatánYuc.MX - YUMX-YUCZacatecasZac.MX - ZAMX-ZAC "México" is the state of Mexico (as opposed to the country or the city). The two-letter codes are not official, but are widely recognized and used. The three-letter code is specified in ISO 3166-2:MX. I suspect that "MX" is not really part of the code, but in any case the only official guidance I can find for Mexican Postal addresses (May 2019), which is: Manual de Asignación de Códigos Postales y Estandarización de Domicilios Postales, Correos de México, Diciembre 2016shows state names written out in full in its addressing examples, e.g.: Daniel González Ortiz Apartado Postal Administración Calvillo A44 20801 Calvillo, Aguascalientes MEXICO The 5-digit postal code goes on the left, then the town or city, a comma, and the state abbreviation. In large cities, I am told it is important to put Colonia for District (when known) in Mexican addresses, for example: 198156 САНКТ ПЕТЕРБУРГ 198156 SAINT PETERSBURG RUSSIA4 Some terms and abbreviations included in Mexican addresses are listed in the table below. Of states, municipalities, and their subdivisions there is not a strict hierarchy; for example, a municipio may contain several cities, or a city may contain several municipios (similar to how New York City contains several counties). EstadoStateMunicipioMunicipality (major subdivision of estado, similar to a county)Ciudad, Cd.CityColonia, Col.Neighborhood of cityLocalidadCity or town within a municipioPoblaciónA populated place (city, town, or village)DelegaciónAdministrative subdivision of a city, like a boroughAsentamiento Subdivision of a municipioApartado (Apartado Postal, Apartado de Correos, Casilla Postal) Post office boxCalleStreetCPCódigo Postal (postal code) Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ]Brazilian addresses have states (estados) and a 5+3-digit postal code (CEP, Código de Endereçamento Postal) that goes on the left. The state goes on the right, separated by a dash. There should be no other punctuation. Example: 198156 САНКТ ПЕТЕРБУРГ 198156 SAINT PETERSBURG RUSSIA5 If a postal code has only 5 digits (like our own ZIP without the plus 4), add -000 to the end: 198156 САНКТ ПЕТЕРБУРГ 198156 SAINT PETERSBURG RUSSIA6 The state for Brasilia is DF (Distrito Federal), like Washington DC, e.g.: 198156 САНКТ ПЕТЕРБУРГ 198156 SAINT PETERSBURG RUSSIA7 Always use the exact spacing and punctuation shown above – no periods, commas, etc. Never include CEP in the address; it just means postal code. For example, if you have an address like: 198156 САНКТ ПЕТЕРБУРГ 198156 SAINT PETERSBURG RUSSIA8 it should be written as: 198156 САНКТ ПЕТЕРБУРГ 198156 SAINT PETERSBURG RUSSIA5 The states of Brazil and their official abbreviations are: ACAcreALAlagoasAPAmapáAMAmazonasBABahíaCECearáDFDistrito FederalESEspirito SantoGOGoiásMAMaranhãoMTMato GrossoMSMato Grosso do SulMGMinas GeraísPRParanáPBParaíbaPAParáPEPernambucoPIPiauíRNRio Grande do NorteRSRio Grande do SulRJRio de JaneiroRORondôniaRRRoraimaSCSanta CatarinaSESergipeSPSão PauloTOTocantins Noticed in July 2007: Brazil seems to have joined the countries that are putting the postal code as the bottom line, as you can see if you look at the current version of Formas de Endereçamento (link just below), although it seems the format described here is still accepted. Examples of the two formats (from the Brazil post website): MR THOMAS CLARK 117 RUSSELL DRIVE LONDON WIP 6HQ ENGLAND0MR THOMAS CLARK 117 RUSSELL DRIVE LONDON WIP 6HQ ENGLAND1 I suspect the first ("old") format is better for sending mail to Brazil from the USA, because USPS expects the see the city line just above the country name. Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ]Monday, September 16, 2013, Reuters: The United States and Cuba sit down on Monday in Havana for a second round of talks on re-establishing direct mail services between the two countries after a 50-year ban. Direct mail service between the USA and Cuba has been suspended since 1963. Mail addressed to Cuba from the USA or vice versa is routed through third countries such as Mexico and can take weeks to arrive. Starting in 2009 there have been preliminary meetings on re-establishing a direct postal link. Cuban addresses are written like this: MR THOMAS CLARK 117 RUSSELL DRIVE LONDON WIP 6HQ ENGLAND2 where: MR THOMAS CLARK 117 RUSSELL DRIVE LONDON WIP 6HQ ENGLAND3 After this line may be the Reparto (zone) and Municipio; that is, minor divisions, for example: MR THOMAS CLARK 117 RUSSELL DRIVE LONDON WIP 6HQ ENGLAND4 that is: MR THOMAS CLARK 117 RUSSELL DRIVE LONDON WIP 6HQ ENGLAND5 "esq." (esquina, corner) can be used instead of e/ (between) when the house is on the corner, for example: MR THOMAS CLARK 117 RUSSELL DRIVE LONDON WIP 6HQ ENGLAND6 In practice the CP is rarely used and mail, if otherwise properly addressed, can be delivered without it. The divisions of Cuba are: Provincia → Municipio → Ciudad or Pueblo → Reparto or Barrio or Communidad A reparto or barrio is a division of a city or town, whereas a communidad is an isolated zone ("oasis de casas dentro del campo desierto") outside of the town but which falls within its jurisdiction; for example in the municipio of Nuevitas is the town Playa Santa Lucía, and some 3km distant is the communidad Palmas de Lucía (meanwhile capital city of the municipio of Nuevitas is the ciudad of Nuevitas). Note that the general scheme does not apply to Ciudad de La Habana, which is a Provincia. There are many Municipios without Ciudad or Pueblo; for example, Ciudad de La Habana has these general options: Ciudad de La Habana → Municipio → Pueblo → Reparto or Barrio And for Municipio Especial Isla de la Juventud, the scheme is: Municipio Especial Isla de la Juventud → Ciudad o Pueblo → Reparto o Barrio The Provincias, with their recommended abbreviations, are: PRPinar del RíoCACiego de ÁvilaCHCiudad de La HabanaCGCamagüeyHALa HabanaLT(Victoria de) Las TunasMTMatanzasHOHolguínVCVilla ClaraGRGranma (Bayamo)CFCienfuegosSCSantiago de CubaSSSancti SpíritusGTGuantánamoIJMunicipio Especial Isla de la Juventud Municipio Especial Isla de la Juventud is a special municipio; that is, not a provincia, but treated as a provincia. Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ](This section by Felipe Zapata Roldán, 11 December 2005) In Colombia, the postal code system has not been implemented yet, but there's a plan to do it in the near future (postal codes exist but they are not used). A standard mailing address (residential, commercial, or industrial) looks like this: NAMECOMPANYDEPARTMENT/DIVISION (May contain the building and office number)STREET ADDRESSCITY, DEPARTMENT(Department = state, optional)COLOMBIA The format of the street address is: STREET ###L $ ###-###, extra info In which STREET field may be CALLE, CARRERA, AVENIDA, CIRCULAR, TRANSVERSAL; # of course are numerical digits (in groups of two or three); $ may be written '#' or 'No' and it stands for número and means crossing, usually, a CALLE crosses a CARRERA and vice versa. Which goes first depends on which face of the block the location is in; extra info may be the building name or number, apartment, block, story, level, etc. Example: MR THOMAS CLARK 117 RUSSELL DRIVE LONDON WIP 6HQ ENGLAND7 Important: In Colombia, for natural persons, we use both father's last name and mother's maiden name... it's better if you know them... still, if you don't, there's no problem. There's also a special kind of address, the Colombian P.O. Box, or Apartado Aéreo or A.A., meaning something like 'airmail post office box'; here's an example: MR THOMAS CLARK 117 RUSSELL DRIVE LONDON WIP 6HQ ENGLAND8 No name, no company, no nothing.... that's all optional. All that is needed is a number up to 5 digits and the name of the city. Any citizen or company may open an A.A., and just like in many countries they have to pay a maintenance fee. Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ]Australia uses the same address format as the USA and Canada. It has 4-digit numeric postal codes and the following states, always abbreviated in caps as follows: AbbrevFull NamePostboxes and NSW includes Norfolk Island; WA includes Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Island. ACT includes the Jervis Bay Territory, which shares the 2540 postcode with surrounding areas in NSW, but is addressed as "JERVIS BAY ACT 2540"*. Write Australian city lines as follows: town state postal-code Use all uppercase letters, no punctuation, put two spaces before and after the state abbreviation. Examples: MR THOMAS CLARK 117 RUSSELL DRIVE LONDON WIP 6HQ ENGLAND9 (Doug Moncur reports in 2012, "However some of your information for the ACT in Australia is wrong. Australia Post doesn't really believe Canberra exists so while a lot of suburbs have 26xx codes, some have 29xx codes. This used to be limited to Tuggeranong but they've started allocating 29xx codes to new outer north suburbs as well, eg Crace - see this site for a list.... And PO Boxes can be PO Box or LPO Box - LPO being a Local Post Office. Most times PO Box will do just fine, but here on campus they recommend LPO if you have a private box to make it clear you want to pick your mail up from the post office in the Student's Union building...") Within Western Australia lies a small area calling itself the Hutt River Province Principality, which seceded from Western Australia and the Commonwealth of Australia in 1970 over a wheat-quota dispute. Whatever its legal and international standing, it has no listing in the USPS International Mail Manual, so mail from the USA to that area must be addressed via Northampton WA 6535 in Australia. For further info, search the Web for Hutt River. Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ]New Zealand, like Australia, uses 4-digit postal codes but until recently they have been relatively optional, used mainly for presorting bulk mail. New Zealand Post didn't even show them in their own contact addresses: MS C P APPLE APARTADO 3068 46807 PUERTO VALLARTA JALISCO MEXICO0 All this has changed. As noted on the New Zealand Post website: The current postcode system has become outdated for mail sorting. The development of new suburbs, more apartment living and overall population growth has seen a 25% increase in delivery points in the last ten years. Added to this are a number of issues that present problems for efficient and accurate mail sorting and delivery. ... New postcodes will resolve these problems by creating a unique address for every delivery point in New Zealand Post's delivery network. ... The new postcodes will entirely replace the existing postcode system. All postcodes currently in use will be replaced. ... The postcode is [now] mandatory for all addresses. The change took effect in June 2006. The old postcodes are invalid. The hard cutover took place in June 2008. must be used on bulk mail and the postcode can be omitted from regular mail. The new postcodes are now required on all mail. Examples showing the new and old postcodes: MS C P APPLE APARTADO 3068 46807 PUERTO VALLARTA JALISCO MEXICO1MS C P APPLE APARTADO 3068 46807 PUERTO VALLARTA JALISCO MEXICO2MS C P APPLE APARTADO 3068 46807 PUERTO VALLARTA JALISCO MEXICO3MS C P APPLE APARTADO 3068 46807 PUERTO VALLARTA JALISCO MEXICO4 Upper and lower case may be used in all parts of the address, but for the benefit of USPS, the name of the country, NEW ZEALAND, must be written in all uppercase. The former NZ Post requirement for lots of space between the town name and postal code has been dropped, one or two spaces are now sufficient. A reader, Paul, points out (in 2018) that New Zealand does not have states or provinces, so if a Web or paper form requires you to enter one you can use a "region"; these are listed in Wikipedia; for example: A 2012 map of New Zealand regions can be found here (as of July 2018):MS C P APPLE APARTADO 3068 46807 PUERTO VALLARTA JALISCO MEXICO5 MS C P APPLE APARTADO 3068 46807 PUERTO VALLARTA JALISCO MEXICO6 References (all good as of 21 July 2018): [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ](The UK and Ireland have their towards the end of this document.) Europe is an imprecise term, especially as it relates to which countries are part of it and which are not. Geographical, political, and cultural definitions tend to disagree. Furthermore, countries such as Spain, France, Denmark, and the Netherlands that are indisputably European might include parts that are elsewhere. CLICK HERE for a discussion. All European countries except Ireland have postal codes. They are almost always written on the left-hand side of the City line, before the name of the town or city. The format of the postcode itself varies from country to country: number of digits, grouping, and in a few cases an alphabetic part. After World War II and up until the mid-1990s, all European postcodes included country-code prefixes. These were originally United Nations car codes (one, two, or three letters), kept in an annex, Car (Or Road) Distinguishing Signs, to the 1949/68 United Nations Conventions on Road Traffic, adopted in part by the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT). These codes were not accepted by the Universal Postal Union as a world standard, but were widely used anyway. Beginning in 1994, car codes were supposed to be replaced by ISO 3166 Alpha-2 codes, but it seems this was not done to any great extent outside of Scandinavia. Thus for some decades (say 1970-1994) a letter to Sweden would have a City and Country line like the following (note: two spaces recommended after the postcode): MS C P APPLE APARTADO 3068 46807 PUERTO VALLARTA JALISCO MEXICO7 Then in 1995 this became: MS C P APPLE APARTADO 3068 46807 PUERTO VALLARTA JALISCO MEXICO8 More recently in most European countries, the recommendation is to omit the country prefix for internal mail, but to use it for international mail. Many countries (not all) also recommend all uppercase letters for better automatic sorting results: MS C P APPLE APARTADO 3068 46807 PUERTO VALLARTA JALISCO MEXICO9 The situation is definitely confusing with postal standards, guidelines, and examples in flux and in conflict. The Universal Postal Union recommends that the ISO Alpha-2 Country Code be used for international mail, and that the country code prefix be omitted on domestic mail (e.g. within Italy), but of course the local standards of each country prevail, and to confound matters, Alpha-2 codes can change or (worse) be recycled; for example, Czechoslovakia was CS but when it split into the Czech and Slovak Republics in 1993 the codes became became CZ and SK, respectively; then in 2003 Serbia and Montenegro, which had inherited YU from Yugoslovia, had its code changed to CS (), and then in 2006 Serbia and Montenegro split and received the codes RS and ME, respectively. Postal addresses that appear in printed matter, databases, and on the Web can be found in all three formats. CEN (see Links at the end of this section) recommends in Annex C of EN 14142-1:2003 (a standard for addresses) that cross-border mail should be prefixed by the ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 code where the postcode precedes the locality in the destination country. Thus, depending on whose guidelines you read, the CEPT country code should be used, or the ISO code should be used, or there should be no country code at all. For example, the local standard of Germany might say something like "Under no circumstances should a country code such as D or DE be prefixed to the postcode", but the standard in (say) Switzerland for sending mail to Germany might call for a D or DE prefix. In any case, the prefixes should do no harm except perhaps to cause the mail piece to be rejected by automatic sorters in the source country, the destination country, or both, in which case they are handled manually. As far as I can tell, the USPS doesn't care about them. Here's a summary table of European countries showing the USPS country name (see for local, long, and other forms), ISO 3166 Alpha-2 Code, United Nations Car Code, postcode format, and sample City line. The country-code prefix is omitted, as in the UPU examples, except where the UPU states explicitly that it should be used. In the postcode format, n indicates a digit and L indicates an uppercase letter; italic words like town and district are to be replaced actual town or district names. Non-italic letters, spaces, and hyphens are to be taken literally. Country names link to the country's postal authority website, if known, or other relevant site. When addressing mail to a European country, don't write EUROPE under or next to the country name. Notes:
Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ] [ Google Map ]The Italian postal code system is called CAP (Codice di Avviamento Postale, Post Delivery Code). Italian postal codes have a prefix of I- (or IT-, or none at all, depending on where the mail originates) followed by five digits. The UPU advises leaving off the country prefix for internal mail and using the ISO Alpha-2 form ("IT") for mail to Italy, but the Car Code I is often seen. In practice, sometimes I is written in lowercase to avoid confusion with the digit 1, but I don't know whether or how this affects automatic scanning. Italy is divided into 20 Regioni (regions) listed in the following table, which shows the region name in Italian (and German or French where applicable), then in English (if different), then an unofficial abbreviation (from the Gwillim Law book) for the region name used in the subsequent provincia table (updated 13 March 2021 from Comuni e città.it): AbruzzoAbruzziABBarletta-Andria-TraniBTBasilicataBCCalabriaCICampaniaCMCarbonia-IglesiasCIEmilia-RomagnaERFriuli-Venezia GiuliaFBLazioLZLiguriaLGLombardiaLombardyLMMarcheMHMoliseMLPiemontePiedmontPMPugliaApuliaPUSardegnaSardiniaSDSiciliaSicilySCToscanaTuscanyTCTrentino-Alto Adige / Trentino-SüdtirolTTUmbriaUMValle d'Aosta / Vallée d'AosteValle d'AostaVDVenetoVN The regione is not used in the postal address, but the provincia is included as the 2-letter abbreviation of the province's capital. Thus in the following address: PROF FRED FOO 1. Most specific line at the top DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 2. Less specific... MOUNT ROYAL COLLEGE 3. Less specific... 4825 RICHARD ROAD SW 4. Street Address CALGARY AB T3E 6K6 5. City Line CANADA 6. Country Line (not used in domestic mail)0 the town of Buccinasco is in the provincia of Milano; the regione of Lombardia is not included in the address. The provincia abbreviation is called sigla automobilistica (automobile acronym), and is composed of the first letter of the name of the province's capital town, plus a second letter from the name. (The only exception is KR for Crotone: that is because when the Crotone province was established, all the possible regular combinations where already used: CR=Cremona, CO=Como, CT=Catania, CN=Cuneo, CE=Caserta. So, the acronym was based on the ancient Greek name of the town: Kroton.) These acronyms are called sigle automobilistiche because, up to a few years ago, each province had its own registry of vehicles, and the car registration plates had this two-letter province abbreviation preceding the actual number. (This had the side effect that stranger cars could be immediately identified when traveling in other parts of Italy. As a consequence, Italian drivers always had to be very well informed about soccer matches, as it was not advisable to park a car with a Turin registration plate in Rome the day after Torino F.C defeated A.S. Roma...) Guido Camilla adds, "By the way in the past was not advisable to park a car with a 'Turin' registration plate in Rome the day after Juventus F.C defeated A.S Roma... or was not advisable to park a car with a 'Milano' registration plate in Torino close to the stadium the day of Juventus-Milan or Juventus-Inter match." Traditionally, the 2-letter provincia abbreviation was given in parentheses after the city, e.g.: PROF FRED FOO 1. Most specific line at the top DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 2. Less specific... MOUNT ROYAL COLLEGE 3. Less specific... 4825 RICHARD ROAD SW 4. Street Address CALGARY AB T3E 6K6 5. City Line CANADA 6. Country Line (not used in domestic mail)1 Italian Post now recommends the parentheses be omitted for the sake of automatic scanning and sorting (but the parenthesized form is still widely used): PROF FRED FOO 1. Most specific line at the top DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 2. Less specific... MOUNT ROYAL COLLEGE 3. Less specific... 4825 RICHARD ROAD SW 4. Street Address CALGARY AB T3E 6K6 5. City Line CANADA 6. Country Line (not used in domestic mail)2 Strictly speaking, the provincia abbreviation is redundant, since it is also embodied in the postal code, which has three fields:
Here's a table of province, in which the first column is the provincia name, second the provincia abbreviation, third the first two digits of the CAP, and fourth the regione abbreviation keyed to the previous table. AgrigentoAG92SCAlessandriaAL15PMAnconaAN60MHAosta / AosteAO11VDArezzoAR52TCAscoli PicenoAP63MHAstiAT14PMAvellinoAV83CMBariBA70PUBellunoBL32VNBeneventoBN82CMBergamoBG24LMBiellaBI13PMBolognaBO40ERBolzano / BolzenBZ39TTBresciaBS25LMBrindisiBR72PUCagliariCA09SDCaltanisettaCL93SCCampobassoCB86MLCasertaCE81CMCataniaCT95SCCatanzaroCZ88CIChietiCH66ABComoCO22LMCosenzaCS87CICremonaCR26LMCrotoneKR88CICuneoCN12PMEnnaEN94SCFerraraFE44ERFirenzeFI50TCFoggiaFG71PUForlìFO47ERFrosinoneFR03LZGenovaGE16LGGoriziaGO34FVGrossetoGR58TCImperiaIM18LGIserniaIS86MLL'AquilaAQ67ABLa SpeziaSP19LGLatinaLT04LZLecceLE73PULeccoLC22LMLivornoLI57TCLodiLO20LMLuccaLU55TCMacerataMC62MHMantovaMN46LMMassa-CarraraMS54TCMateraMT75BCMessinaME98SCMilanoMI20LMModenaMO41ERNapoliNA80CMNovaraNO28PMNuoroNU08SDOristanoOR09SDPadovaPD35VNPalermoPA90SCParmaPR43ERPaviaPV27LMPerugiaPG06UMPesaro-UrbinoPS61MHPescaraPE65ABPiacenzaPC29ERPisaPI56TCPistoiaPT51TCPordenonePN33FBPotenzaPZ85BCPratoPO50TCRagusaRG97SCRavennaRA48ERReggio di CalabriaRC89CIReggio nell'EmiliaRE42ERRietiRI02LZRiminiRN47ERRomaRM00LZRovigoRO45VNSalernoSA84CMSassariSS07SDSavonaSV17LGSienaSI53TCSiracusaSR96SCSondrioSO23LMTarantoTA74PUTeramoTE64ABTerniTR05UMTorinoTO10PMTrapaniTP91SCTrentoTN38TTTrevisoTV31VNTriesteTS34FVUdineUD33FVVareseVA21LMVeneziaVE30VNVerbaniaVB28PMVercelliVC13PMVeronaVR37VNVibo ValentiaVV88CIVicenzaVI36VNViterboVT01LZ Here is a UPU example of an Italian address, in which the CAP lacks a country prefix (as required for internal mail and perhaps for mail from certain countries but definitely not for others): By the way, Italy surrounds at least two other small countries: Vatican City and San Marino, which are properly treated by the USPS as separate countries – VATICAN CITY and SAN MARINO – and by some accounts also a third, the Sovrano Militare Ordine Ospedaliero di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme di Rodi e di Malta, or Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), consisting of a single building on a Roman street, the Palace of Malta in the Via dei Condotti 68 (you're probably better off using the Roman street address).PROF FRED FOO 1. Most specific line at the top DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 2. Less specific... MOUNT ROYAL COLLEGE 3. Less specific... 4825 RICHARD ROAD SW 4. Street Address CALGARY AB T3E 6K6 5. City Line CANADA 6. Country Line (not used in domestic mail)3 Not only are countries to be found inside Italy, but a piece of Italy can be found inside another country: Campione d'Italia in Switzerland on Lake Lugano. It chose to stay part of Lombardy, and hence Italy, when Ticino became a Swiss Canton in 1798. It uses the Swiss postcode CH-6911 (as well as Italian CAP 22060), the Swiss telephone code +41 91, and has Italian police driving in Swiss-registered automobiles. But it's Italy. (Also see the section on , another country with a piece inside Switzerland.) BUT... (update from Ken Westmoreland in June 2022): "Another change affecting mail between Switzerland and Italy has been Campione d'Italia, the Italian enclave in Ticino, becoming part of the EU Customs Territory, dubbed 'reverse Brexit', which has led to the cancellation of the Swiss postcode CH-6911. From now on, it's I-22061 and nothing else. The cars have had to have their Swiss plates replaced, and get fitted out with Italian ones with the EU flag on them - reverse Brexit again." Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ] [ Google Map ]In the NETHERLANDS, a 2-letter delivery code follows the numeric part of the postal code – this is not a state/province abbreviation, just an indication of a subzone within the area indicated by the number. The four-digit number never begins with 0; The subzone letters 'F', 'I', 'O', 'Q', 'U' and 'Y' were originally not used for technical reasons, but almost all existing combinations are now used as these letters were allowed for new locations starting 2005, except (because of their associations with the German occupation during World War II) the combinations SA, SD, and SS. The NL- prefix is not used within the Netherlands, but can be used for mail to the Netherlands. PROF FRED FOO 1. Most specific line at the top DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 2. Less specific... MOUNT ROYAL COLLEGE 3. Less specific... 4825 RICHARD ROAD SW 4. Street Address CALGARY AB T3E 6K6 5. City Line CANADA 6. Country Line (not used in domestic mail)4 In the following, Postbus means PO Box. Don't refer to the Netherlands as Holland. Holland is only one part of the Netherlands. The language spoken in the Netherlands is Nederlands, "Dutch" in English. This is commonly believed to result from English speakers not knowing the difference between the Netherlands and Germany, whose language is Deutsch, but according to the Oxford English Dictionary it comes from the Middle Dutch word "dutsch" that covered both German and Dutch*. The provinces of the Netherlands are generally not used in postal addresses, but in case it's ever of any use, here is the list, also showing some well-known towns. There are no standard abbreviations, but this list follows the modern trend of keeping them all the same length: EnglishDutchAbbrTownsDrentheDrentheDRFlevolandFlevolandFLFriesland (Frisia)Friesland (Fryslân)FRGelderlandGelderlandGEApeldoorn, Arnhem, NijmegenGroningenGroningenGRLemburgLimburgLINorth BrabantNoord-BrabantNBEindhoven, BredaNorth HollandNoord-HollandNHAmsterdam, HaarlemOverijsselOverijsselOVSouth HollandZuid-HollandZHRotterdam, Leiden, Dordrecht, the HagueUtrechtUtrechtUTUtrechtZeelandZeelandZE To address a specific person and or department within an organization, add it below the company name: t.a.v. means "Ter Attentie Van", equivalent to English "ATTN:". You can also use t.n.v. (Te Name Van) or omit it altogether when it's clear enough you're addressing a person.PROF FRED FOO 1. Most specific line at the top DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 2. Less specific... MOUNT ROYAL COLLEGE 3. Less specific... 4825 RICHARD ROAD SW 4. Street Address CALGARY AB T3E 6K6 5. City Line CANADA 6. Country Line (not used in domestic mail)5 Links (verified 9 Nov 2015): Diversion:
German postal codes are five digits, possibly prefixed by DE- (for Deutschland, formerly just D). Prior to 1991 (the union of DDR and the Bundesrepublik), the prefixes for the 4-digit codes were D- (for the Federal Republic (West)), and DDR- (for the Democratic Republic (East)). Then, in the united Federal Republic, the prefixes were O- (for East) and W- (for West), to distinguish the conflicting 4-digit postcodes of East and West. Then on July 1, 1993, a new comprehensive Germany-wide 5-digit system took effect and all the German addresses in all the databases in the world had to be converted. The country prefix (D- or DE-) is not used for internal mail, and should no longer be used for mail to Germany either, at least not according to the UPU, which says In items for Germany, on no account should a country code (D- or DE-) be written in front of the postcode. This could cause delay in processing the items as they cannot be sorted by the sorting machines (boldface from the original). The exception would be when sending mail from a country that requires country prefixes on postcodes in mail bound for other European countries. (Confused? When sending mail from the USA to Germany, omit the prefix.) Alex Bochannek adds, As part of the 1993 PLZ [Postleitzahlen – Postal Codes] conversion, the trailing postal district number was dropped. For example, 1000 Berlin 20 covered part of the Berlin district of Spandau. After the 1993 conversion a finer granularity was possible and 13591 Berlin was assigned to an even smaller part of Spandau. Prior to conversion, trailing zeroes in the postal code were commonly omitted, so people would often write 1 Berlin 20 for 1000 Berlin 20. This was more obvious with large cities that had three zeroes, but even smaller cities with only one trailing zero could have that digit dropped. So you could say that while the postal code had four digits, they were written as one to four digits. The first German postal codes, which had two digits. were established in 1941, described here. Four-digit codes were introduced in West Germany between 1962 and 1964. East Germany followed suit soon thereafter, but did not use postal district numbers after the city name, but instead incorporated them into the postal code. Therefore, there was a 1000 Berlin in the west and 1xxx numbers for the eastern parts of Berlin. The postal district numbers (at least in the big cities that actually used them) had a certain sociopolitical connotation. In Berlin the famed (notorious?) district Kreuzberg used to also be known as SO36 (Süd-Ost [South East] 36) after their old postal district. I think the SO part actually predated the numbering and I suspect that it was probably used in parallel for a while, possibly to indicate mail distribution centers. But that is pretty much speculation on my part since I never actually saw the letter designation used on contemporary mail – only the digits. You can look up German postal codes here: PROF FRED FOO 1. Most specific line at the top DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 2. Less specific... MOUNT ROYAL COLLEGE 3. Less specific... 4825 RICHARD ROAD SW 4. Street Address CALGARY AB T3E 6K6 5. City Line CANADA 6. Country Line (not used in domestic mail)6 or in Frank's copy of the Deutsche Bundespost Postleitzahlenbuch ( onsite only :-) You can convert pre-1993 4-digit postalcodes to current 5-digit ones here: PROF FRED FOO 1. Most specific line at the top DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 2. Less specific... MOUNT ROYAL COLLEGE 3. Less specific... 4825 RICHARD ROAD SW 4. Street Address CALGARY AB T3E 6K6 5. City Line CANADA 6. Country Line (not used in domestic mail)7 Also note the following transcription rules for German, to be used in cases where you can't print the special German characters: GermanTranscriptionExampleVowel with Umlaut (ä ö ü) Same vowel followed by e (ae, oe, ue) Köln → KoelnGerman sharp s ess-zet (ß) Two s's (ss)Straße (street) → Strasse Sharp s is Scharfes s or Eszett in German; although it might look like a Greek beta (β), it is a ligature of long s (ſ) with s: ſs. Here is a German address with Umlauts and Sharp s and its transcription: GermanTranscriptionPROF FRED FOO 1. Most specific line at the top DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 2. Less specific... MOUNT ROYAL COLLEGE 3. Less specific... 4825 RICHARD ROAD SW 4. Street Address CALGARY AB T3E 6K6 5. City Line CANADA 6. Country Line (not used in domestic mail)8PROF FRED FOO 1. Most specific line at the top DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 2. Less specific... MOUNT ROYAL COLLEGE 3. Less specific... 4825 RICHARD ROAD SW 4. Street Address CALGARY AB T3E 6K6 5. City Line CANADA 6. Country Line (not used in domestic mail)9 Most street addresses have the street name first, then the house number. GmbH stands for Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (company with limited liability), a corporate status designation similar to English Ltd. It is capitalized as shown. About the hyphenation of German street names, Otto Stolz writes: In this example [i.e. the one above], the street name is a compound word, and the general rule is that a compound is either written in one single word, or else with hyphens between all of its (1st level) components, cf. http://www.ids-mannheim.de/service/reform/regeln2006.pdf, § 44 (p.45). Particularly, compounds starting with a proper name are always written with hyphens, cf. http://www.ids-mannheim.de/service/reform/regeln2006.pdf. (Unfortunately, the 2006 version of the official orthographic rules are in a monolithic PDF file without the possibility to link directly to the several sections.) Also from Otto Stolz: There are two more types of addresses you may wish to mention: Christian Asche reports (in June 2017): In Mannheim, some addresses in the inner city are ”blocks”, instead of regular addresses. Example:Some German cities have different names in English, such as Munich (for München), Cologne (for Köln), and Nuremberg (for Nürnberg). All mail from the USA to Germany passes through a single point: Frankfurt am Main, where it is scanned for delivery within Germany. The scanners are looking for German city names, not English ones. By the same token, American scanners do not look at German city names at all. Therefore you should use German city names in your addresses, not English names:D1, 1-3Source: Sparkasse Rhein Neckar Nord page. More information (in german only): Quadratestadt (Wikipedia). English NameGerman NameBRUNSWICKBRAUNSCHWEIGCOLOGNEKÖLNHANOVERHANNOVERMUNICHMÜNCHENNUREMBERGNÜRNBERGExample: What we know today as Germany has evolved over the last centuries from a collection of feuding duchies to a vast empire, and then to a medium-sized West European country; divided from 1945 to 1991, then unified. At its peak the German Empire encompassed . Much of this territory was lost to Germany in World Wars I and II. Hence, many cities and towns once German are now Polish, Czech, Russian, and so on, and in most cases their names have changed from German. Pre-WWI or WWII addresses referring to German town names such as Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland), Danzig (now Gdańsk in Poland), Preßburg (now Bratislava in Slovakia), Budweis (now České Budějovice in the Czech Republic), Carlsbad (now Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic), Königsberg (now Kaliningrad in Russia), etc, had to be be adjusted. In similar fashion some East German cities have been renamed (or un-renamed) since reunification, such as Karl-Marx-Stadt (back) to Chemnitz. For more maps of the shifting 20th-Century East European borders, see this page (thanks to Katarzyna Siwek for the reference). Although Germany's borders have changed repeatedly, it has always been subdivided into states (Länder). German states are not used in postal addresses, but nevertheless sometimes we find addresses in which a state name is used instead of the country, e.g. Augsburg, Bavaria. Such addresses should be converted to omit the state name and to include a postcode, which can be looked up at sites in the Links at the end of this section or in the Postleitzahlenbuch. Germany's current states are shown in the following table. When the English name of a German state or city is different from the German name, the English name is shown in parentheses. PLZ is the approximate postal code range for reality checking. January 2013... This table now incorporates an update of the PLZs from Jens Peter Hammer. My original values are in bold; either these were not very accurate, or a once-simple system has become more complicated, or some combination: NameISO 3166-2PLZFormerCapitalSome Other CitiesBaden-WürttembergBW68-69xxx, 7xxxx, 88-89xxx, 97xxxWestStuttgartBaden Baden, Freiburg, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Ludwigsburg, Mannheim, Tübingen, UlmBayern (Bavaria)BY63xxx, 8xxxx, 90-96xxxWestMünchen (Munich)Augsburg, Nürnberg, WürzburgBerlinBE10-14xxxEast/WestBerlinBrandenburgBR01xxx, 03-04xxx, 14xxx, 15-19xxxEastPotsdamCottbus, Frankfurt/OderBremenHB27xxx-28xxxWestBremenHamburgHH20xxx-22xxx, 27xxxWestHamburgHessen (Hesse, Hessia)HE6xxxx 60-61xxx, 63-65xxx, 68-69xxxWestWiesbadenDarmstadt, Frankfurt/Main, Fulda, KasselNiedersachsen (Lower Saxony)NI2xxxx 19xxx, 21xxx, 26-31xxx, 34xxx, 37-38xxx, 48-49xxxWestHannoverBraunschweig, Bremerhaven, Göttingen, Lüneburg, OsnabrückMecklenburg-Vorpommern (Mecklenburg-West Pomerania)MV18-19xxx 17-19xxx, 23xxxEastSchwerinRostock, WismarNordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westphalia)NW4xxxx, 5xxxx 32-34xxx, 37xxx, 40-53xxx, 57-59xxxWestDüsseldorfAachen, Bonn, Dortmund, Essen, Köln (Cologne), Münster, WuppertalRheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate)RP5xxxx, 67-68xxx 53-57xxx, 65-67xxx, 76xxxWestMainzBad Dürkheim, Kaiserlautern, Koblenz, Ludwigshafen, Trier, WormsSaarlandSL66xxxWestSaarbrückenSachsen (Saxony)SN0xxxx 01-02xxx, 04xxx, 07-09xxxEastDresdenChemnitz, LeipzigSachsen-Anhalt (Saxony Anhalt)ST0xxxx 06xxx, 29xxx, 38-39xxxEastMagdeburgDessau, HalleSchleswig-HolsteinSH23-25xxx 21-25xxx, 27xxxWestKielLübeckThüringen (Thuringia)TH0xxxx 04xxx, 06-07xxx, 36-37xxx, 96xxx, 98-99xxxEastErfurtEisenach, Jena In the postal oddities department, Ken Westmoreland reports on Germany's enclave in Switzerland: "Mail can be sent via Germany to D-78266 Büsingen, or via Switzerland to CH-8238 Büsingen: "This must be the only place in the world that is part of two countries' postcode systems. Interestingly, while France and Spain operate postal services side by side in Andorra, neither have postcodes for the Principality." Postage inside Andorra is free; there are offices and letterboxes throughout the country. (Also see the section on Italy for more countries or pieces of countries inside of other countries).town ST nnnnn-nnnn3 Otto Stolz lists several other places that are part of two countries' postcode systems (A for Austria, D for Germany): town ST nnnnn-nnnn4 «Parcels may be addressed to the A code, while letters may addressed to either. These four places are not really exclaves, as they are connected to the Austrian mainland – though in pathless mountain regions, whilst the roads go in from Germany. Particularily funny is the border around Jungholz: Jungholz's precincts are connected to the Austrian mainland in one single point, on top of the Sorgschrofen mountain.» Reference:
Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ] [ Google Map ]French addresses are straightforward. A typical example (from the UPU addressing formats guide) is: town ST nnnnn-nnnn5 Lines from the street address down are supposed to be in all capital letters. The French also like to write surnames in all caps, as shown, and an address can include both a street name and number (56 RUE EMILE ZOLA) and a Post Office Box (BP 90432). The F- or FR- country code prefix is omitted from the postcode in this example, but is often seen in practice. The example also shows how the town or city name can be followed by the word CEDEX (Courrier d’Entreprise à Distribution EXceptionnelle), which indicates a special delivery service for business mail; if this word is included in an address (possibly followed by a zone number, as in the example), do not omit it; it's part of the address. Conversely, don't add CEDEX unless you know it's part of the address. France still owns a tiny piece of North America, the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon (Michelon), just south of Newfoundland, the last remaining bit of New France. Mark Brader points out: "It's the only place I know of in North America where, if you go east from any part of it until you enter a different time zone, you put your watch back; certainly the only one where you put it back half an hour. SP&M uses zone -3; the island of Newfoundland, which has a southward peninsula east of SP&M, uses -3:30." Saint-Pierre and Miquelon was also one of the few parts of North America controlled by an Axis power (Vichy France) in World War II, until it was liberated by General De Gaulle (who some decades later also tried to liberate Québec :-) SP&M is listed in the IMM and addressed is if it were a country: Receveur du bureau de poste de Saint-Pierre Quiz Question 1: What other parts of North America were controlled by Axis powers in World War II? Several other spots in the Western Hemisphere are also parts of France, and share the same postal codes. These include French Guiana in South America the islands Martinique and Guadaloupe. Each of these is treated by the USPS as a distinct country for addressing purposes. Ditto for French departments in the . Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ][ Map of Czechoslovakia ] [ Map of Czech Republic ] [ Map of Slovak Republic ] The Czech Republic officially changed its English name to CZECHIA in 2016, but the USPS International Mail Manual edition of March 5, 2018, still used the name CZECH REPUBLIC, so for the present, that is still how mail from the USA must be addressed. On New Years Day, 1993, Czechoslovakia (ISO 3166 Alpha-2 code CS) split into two countries: The Czech Republic (CZ, containing Prague, Brno, Plzn, etc), and the Slovak Republic (SK, containing Bratislava). The new postal codes are as follows: town ST nnnnn-nnnn6 As you can see, the two countries share the same code space (i.e. their postcodes do not overlap). Prague and some of the other Czech and Slovak cities also put zone (district) numbers after the city name. Examples: town ST nnnnn-nnnn7 Recent guidance says to omit the country prefix from the postcode, as in this example for Slovakia: town ST nnnnn-nnnn8 Since the Czech name for Prague is Praha, you might want to use the double-city-line format when addressing mail there: town ST nnnnn-nnnn9 Don't use the old German names for Czech and Slovak cities (Preßburg, Carlsbad, Budweis, etc); see section on . Links: The official “short name” for the Czech Republic (as of 2016) is Czechia, but don't use it in postal addresses yet since it is not recognized by the USPS (click here to see the current list) (verified 20 June 2022). [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ]Between 1990 and 2006, what had been the Federated (or Federal) Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia – a federation of six Republics (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia) and two Socialist Autonomous Regions (Kosovo and Vojvodina) – became the following countries (see for native-language, alternative, and former names). Prior to 1990, the ISO 3166-1 code for Yugoslavia was YU; after that each republic received its own code. From 1990 to 2006, the republics of Serbia and Montenegro were federated into a single country having code CS (which had formally belonged to Czechoslovakia); in 2006 they separated and received the codes shown below. As always, the spelling of country names for addressing purposes is the USPS spelling since, after all, it is the USPS that must recognize the country name. KOSOVO declared itself an independent republic on 17 February 2008. At first international mail service Kosovo under the administrative supervision of an interim United Nations (U.N.) mission and required special notations in the address, now it is a regular country with its own postal codes. Here's the regular-format table for these counties: Note: The status of Kosovo vis-a-vi Serbia is complicated and special license plates and car codes might be required when driving from Kosovo to Serbia; see this Wikipedia page. Slovenian Post requires the ISO Alpha-2 country code to be used on all items entering or leaving Slovenia. "Bosnia-Herzegovina" (Bosna-i-Hercegovina) sounds like two countries but really is one, with two main parts: a Serbian part (Republika Srpska, which has its own postal website HERE, and the Bosniak/Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Federacija Bosna-i-Hercegovina); the latter also administers a separate district named Brcko in the northeast which is not part of Republika Srpska or the Bosniak/Croat Federation. (Note: Bosnian refers to nationality, Bosniak refers to the Bosnian-speaking population, as opposed to the Serbs and Croats). Bosnia-Herzegovina has 5-digit postal codes: JOHN DOE ACME INC 123 MAIN ST NW STE 12 ANYTOWN NY 123450 From September 2006, the country code for Serbia, including the autonomous regions, is RS: RS-11000 BEOGRAD (formerly YU-11000 BEOGRAD) On January 1, 2005, Serbian Post introduced a six-digit address code for each Serbian postal address, to replace the previous 5-digit postal code. The website shows the following sample address: JOHN DOE ACME INC 123 MAIN ST NW STE 12 ANYTOWN NY 123451 in which the first line is the person's name (Petar Petrovich), the second line is presumably the street and house number (Palmoticheva 027 008), the third line is the postcode and code (11000 Beograd = Belgrade; I'm not sure what the small notation is to the right of Београд), and the fourth line shows the new address code at the bottom right. The site is not clear about the relationship of the postcode and the address code (the example shows both the postcode and the address code in the same address, but the text says Instead of the existing postal code, a new address code is introduced), but the Universal Postal Union writes the same address like this: JOHN DOE ACME INC 123 MAIN ST NW STE 12 ANYTOWN NY 123452 The USPS, however, still lists the name of the country as SERBIA-MONTENEGRO (IMM Issue 34, May 14, 2007 Updated with Postal Bulletin Revisions Through February 28, 2008). Macedonia (Makedonia, Makedonija) was a controversial name, contested by Greece an the former Yugoslav repbublic. Effective 26 January 2020, USPS adopted the name (REPUBLIC OF) NORTH MACEDONIA (IMM Revision: Republic of North Macedonia Name Change). Also note the usage of the Cyrillic versus Latin alphabet. Croatian is always written with Latin letters (but see THIS); Serbian (spoken in Serbia, Montenegro, and part of Bosnia) can be written with Cyrillic or Latin (BELGRADE can be БЕОГРАД or BEOGRAD). Latin letters seem to be the rule in Bosnia and Kosovo but Cyrillic is also used; Cyrillic predominates in Macedonia. People of many nationalities besides Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, etc, live in these countries, including Hungarians, Romanians, Czechs, Slovaks, Albanians, Turks, and Gypsies. Reportedly, in Vojvodina the street signs used to be in six languages: Hungarian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, and Serbian/Croatian. Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ] [ Soviet Union Map ] What was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) until 1992 now consists of the new (or old) countries shown in the table below. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, these countries have also been known – with decreasing frequency – as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The country names shown are the ones recognized by the USPS (highlighted names link to postal authorities, or at least they did at the time this section was last updated but web addresses tend to change out from under us). See for long, local, and other forms of each country name. The ISO and Car codes are explained in the section. The postcode formats and city line examples come from the Universal Postal Union except where noted. The 1977 stamp shown at right (image from Wikipedia) promotes the use of the USSR's newly-introduced postal codes.USPS NameISOCarCity Line FormatCity Line ExampleARMENIAAMARMnnnnnn town375010 YEREVANAZERBAIJANAZAZnnnnnn town370139 BAKUBELARUSBYBYnnnnnn town(-zone)220050 MINSK-50ESTONIAEEESTnnnnn town10001 TALLINNGEORGIAGEGEnnnn town0100 TBILISIKAZAKHSTANKZKZtown Lithuania switched from a 4-digit to a 5-digit zipcode about 2005, and now offers an English-language postal website, http://www.post.lt/en/, including postcode lookup. As you can see, the UPU says that Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Russia put the postal code on a line by itself under the city name. This is a rather new phenomenon, and it might be confusing for USPS postal sorters, which until about 2000 could always expect the name of the city to appear on the line just above the name of the country (the has adopted the same practice), and in any case does not seem to be the form used on most mail pieces. In the 20th Century, most of these countries wrote addresses backwards from how we write them, e.g. with country name on top, the city line as the second line ("г." stands for "город", meaning town or city), the street line next, and finally the company or person, and the postcode was on the right: JOHN DOE ACME INC 123 MAIN ST NW STE 12 ANYTOWN NY 123453 This form fell into disuse about 2000, at least in Russia and Ukraine, which have switched to the same minor-to-major top-to-bottom presentation used in most other places, while other former Soviet republics such as Kyrgyzstan still use the major-to-minor form [more about Kyrgyzstan]. In any case, when addressing mail to these countries, write addresses in the normal USA order, because the USPS looks at the bottom of the address, not the top, for the City line and Country name, and of course write at least the City and Country lines in Roman letters. This form works best (the last two lines are, of course, omitted for mail within Russia): JOHN DOE ACME INC 123 MAIN ST NW STE 12 ANYTOWN NY 123454 A transliterated version should work: JOHN DOE ACME INC 123 MAIN ST NW STE 12 ANYTOWN NY 123455 And an English translation should work too, but might result in delayed delivery since it requires re-translation of the local parts: JOHN DOE ACME INC 123 MAIN ST NW STE 12 ANYTOWN NY 123456 At present I do not know if translation or transliteration is more effective nor, if transliteration is preferred, which transliteration system is best. Where should the postcode go? The examples just above (postcode left of the city name, no prefix) seem to show the prevailaing usage (in 2004), despite the UPU recommends of putting it on a line by itself. All of the following formats have been seen (by me): JOHN DOE ACME INC 123 MAIN ST NW STE 12 ANYTOWN NY 123457 Russia, Ukraine, and other former Soviet Republics have subdivisions called (in the nominative singular): Область (Oblast = Region), Автономная область (Avtonomnaya oblast = Autonomous region), Автономный округ (Avtonomnyj okrug = Autonomous province), Город (Gorod = City), Край (Kray = Territory), Місто (Ukrainian: Misto = Independent city), or Республика (Respublika = Republic). In Russia alone (the largest country on earth, by far), there are approximately 89 subdivisions. In Ukraine, 25; Belarus: 7, and so on. The subdivision (oblast, kray, etc) should be included when the mail is not addressed to a large city (regional center, capital of oblast, independent city, etc). In Ukraine, for example, mail being sent to Zaporozhye, Kharkov, Kiev, Chernigov or any other regional center (capital of oblast) does not require any indication of oblast (nobody addresses mail to Kiev, Kievskaya oblast or Vinnitsa, Vinnitskaya oblast, etc). However, if mail is being sent to, say, Pology, which is a district center within Zaporozhye oblast, there should be an indication of oblast (Zaporozhskaya oblast). Examples: LatinCyrillicA.P. Federenko "ul." stands for úlitsa (улица) = street. There are no official abbreviations for subdivisions in Russia or Ukraine like those for states of the USA. However, shortening for some regions (oblast) are accepted and understood, e.g. Moskovskaya oblast - Mosk. obl. or MO. Postal codes are required everywhere. LatinCyrillicIzdatelstvo Inostrannyi Yazik When addressing in Cyrillic, you should include the city name in English (e.g. MOSCOW, KIEV). I do not know for a fact that mail pieces from America to (say) Russia are flown to any destination besides Moscow, but just now I noticed that the latest USPS Internation Mail Manual includes a large table, , listing hundreds of cities by postal code! (Follow the link and then scroll down.) Furthermore, the IMM states that "Addresses in Russian, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Cyrillic, Japanese, or Chinese characters must bear an interline translation in English of the names of the post office and country of destination. If the English translation is not known, the foreign language words must be spelled in roman characters (print or script)." The IMM, however, does not give any examples for Russia or other former Soviet republics, or define what it means by post office in the sentence just quoted (e.g. whether the oblast is included). Nor does it show how to write the interline translation; for example: or:JOHN DOE ACME INC 123 MAIN ST NW STE 12 ANYTOWN NY 123458 JOHN DOE ACME INC 123 MAIN ST NW STE 12 ANYTOWN NY 123459 Personally I suspect that "interline translation" is likely to confuse the postal scanners and sorters in the destination country (thanks to Bill Conerly for asking about this). A piece of Russia, the Kaliningradskaya Oblast, or Kaliningrad Free Economic Zone, lies on the Baltic coast, about 500km west of contiguous Russia, with Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus in between, and sharing a border with Poland. The city of Kaliningrad is the former Königsberg, once capital of East Prussia and later part of Germany, and was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1945, becoming the USSR's main Baltic port. Today it is the Hong Kong of Russia. It is addressed like any other Russian city: OSHKOSH WI 54901 (5-digit ZIP) FRANKLIN SQUARE NY 11010 (5-digit ZIP) NEW YORK NY 10025-7799 (ZIP+4) FORT RICHARDSON AK 99505-5700 (ZIP+4)0 Another piece of Russia, the villages of Sankova and Medvezhe, lies inside Belarus. Although the Cyrillic alphabet was used throughout most of the Soviet Union, some of the former Soviet republics are converting to Roman or Arabic script. Georgia and Armenia each have always had their own unique scripts. Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ]Of course Asia also includes much of the former Soviet Union (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Eastern Russia), but that has its . USPS NameISOCarCity Line FormatCity Line ExampleAFGHANISTANAF--townKABULBANGLADESHBDBDtown - nnnnDAKHA - 1340BHUTANBT--townTIMPHUBRUNEI DARUSSALAMBNBRUtown LLnnnnBANDAR SERI BEGAWAN BB3510CAMBODIAKHKtown nnnnnPHNOM PENH 12203CHINACNRCnnnnnn town, province310027 HANGZOU, ZHEJIANGEAST TIMOR (*)TL--townHONG KONG (*)HKHKtownKOWLOONINDIAININDtown-nnn nnnNEW DELHI-110 034INDONESIAIDRItown nnnnnBANDUNG 40115JAPANJPJlocality Notes:
(June 2017) THIS ENTIRE SECTION IS OBSOLETE. The Peoples Republic of China has a completely new addressing scheme, described HERE (at the Universal Postal Union). Taiwan seems to have disappeared from the UPU listings; Taiwan address format is described in this Wikipedia page.Don't mix them up. The Peoples Republic of China is the big ("mainland") one. The Republic of China (ROC) is the little one, also known as Taiwan or (a long time ago) Formosa (from when it was a Portuguese colony). The 2017 USPS IMM lists only the short names, CHINA, TAIWAN, and FORMOSA (obsolete synonym for TAIWAN that should not be used since it is likely to offend). The USPS does not recognize PEOPLES REPUBLIC or REPUBLIC or P.R. as part of the country name. The Peoples Republic of China has provinces like Shanxi, and address are written as in the examples below, which I have seen on actual letters. The full form is town, province postcode, except for Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing, which do not fall under the jurisdiction of any province-level administrative region. Recent UPU addressing recommendations are vague about the Chinese province and other address parts (such a prefecture); certainly it should be included if the postal code is not known, and I'm sure it can't hurt even when the postal code is included. In the absence of clear addressing guidelines, the more information the better. WUHAN, HUBEIPostal code unknownTAIYUAN, SHANXI(ditto)310027 HANGZHOU, ZHEJIANG Full address line100081 BEIJINGBig city200052 SHANGHAI(ditto) As in Japan (next section), Chinese addresses in Chinese are written major-to-minor, but for Roman transcription the USU gives the following example, which is not major-to-minor, but not exactly minor-to-major either: OSHKOSH WI 54901 (5-digit ZIP) FRANKLIN SQUARE NY 11010 (5-digit ZIP) NEW YORK NY 10025-7799 (ZIP+4) FORT RICHARDSON AK 99505-5700 (ZIP+4)1 When I last looked (May 2012) the China Post website did not furnish any addressing guidelines. Taiwan does not appear in the USU listings, and Taiwan Post does not offer addressing advice. Addresses I have seen go like this: OSHKOSH WI 54901 (5-digit ZIP) FRANKLIN SQUARE NY 11010 (5-digit ZIP) NEW YORK NY 10025-7799 (ZIP+4) FORT RICHARDSON AK 99505-5700 (ZIP+4)2 Note that there was a big spelling reform (for Romanization of Chinese names) in Peoples China in 1979, but not in Taiwan. Thus Peoples China uses Pinyin transcription, and the ROC uses Wade-Giles. Some examples: New (Pinyin)Old (Wade-Giles)BeijingPekingSichuanSzechuanMao ZedongMao Tse TungYijingI-Ching Native (Han) scripts also differ; Peoples China uses a simplified form, Taiwan uses the traditional form. It should be noted that Chinese (Han) writing is mostly language-independent, and therefore can be used all over China, where dozens of languages are spoken (to name just a few: Buyei, Gan, Hakka, Jinyu, Guanhua (Mandarin), Min Nan, Xiang, Yue (Cantonese), Hmong, Yi, Zhuang, Korean, Mongolean, Tibetan). However, Romanized transcriptions are based on a particular language such as Mandarin, and therefore lack the same degree of universality. The Provinces and Autonomous Regions of Peoples China are listed in the following table, as they are used in addresses. Provinces are in regular type; autonomous regions are shown in italics. The Pinyin spelling is given on the left with the traditional English form on the right (often Wade-Giles, but not always). Use the Pinyin form. PinyinTraditionalPinyinTraditionalAnhuiAnhweiJilinKirinBeijingPekingLiaoningLiaoningFujianFukienNei MongolInner MongoliaGansuKansuNingxia HuiNingsia HuiGuangdongKwantungQinghaiTsinghaiGuangxi ZhuangKwangsi ChuangShaanxiShensiGuizhouKweichowShandongShantungHainanHainanShanghaiShanghaiHebeiHopehShanxiShansiHeilongjiangHeilungkiangSichuanSzechuanHenanHonanTianjinTientsinHubeiHupeiXinjiang UygurSinkiang UighurHunanHunanXizangTibetJiangsuKiansuYunnanYunnanJiangxiKiangsiZhejiangChekiang For postal purposes, Tibet (བོད) is a province of China called Xizang, but this is a touchy political issue. Hong Kong (Xianggang) became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the Peoples Republic of China July 1, 1997, but addressing conventions have not changed. Here's a sample Hong Kong address: OSHKOSH WI 54901 (5-digit ZIP) FRANKLIN SQUARE NY 11010 (5-digit ZIP) NEW YORK NY 10025-7799 (ZIP+4) FORT RICHARDSON AK 99505-5700 (ZIP+4)3 Hong Kong is still listed in the USPS IMM, and in fact (as of May 2004, and checked again in June 2009) Hong Kong Post still lists its own address as: OSHKOSH WI 54901 (5-digit ZIP) FRANKLIN SQUARE NY 11010 (5-digit ZIP) NEW YORK NY 10025-7799 (ZIP+4) FORT RICHARDSON AK 99505-5700 (ZIP+4)4 Similarly for Macao (Macau, Aomen). According to the IMM, mail from the USA is still addressed to MACAO or MACAU. Although postcodes are not needed for Hong Kong and Macau, a single postcode has been assigned to each region to satisfy the growing requirement for postcodes: Hong Kong999077Macau999078 Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ]Mail to Japan can be addressed in Roman letters, with address lines written top to bottom in minor-to-major order. These mail pieces are sorted by hand upon arrival to Japan, where postal scanners handle only Kanji and Kana addresses written in major-to-minor order. A typical romanized address looks like this: Mr. Taro TanakaPerson's nameFujitsu LimitedCompany nameOptical Network Systems Development Department4-1-1 KamikodanakaStreetNakahara-ku"ku" = WardKawasaki-shi"shi" = CityKanagawa-ken"ken" = Prefecture211-8588Postal codeJAPANCountry Other suffixes include -cho (district within a town), -chome (zone within a district), -ban (block within a zone), -go (house within a block) or -biru (large building). These subdivisions are numbered; the street address above means 4-chome 1-ban 1-biru. Tokyo is so big, it is called Tokyo-to and contains -shi of its own. The prefecture can be omitted for large cities, as can the -shi or -to suffix; thus the address above could also be written: OSHKOSH WI 54901 (5-digit ZIP) FRANKLIN SQUARE NY 11010 (5-digit ZIP) NEW YORK NY 10025-7799 (ZIP+4) FORT RICHARDSON AK 99505-5700 (ZIP+4)5 Until a few years ago, the postal code was just three digits. Now the first three digits are the area and the last four are the district within the area; the 7-digit code denotes a post office. Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ]Singapore is a bit unusual in that it is a city that is also a country. And it has postal codes. (Vatican City is another such city/country.) Logically we would write Singapore addresses like this: OSHKOSH WI 54901 (5-digit ZIP) FRANKLIN SQUARE NY 11010 (5-digit ZIP) NEW YORK NY 10025-7799 (ZIP+4) FORT RICHARDSON AK 99505-5700 (ZIP+4)6 But the USPS does not want postal codes on the country line, so instead we pretend that Singapore is the city name as well as the country name: OSHKOSH WI 54901 (5-digit ZIP) FRANKLIN SQUARE NY 11010 (5-digit ZIP) NEW YORK NY 10025-7799 (ZIP+4) FORT RICHARDSON AK 99505-5700 (ZIP+4)7 Singapore postal codes were changed from 4 to 6 digits in 1995. All the street signs also had to be changed, since they had 4-digit postcodes on them. Under the new system, each building in Singapore has its own unique postcode. Link: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ]Addresses in India have city lines like town postalcode. The postal code (PIN, Postal Index Number) has six digits with a space in the middle: OSHKOSH WI 54901 (5-digit ZIP) FRANKLIN SQUARE NY 11010 (5-digit ZIP) NEW YORK NY 10025-7799 (ZIP+4) FORT RICHARDSON AK 99505-5700 (ZIP+4)8 India Post recommends using BLOCK CAPITAL letters for the postal town. The state names are not used. According to Yateendra Joshi of New Delhi, "State names are totally redundant and are not required in the address at all. The post code and the delivery post office go together, as in Hyderabad 500 032 or Bangalore 560 012. Nothing but a space, ideally a dash, should come between the two. If you need to specify the state, it should come after the postal code, as in Hyderabad 500 032 Andhra Pradesh (or AP)." This was explained in more detail at the Maharashtra Postal Circle site, which shows contradictory examples such as these: OSHKOSH WI 54901 (5-digit ZIP) FRANKLIN SQUARE NY 11010 (5-digit ZIP) NEW YORK NY 10025-7799 (ZIP+4) FORT RICHARDSON AK 99505-5700 (ZIP+4)9https://www.usps.com/0https://www.usps.com/1https://www.usps.com/2 Of course when addressing mail to India from the USA, write INDIA as the final line. For the record, India has the following states (postal abbreviation shown): APAndhra PradeshARArunachal PradeshASAssamBRBiharCGChhattisgarhGOA or GAGoaGUJ or GJGujaratHPHimachal PradeshHRHaryanaJKJammu and Kashmir??JharkhandKRN or KAKarnatakaKER or KLKeralaMPMadhya PradeshMAH or MHMaharashtraMNP or MNManipurMEG or MLMeghalayaMIZ or MZMizoramNLDNagalandOROrissa (now also called Odisha)PU or PBPunjabRAJ or RJRajasthanSKM or SKSikkimTNTamil NaduTRP or TRTripuraUPUttar PradeshUA or UKUttaranchal (now also called Uttarakhand)WBWest Bengal Plus the following union territories: ANAndaman and Nicobar IslandsCHD or CGChandigarhDNH or DNDadra and Nagar HaveliDDDaman and DiuDEL or DLDelhiLKP or LDLakshadweepPDY or PYPondicherry Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ]Here is a table of countries in the geographic Middle East (the Arabian Peninsula east of the Bosporus, south of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan (which are listed in the section), plus Iran, but not including Egypt, which is listed in the section because most of it is on the African continent), showing the USPS name for each country, the ISO and Car codes (as in the table for ), the City Line format (L stands for an uppercase letter, n stands for a numeric digit, italic words such as town are to be replaced appropriately, and punctuation and non-italic characters are literal), and a sample City Line taken, in most cases, from the Universal Postal Union. For long and other forms of the country names, see the . Links from country names are to postal authorities, if known, otherwise to other postal information pages for the country. USPS NameISOCarCity Line FormatCity Line ExampleBAHRAIN (*)BHBRNnnn town317 AL-MANAMAHIRAN (*)IRIRtown nnnnn nnnnnTEHRAN 12345 67890IRAQIQIRQtownBAGHDADISRAEL (*)ILILnnnnnnn town61002 TEL-AVIVJORDANJOHKJtown nnnnnAMMAN 11937KUWAITKWKWTnnnnn town54551 KUWAITLEBANON (*)LBRLtown nnnn nnnnRIAS EL SOLH BEIRUT 1107 2810OMANOM--nnn town133 MUSCATPALESTINIAN TERRITORY (*)PS--townGAZA CITYQATARQAQAtownDOHASAUDI ARABIASASAtown nnnnnRIYADH 11187SYRIA (*)SYSYRnnnn town0100 DAMASCUSTURKEY (*)TRTRnnnnn town06101 ANKARAUNITED ARAB EMIRATES (*)AEUAEbox Notes:
A table of countries of continental Africa and nearby island nations follows, showing the USPS name for each country, the ISO and Car codes (as in the table for ; these codes do not seem to be used in African postal addresses), the City Line format (L stands for an uppercase letter, n stands for a numeric digit, italic words such as town are to be replaced appropriately, and punctuation and non-italic characters are literal), and a sample City Line taken, in most cases, from the Universal Postal Union. For long and other forms of the country names, see the . Links from country names are to postal authorities, if known. USPS NameISOCarCity Line FormatCity Line ExampleALGERIADZDZnnnnn town16027 ALGIERSANGOLAAO--townLUANDABENINBJDYnn BP nnnn Do not write AFRICA next to or under the country name. According to the Universal Postal Union, the following African countries write the postal code on a line by itself: BENIN, CAPE VERDE, EGYPT, KENYA, MAURITIUS, SOUTH AFRICA, SUDAN, and SWAZILAND, as shown in the table. This is OK with the USPS, but in case it conflicts with your record-keeping or database requirements, it is probably OK to include the postal code in the City Line. Notes:
Links: Quiz Question 2: If a person from Nigeria is a Nigerian, then what is someone from Niger? [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ]The following table shows localities in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that are listed in the USPS International Mail Manual as primary destinations. Those which lack an ISO code are not listed in ISO 3166, and therefore are not countries by the ISO's definition, but some that have codes (e.g. French Polynesia, New Caledonia) are not countries either, but parts or dependencies of other countries such as France. See for full and other country names. Not listed are the following United States territories and possessions, which are addressed as if they were : Baker Island, Eastern Island, Guam, Howland Island, Koror, Manua Islands, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Midway, Navassa Island, Northern Mariana Islands, Pago Pago, Palau, Saipan, and Tinian. USPS NameISOCarCity Line FormatCity Line ExampleASCENSION----town Don't write SOUTH PACIFIC, SOUTH ATLANTIC, or any similar hints under the country name (despite advice to the contrary from addressees in those localities). Notes:
The Pacific islands are sometimes assigned to three groups: MELANESIA (Papua New Guinea, Bougainville, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji), MICRONESIA (the Federated States of Micronesia – Pohnpei, Kosrae, Chuuk and Yap – plus Guam, Palau, Saipan, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati), and POLYNESIA (Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti, Hawaiʻi, Cook Islands, etc, and by some accounts New Zealand). The three groups together are known as OCEANIA. These classifications have nothing to do with postal addressing and should not be used in postal addresses. New Caledonia and Tahiti are Overseas Territories of France, not Overseas Departments, and are slightly more autonomous. Hence the fact that they have their own postal administrations from La Poste, and issue their own stamps – French postcodes are comparatively recent introductions. They even have their own currency, the French Pacific Franc. Also see: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ] [ Map ]King George, You Have Mail! Where to find the most confusing addresses on earth... What should be the name of this section? THE UNITED KINGDOM AND IRELAND (as it was once labeled), while technically correct if IRELAND is taken as the name of the country and not the island, can easily be misconstrued. THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND would not be correct since there is no country whose name is REPUBLIC OF IRELAND. THE UNITED KINGDOM AND ÉIRE is correct (two non-overlapping countries) but it contains a mixture of languages. Hence BRITAIN AND IRELAND (two non-overlapping islands) – perhaps not quite adequate either since it might not encompass the various associated outlying islands. Let's begin by reviewing the terminology:
Here's a summary table for the Islands of Britain and Ireland, the Crown Dependencies, and the British Overseas Territories. The notation and formats used are the very latest recommended by Royal Mail (except Ireland, which has nothing to do with Royal Mail). As always, links are to the appropriate postal authorities. British Antarctic Territory is not included because "you can't get there from here" (the USPS does not recognize it as a destination). Similarly for the British Indian Ocean Territory (Diego Garcia, etc), Akrotiri and Dhekelia (on Cyprus), etc, which are SBAs (Sovereign Base Areas) under British military jurisdiction, so use BFPO numbers. Akrotiri is BFPO 57 and Dhekelia BFPO 58. BFPO has assigned a number of 485 to Diego Garcia as a part of a numbering system for Royal Navy ships; the "ship" is Naval Party (NP) 1002. NP 1002 is not an actual vessel, but the the name for the group of Royal Navy and Royal Marines who run the civilian government on Diego Garcia. They are headed by a Royal Navy officer who represents Britain on the island. The US Navy describes the situation better here. The BFPO number is here. USPS NameISOCarCity Line FormatCity and Country Line ExampleALDERNEYGBGBAisland Also see: ENGLAND Mail to England proper, by the definition above, is sent to ENGLAND. Traditional English addresses tend to have lots of parts that we are not used to seeing, like: https://www.usps.com/4 Eden Cottage (Name of House) is in May's Green, which is a Hamlet (or in Royal Mail terminology, a Double Dependent Locality Name: a collection of 5-20 houses) in the Village of Harpsden, which is served by the Postal Town, Henley, which is on the river Thames, in the County of Oxfordshire (CLICK HERE for a table of counties, and to find out why Oxon is an abbreviation for Oxfordshire) and the Post Code is RG9 4AJ. The postal town should be written in uppercase and, as noted above, current practice seems to favor omitting the county, since counties are a moving target anyway. (It's difficult for Americans to comprehend the constant reshuffling of British counties, given the immutability of our own states, not to mention the fanatical cultural nationalism surrounding statehood :-) (Apparently, it is also difficult for some Britons.) Recently Royal Mail (the British postal service) has been updating its addressing standards and recommendations. The Royal Mail website includes an Address Management page (referenced below) that summarizes the new format. Since it is a web page, it is likely to disappear at any moment, so I've taken the liberty of reproducing its summary table, titled What Is a Correct Postal Address?: InformationRequired?ExampleName of addressee (Title, initials, surname)As applicableMr. A. SmithCompany/organizationAs applicableAcme PlcBuilding nameYes (except if it has a number)Acme HouseNumber of building and name of street or roadYes3 High StreetAdditional locality informationYes (only where similar road name exists within a post town area)Hedle endPost town (capital letters)YesSOUTHAMPTONCountyA County address isn't required, provided the post town and postcode are included.HampshirePostcode (capital letters)YesSO32 4NG Thus the example address given previously would now be written like this: https://www.usps.com/5 …except that…... for our purposes (sending mail from the USA to these other places), we have to follow the guidelines of our own postal system, the USPS, which, as noted at the beginning of this document, prefers to have the City Line immediately preceding the country line: https://www.usps.com/6 This can be seen in Issue 37, June 2010 (the current issue when this sentence was last edited) of the International Mail Manaual, Section 122, which shows this example: https://www.usps.com/7 (Recall that USPS treats ENGLAND, GREAT BRITAIN, and UNITED KINGDOM as synonyms.) A source at Royal Mail comments as follows: "Your 'what is a correct postal address?' is a good find. In fact, I could be pedantic and point out that it's possible to have two levels of street information, and two levels of additional locality information. It's even possible to have two levels of building name, but that's rare indeed! All this might amount to information overload, but if you want the definitive list of bits that make up an address as far as Royal Mail is concerned, it goes: ItemRemarksName detailsIn fact Royal Mail takes no interest in the name and keeps no record on its address databaseOrganisation NameDepartment NameName of BuildingPossibly two lines thereofBuilding Number and name of street or roadThere can be two street names, one so-called 'secondary thoroughfare' which, if present, comes first) Additional locality names (possibly two thereof, each on its own line)Post TownALL UPPERCASECountyRoyal Mail doesn't recommend the use of county, and in addresses from Royal Mail including the database extracts we sell it is never used.PostcodeALL UPPERCASECountryALL UPPERCASE "There is also a different format of address when there is a PO Box. In such cases it is: ItemRemarksName detailsOrganisation NameDepartment NamePO Box nnnnnnPost TownALL UPPERCASEPostcodeALL UPPERCASECountryALL UPPERCASE "In both cases, the only mandatory elements of the address are Post Town and Postcode. Of course without some sort of street or PO Box details the address is incomplete and some of them must be present, but the rules for valid combinations are exceptionally complicated - as you imply with your wonderful 'where to find the most confusing addresses on earth' introduction." Royal Mail's recommendation to omit the county from the address is not without controversy; some Britons prefer to keep it, and in fact insist on doing so. The UK postcode system is shared by England, Scotland, Wales, the Crown Dependencies, and certain of the Overseas Territories. UK postcodes follow these patterns (A = Alphabetic Letter, N = Numeric Digit): https://www.usps.com/8 Note that all start with a letter, have at least one digit in the first part, and all end with a space and then NAA. These are the rules, and the following are the exceptions that prove them: GIR 0AAPostcode for a national bank conceived in the 1960s/1970s called GiroBank.SAN TA1Postcode for Father Christmas at Reindeerland.ASCN 1ZZAscension IslandBIQQ 1ZZBritish Antarctic TerritoryFIQQ 1ZZ Falkland Islands.STHL 1ZZSaint Helena.SIQQ 1ZZSouth Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Here are some sample city lines using traditional English addressing (i.e. before about 2001, when counties were included in the address): https://www.usps.com/9 These are now rendered with the postal town in uppercase, the county omitted, and the postcode on its own line: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS00 Here is your secret decoder ring for UK postal codes, courtesy of George D (which by now might be slightly obsolete).
There are a couple of exceptions worth mentioning. London postal codes have starting letters which use the points of the compass (eg N4 6BQ for an address in the north of the city or SW1 4AB for one in the south-west). Also, what the post office calls large users have their own postcodes - mainly organisations which get 50+ items of mail per day - although these look like normal postcodes. (End quote from George D) Mark Brader adds, There are 8 of these, but not the eight 45-degree points. S and NE are not used (and those codes were given to Sheffield and Newcastle instead); EC and WC (east/west central) are used. Ben Watson adds, The reason London postcodes 'areas' are based on points of the compass is not because the city is so large, but because postally, London has been divided this way for well over a hundred years. Around London, you can see that some of the very old street name signs have NW or whatever after or below the street name (modern London street signs state the full postal district - eg. NW1). Mark Brader observes that the system has been extended twice – from the original NW to NW1 in the first half of the 20th century, then to NW1 1AB in the second half as your other submitters have mentioned. Some of the street signs with 'NW1' would date from before there were postal codes. Ben Watson continues, “As an aside, the numbering of districts within a postal area (at least in London) looks illogical, as NW1 may not be adjacent to NW2. However, there some sort of logic behind it! The district of the main office in an area is always 1, then the rest of the numbers were assigned sequentially to an alphabetically ordered list of the rest of the districts in the area..” Related to this, another assumption of mine is that the reason the UK national postcode system is somewhat weird is that when they introduced postcodes across the country in the sixties, they basically adopted the London system as-is (or as-was) and expanded it across rest of the country. Which is confirmed by Hugh Dunne: When British postal codes were first introduced, they only covered London and were of the form W1, SE9, etc – but this was in the 1800s. Thus 'London W1', although seen in literature, is archaic and should not be encountered in modern addresses. Mark Brader states, however, that This is wrong. There were no numbers back then. The term for notations like 'London NW1' and 'New York 22', where the coded part is meaningful only with respect to the particular city, is 'postal zone', not 'postal code'. In some places when postal codes were introduced they were designed to incorporate the existing postal zones, such as London. I believe some other UK cities had numbered postal zones and these became the numerical part of the postal code, e.g. Birmingham 2 would now have B2 as the first part of all its codes, but this is partly only my conjecture [Ken Westmoreland says this is correct: Interestingly, in UK phone directories for Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Belfast, it is common to see the old zones used in addresses- previously they did have the full postcode; hence St Mary's University College in Belfast would be listed as 191 Falls Road, 12, not BT12 6FE.]. Similarly, I believe New York 22, N.Y. became NEW YORK NY 10022 [true but only for Manhattan]; I don't know about other US cities with postal zones. In Canada, all postal zones were obsoleted when postal codes came into use. The British armed forces have their own mail delivery system and addressing conventions (British Forces Post Office), just as the US armed forces do (APO, FPO). See the links below. Bernard Treves Brown adds (in April 2003) that “You might care to note that the post office has invented 'Virtual Post Towns'; thus my address is: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS01 “I use the old style, including the county, since HIGH PEAK will not appear on any list of towns, and you would need a detailed atlas to find Whaley Bridge. The postcode indicates that mail is delivered via Stockport, and indeed up to 6 years ago the HIGH PEAK line replaced STOCKPORT in the address. Since Stockport is some 17 miles away (different county &c.&c.) this regularly caused confusion. In HIGH PEAK we now use the name of an area, not the name of a large settlement. I say 'an area' because to everyone except the post office HIGH PEAK includes a number of large towns like Buxton and Glossop which are their own post towns.” LinksHere are some links to Royal Mail and other official websites. Most of the links that were here before are defunct or have turned into commercials; c'est la Web. Starting in April 2003, the Royal Mail website began to require registration and login for some services (perhaps to restrict the number of address/postcode queries), and also to employ popup ads. As of 2006, the restrictions have eased a bit; you can make a certain number of inquiries without login, but you must log in to make more (marked * below). The address lookup service that was once online must now be ordered on CD.Other Links of Interest (verified 2015-11-09): Quiz Question 3: What is the Flag of England?SCOTLAND AND WALES Scotland and Wales are separate countries within the United Kingdom, on the island of Britain. They use UK postal codes. You can write SCOTLAND or WALES as the bottom line of the address, since these are country names recognized by the USPS (Authority: IMM Issues 23-28, July 2000 - January 2003). According to Finlay Smith, Scottish postal codes are based on postal towns: EH (Edinburgh) G (Glasgow) IV (Inverness) AB (Aberdeen) PH (Perth) PA (Paisley) KW (Kirkwall) DG (Dumfries) TD (Tweeddale) FK (Falkirk) and HS (Harris), which cover the whole of Scotland except a small part near the border which has a CA (Carlisle) postcode which annoys the locals (especially when they shut the local sorting office and their mail started to be franked with a Carlisle frank). These regions can cover vast areas and are not necessarily close to the named town. (Scotland also includes the Outer Hebrides, which also have UK postal codes.) Ken Westmoreland adds, Berwick-upon-Tweed in England is covered by the Scottish postcode area TD, much to the annoyance of locals there. Although Scotland and Wales have counties just like England does (e.g. Clackmannanshire, Stirlingshire, West Lothian, etc, in Scotland), we don't necessarily write them. They are not essential for addressing, and in Scotland especially, using a county name might do more harm than good, since there are old and new county names and boundaries and much confusion about which town is in which county. From Chris Cooke in Scotland: The big thing to realise about counties is that in 1974, most English and Welsh counties were changed, and Scottish and Northern Irish counties were abolished completely. The Northern Ireland counties were later reinstated I think, but Scotland remained divided into regions (yeuch) until 1996, when they were all abolished and the counties reinstated - but with different boundaries to the pre-1974 ones! England kept its counties throughout, but in 1974 and 1987 (?) and 1996 there were quite a few changes. As to Wales, Alan Perry reported in July 2001, There was yet another change to county names in Wales [in 1994]; places like Gwynedd and South Glamorgan etc no longer exist! The former 8 counties have been replaced by 22 county borough councils (and a few newly-named county councils). Addressing conventions from the Royal Mail Postal Address Book for Wales indicates addresses should be:
Alan says, Most folk use the full address for a county borough but often leave out the county council name in the second case. I don't know why. I suspect, however, that this information is dated – I can't find any material on this at the Royal Mail site, which makes sense now that counties have been deprecated. Links: Quiz Question 4: Who is the queen of Scotland? THE CROWN DEPENDENCIES These include the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands (Jersey and Guernsey, where the cows come from, Sark and Alderney). None of these are part of the UK, but all of them are British Islands (strictly defined). According to IMM, the country names are CHANNEL ISLANDS and ISLE OF MAN. Ken Westmoreland reports: The Channel Islands and Isle of Man didn't have their own postal administrations until the late 1960s, when the UK let them set up their own ones. Previously they were covered by the UK's GPO, just as Puerto Rico, USVI, etc, are still covered by the USPS. Guernsey now has blue pillar boxes, the only British territory I know that does. Hence they didn't become part of the UK postcode system until the early 1990s. Channel Islands and Isle of Man postcodes begin as follows: JEJerseyGYGuernsey, Alderney, and SarkIMIsle of Man Here is a sample Isle of Man address: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS04 and a sample Channel Islands address – note in this case both the town and the island must be included: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS05 More on the Isle of Man from Michael T Farnsworth (who lives there): We do indeed tend to refer to the Isle of Man as being within the British Isles. Although unfortunately in these days of internet ordering and fill in boxes I find myself needing to go with an address like:16 Woodbourne Sq AddressDOUGLASCityIM1 4DBPostal CodeISLE OF MANUSPS Country NameMore info on the Crown Dependencies (all links OK as of 20 June 2003): THE OVERSEAS TERRITORIESThe British Overseas Territories are Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Saint Helena and its Dependencies, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Most of these are covered in the CARIBBEAN and ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC sections. Some of these territories (Saint Helena, South Georgia, the Falkland Islands) or their dependencies (such as Ascension Island) participate in the UK postcode system; Ken Westmoreland sends the following clipping from the Gibraltar Chronicle, 20 May 2003: Residents of the Falkland Islands now have a postcode similar in format to those used in the UK. The new postcode is expected to help reduce delays in the direction of mail to the Islands. (Islanders have also found that many shopping websites refuse orders without a postcode.) The following territories or dependencies have postcodes as of 2010: AnguilaAL-2640Ascension IslandASCN 1ZZBritish Indian Ocean TerritoryBBND 1ZZBritish Antarctic TerritoryBIQQ 1ZZFalkland IslandsFIQQ 1ZZPitcairn IslandsPCRN 1ZZSouth Georgia and the South Sandwich IslandsSIQQ 1ZZSaint HelenaSTHL 1ZZTristan da CunhaTDCU 1ZZTurks and Caicos IslandsTKCA 1ZZThe others don't (well, in 2010, the other one doesn't) and therefore have their own addressing conventions, or lack of them. Here's an example of each kind: With postcodeWithout postcodeABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS06ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS07 GibraltarGibraltar addresses might also contain a Suite as well as a PO Box number:ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS08 The 'Suite' is actually a Private Mail Box (PMB), but the local post office does not deliver mail directly to PMB addresses, meaning that the PMB number is often called a Suite number. To confuse matters further, the PO Boxes and Private Mail Boxes are just next door to one another on Irish Town. People say that postcodes and automated sorting aren't needed in a place only 2.5 square miles, but local mail in Gibraltar can often take several days to be sorted and delivered. Reportedly the Gibraltar Government is considering options to introduce a postcode system; see this discussion. In February 2010 a reader offered the following clarification: The 'City Line Format' should be blank in the case of Gibraltar. At just 3.5 square miles, Gibraltar is considered to be a single city [Although district/suburb names are sometimes (optionally) given, see below if interested.] More on Gibralter and other British Overseas TerritoriesFrom Ken Westmoreland, 3 May 2019:[I visited Gibraltar two months ago], getting to visit the sorting office and PO Box unit, which are now in separate locations. This is the UPU document - http://www.upu.int/fileadmin/documentsFiles/activities/addressingUnit/gibEn.pdf Falkland Islands and Other TerritoriesThe Falklands are also claimed by Argentina, who call them the Malvinas, as are South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; a war was fought over these islands in 1982. About 2200 people live in the Falklands, plus lots of penguins. Gibraltar is claimed by Spain and negotiations are presently underway as to its future.Note that South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands is called simply SOUTH GEORGIA by the USPS (and apparently is treated as a synonym for Falklands, which is some 1300km distant). The USPS does not recognize the British Antarctic Territory as a destination at all. The UK also has British Forces Post Office (BFPO) numbers. Gibraltar is BFPO 52, used when addressing armed forces personnel. Links: Quiz Question 5: Which countries have a picture of the Queen on their money? NORTHERN IRELAND Like England, Scotland, and Wales, Northern Ireland is a country of the UK that uses UK postal codes. Northern Ireland has six counties. County names can be included, as in the country of Ireland (next section), in which case the word County (abbreviated Co.) appears before the county name in the address. The county name is optional, however; usually just the postal town and postal code are sufficient, provided the postal code is on the city line. Even though Northern Ireland is part of the UK, you should write its name as if it were its own country, rather than writing UNITED KINGDOM, to avoid offending those who oppose its current status (NORTHERN IRELAND can be offensive too, but this is the designation used in the USPS International Mail Manual so at least it gets US mail delivered to the right part of the island). Examples: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS09 The counties of Northern Ireland are Down, Antrim, Armagh, Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh (6) plus Belfast as a County Borough. Derry – the city – is the principal town in Co. Londonderry but until recently it was also called Londonderry. Since the removal of London is a political issue an apolitical vernacular compromise name is now Stroke City (as in Derry / Londonderry). The counties also have Irish names but I don't know if they can be used in North Ireland addresses. For reference, here they are: EnglishIrishAntrimAontroimArmaghÁrd MhachaDerry (Londonderry)DoireEnglishIrishDownAn Dún → Contae an Dhúin/Co. an DhúinFermanaghFir ManachTyroneTir Eoghain David Gowdy writes (Oct 2000), “Rural townland names predate modern postal thinking. In Fermanagh for many years the Council refused to allocate roadnames or postcodes and insisted in retaining these traditional names. Naturally these townlands also had little relationship to the road layout, and houses had no actual numbers – the address was like: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS10 “This approach supposes that the postman knows the people rather than their address, which would have been the case in low population rural areas until the 1950's.” Counties are a much stronger and clearer concept in Ireland than in Britain; it is not clear to me the degree to which county names have been expunged from Northern Ireland addresses, as they have been elsewhere in the UK. IRELAND THIS ENTIRE SECTION IS (mostly) OBSOLETE because after many decades of proposals, counterproposals, arguments, protests, and fistfights, Ireland adopted a postcode system called Eircode in July 2015. CLICK HERE for an introduction, CLICK HERE for details, CLICK HERE for the history (in Wikipedia); to search Google for current information. This important things to remember are: Ireland is an independent country completely separate from the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Never write UNITED KINGDOM on an Irish address. For the country of Ireland, use, simply: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS11 According to the Irish constitution, The name of the state shall be Éire or, in the English Language, Ireland (another form is Éirinn). We use the English-language name, as we do for all other countries, so our post office will recognize it (in fact, the USPS IMM lists EIRE as an alternative name but it lacks the accent so is misspelled). Note that there is no country called the Republic of Ireland; that name was once used, but was abolished long ago; now it is the name of a football team. I have received every assurance that mail addressed to IRELAND is always delivered, even if it should somehow arrive at London or Belfast, rather than Dublin or Cobh. (I don't know, however, what would happen to mail addressed to, say, BELFAST, IRELAND.) Ireland has never had postal codes (but Dublin – and recently also Cork -- have postal zones). The lack of postal codes makes Ireland unique among European countries. Implementation of postal codes for Ireland has been an on-again off-again project for years. This section previously contained discussion and links to announcements and de-announcements but all those links have gone stale. A 2009 announcement says a location-based postcode system will come into effect in 2011, such as the Loc8 Code (see launch announcement, 15 July 2010) Traditionally, an Irish city line looked like this: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS12 (where Co. means County), or for Dublin: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS13 Dublin postal zones are numbers 1-24 (odd numbers north of the River Liffey and even ones on the south), plus a special one, 6W. Examples: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS14 (*) Tipperary Town means Tipperary, County Tipperary. However, advice found at a now-defunct website in 2004 stated that for addresses outside of Dublin, the County should go on its own line as shown in these examples: ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS15 You can write the county name in English or Irish. Presumably, should postcodes be instituted, they would go on the county line, as in this example from a GPS Ireland article (in which a PON Code is used): ABC Holding B.V. Marijkestraat 11 NL-2518 BG Den Haag THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS16 The 26 counties of Ireland are listed below. Cian Brennan pointed out in October 2020 that "some Irish county names always include a definite article in the Irish language. Somewhat more confusingly, they also often take the genitive case when preceded by Co." These are now noted. He also points out that "there is a further exception to Irish postal addresses, which can be in English or Irish, except in a Gaeltacht (an area officially recognised as a primarily Irish speaking region), where they notionally must be in Irish, unless the address is in Dingle in Kerry. Although practically, An Post the national post office is entirely capable, and normally does, deliver post to entirely English language addresses in the Gaeltacht." EnglishIrishCarlowCeatharlachCavanCabhánClareAn Clár → Contae an Chláir/Co. an ChláirCorkCorcaighDonegalDún na nGallDublinBaile Átha CliathGalwayGaillimhKerryCiarraiKildareCill DaraKilkennyCill ChainnighLaoisLaoisLeitrimLeitroimLimerickLuimneachEnglishIrishLongfordAn Longfort → Contae an Longfoirt/Co. an LongfoirtLouthLúMayoMaigh EoMeathAn Mhi → Contae na MíMonaghanMuineacháinOffalyUa FáilgheRoscommonRos CománSligoSligheachTipperaryTiobraid ArainnWaterfordPort LairgeWestmeathAn Iarmhí → Contae na hIarmhíWexfordLoch GarmanWicklowCill Mhantáin Here is a sample Irish address (minus the addressee's name) in Irish, with its English translation, which probably would not be used :-) Cnoc na Sceiche The resident of this address (OK, it's Michael Everson) says: Amazingly, some people have asked if they could write postcards to [the English] address. Of course such a postcard would never, ever, ever reach me. Though, since I am the only Everson in the country, you might as well write: Irish mail delivery is modern and highly automated. The full address is scanned for routing and delivery. Postcodes are not used because they are not needed; all delivery points are in the postal database. In 2002 there was a plan to set up an Irish postcode system but it seemed to have been dropped (ComReg was for it , and An Post against), but then revived again in 2003.Links: [ Next ] [ ] [ Contents ] [ ] [ Home ]The following list is keyed to the names in the USPS International Mail Manual (IMM). The ISO column shows the ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 Code Element (which is also the Internet top-level domain, except GB, which is replaced by UK on the Internet). The third column shows full, native-script, alternative, and/or former names. Former names are in italics. While the IMM allows two or more names for certain countries (e.g. Netherlands and Holland; Taiwan and Formosa; Malaysia and Malaya, Iran and Persia), we should always use the same (and most current) name for each country, since country names can be used as database keys. Links from country names are to the relevant section of this document, where you can find postal code format, address information, examples, stories, and further links. If you need a list of just the current country names, I have one HERE. Daniel Schwarz created a new list from the IMM current in March 2019; you can see it HERE. NOTE: I haven't been checking the IMM all the time like I once did. What is the format for an international address?Address: Address letter as you would in the receiving country with country name at the bottom. Stamp: In the top right corner of the envelope you place a international postage stamp.
When addressing an envelope for a US destination the last line contains?These exist in the last line, and the 3rd line (also known as the city line). The first thing you will notice is including the name of the destination country as the last line of the address. Use the U.S. name of the country from the IMM.
What is a foreign address line?A foreign address is an address that is not a US state, possession, or military address (APO, DPO, FPO). A foreign address does not have a US ZIP Code.
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