What do american postcodes look like

International Address Autocomplete. Arrow Icon Documentation. Choose your option below. Enter a city and state to see the ZIP Codes for that city. Enter a ZIP Code and see the city or cities it covers.

ZIP Code by Address. The standard zip code notation used by the United States Postal service uses five digits to identify a delivery area. An example of a standard US zip code is Answer: A: Answer: A: Your postcode is linked to your billing address, so you get it from your address.

When writing an address all on one line or in a sentence, use a comma before the following elements: the apartment or suite number, the city, and the state. 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. Enclaves and Exclaves Wikipedia.

Postleitzahlensuche official Deutsche Post postcode lookup Postleitzahl PLZ Service unofficial page, search based on maps rather than place names. How to enter German characters on non-German keyboards. Berlin Postbezirke Berlin postal districts The F- or FR- country code prefix is omitted from the postcode in this example, but is often seen in practice.

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. Several other spots in the Western Hemisphere are also parts of France, and share the same postal codes.

Each of these is treated by the USPS as a distinct country for addressing purposes. Ditto for French departments in the Pacific Ocean. The new postal codes are as follows: CZ 1?? As you can see, the two countries share the same code space i. Prague and some of the other Czech and Slovak cities also put zone district numbers after the city name. From to , the republics of Serbia and Montenegro were federated into a single country having code CS which had formally belonged to Czechoslovakia ; in 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. At first international mail service Kosovo under the administrative supervision of an interim United Nations U. Note: Bosnian refers to nationality, Bosniak refers to the Bosnian-speaking population, as opposed to the Serbs and Croats.

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: Mr.

Macedonia Makedonia, Makedonija was a controversial name, contested by Greece an the former Yugoslav repbublic. Also note the usage of the Cyrillic versus Latin alphabet. Latin letters seem to be the rule in Bosnia and Kosovo but Cyrillic is also used; Cyrillic predominates in Macedonia.

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.

The postcode formats and city line examples come from the Universal Postal Union except where noted. The stamp shown at right image from Wikipedia promotes the use of the USSR's newly-introduced postal codes. 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 could always expect the name of the city to appear on the line just above the name of the country the United Kingdom 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. This form fell into disuse about , 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. Where should the postcode go? The examples just above postcode left of the city name, no prefix seem to show the prevailaing usage in , despite the UPU recommends of putting it on a line by itself.

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: Latin Cyrillic A. Federenko P. Box Melitopol Zaporozhskaya obl. Federenko ul. 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. Moskovskaya oblast - Mosk.

Postal codes are required everywhere. Latin Cyrillic Izdatelstvo Inostrannyi Yazik ul. Myasnitskaya, 10 str. Prorizna, 29 kv. 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, Areas Served Within Russia , listing hundreds of cities by postal code!

Follow the link and then scroll down. Today it is the Hong Kong of Russia. It is addressed like any other Russian city: I. Shponka City Hall Pl. 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.

Indonesian postcodes have fallen into disuse. Dili post office was Mail is sent to PO Boxes e. I don't know if street deliveries have resumed since Hong Kong has automated sorting but no postal codes. However, to satisfy the need for postal codes in Internet Web forms, package tracking, etc, China post has introduced a single postcode for Hong Kong, Addressing has not changed. Macao is addressed as if it were a country; the line above the Country Name is not the City Line, but the street address or P.

Postcode lookup is available HERE. City Line but then shows the postcode below the City Line; let's compromise and put it on the City Line. There is also a Wikepedia page of unknown provenance with a list of top-level Vietnamese postcodes for each province HERE.

All pages on these sites are available in English as well as Vietnamese. 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 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. 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. 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. 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: Mr.

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. And it has postal codes. 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. 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 or Bangalore 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 Andhra Pradesh or AP. For long and other forms of the country names, see the Index. Links from country names are to postal authorities, if known, otherwise to other postal information pages for the country.

Delivery is only to post office boxes. IRAN: Prior to Iran had 5-digit postal codes; now is converting to digit codes the code shown in the table above is made up, for lack of a genuine example. Iran's postcode page is HERE. Searching the Web for Isreali postal addresses written in the Roman alphabet shows examples with the postcode on the left, and others with the postcode on the right.

IRAN: Iranian addresses are written in major to minor order, town at the top, followed by street address, then addressee. The postal code is important because there are many cases of duplicate street names in the same city, even a few duplicate building numbers in the same street. The length of the PO Box number is variable.

The zone is two digits for regular post-office box delivery, or 3 digits starting with 1 to indicate direct building delivery. This site does not work well except with Internet Explorer. A previous version of the site had a postcode lookup area Arabic only but if the new site has one, I can't find it. November , this link doesn't work any more, I can't find any English pages on the site.

It is the island in the Comoros that voted to stay French when the others voted for independence, but the UN supports the Comoros' claim to the island. Mail to street addresses is returned to the sender. Examples of valid addresses: Dr E. French Polynesia, New Caledonia are not countries either, but parts or dependencies of other countries such as France.

Other Portuguese islands in the area such as Madeira, however, must be addressed through Portugal. The island name can be omitted for Las Palmas. You can also write de between the town and island names instead of a hyphen. There is only one town — Adamstown — so town names or street addresses don't seem to be needed or used; you can address people by name or PO Box. Ted Cookson who has visited every country in the world, and who has been to Pitcairn three times reports: Adamstown is the only settlement on Pitcairn.

But no one lives at Bounty Bay. Actually, there are only about 45 people on the island these days anyway. In spite of all the talk over the years, there is still no airport on Pitcairn and will not be one in the short-term. And there is no shipping service from the U.

Cruise ships call from four to six times a year. Expensive yachts also go to Pitcairn now and again from Mangareva in French Polynesia. The islanders arrange for freight to be delivered to the island once or more annually on ships which normally originate in New Zealand and stop off en route to the Panama Canal. Mail is carried on all of these vessels. These classifications have nothing to do with postal addressing and should not be used in postal addresses.

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. Where to find the most confusing addresses on earth What should be the name of this section? The United Kingdom itself is a country. Thus it is a country that is made up of four countries. A country made of countries might seem a paradox, yet the countries that make up the UK, especially England, Scotland, and Wales, do not think of themselves as anything less; Scotland has its own Parliament and banknotes, Wales has its own language and National Assembly, all three have national identities going back more than a thousand years, and the Encyclopedia Britannica calls them countries next item.

Canada Post uses it as their only recognized name for the United Kingdom. Webster's dictionary defines Britain as the island of Great Britain , and defines Great Britain as a island comprising England, Scotland, and Wales, or b United Kingdom which in turn is defined to include Northern Ireland. By this definition it includes the countries of England, Scotland, and Wales.

It has nothing to do with Empire or world domination and simply refers to the time when the island was administered and fought over by the French.

In any case, the ambiguity of the term Great Britain — is it a country, an island, or a group of islands? It is home to the Bretons, Britons who fled from the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries and who renamed the place Little Britain , and who speak a Celtic language, also called Breton, similar to Welsh and Cornish.

Bretagne became part of France in Some say that Breton and Welsh fisherfolk can chat with each other in their closely related languages. Another term to avoid, since the Irish do not consider their island a British isle. A better term would be The Islands of Britain and Ireland. Opinions are divided as to whether these and other adjacent islands such as the Scottish islands Outer Hebrides are also British Isles or part of Great Britain see conflicting definitions above.

But be careful: in the Western Hemisphere, sometimes this term is used to refer to the British Virgin Islands and possibly other Caribbean Commonwealth countries such as Jamaica, Bahamas, and Bermuda, and territories such as the Cayman Islands. Rex or Regina F. Most of these countries gained their independence after World War II some earlier but many of them remained in the Commonwealth next item.

The non-UK, non-Dependency parts of the Commonwealth do not use UK postal codes because they are independent countries. The Overseas Territories are not members of the Commonwealth because they are not independent countries. Each Overseas Territory is a separate jurisdiction with its own postal addressing arrangements; some of them participate in the UK postcode system.

Prior to that Ireland was ruled by England and before that, like much of England itself, by Vikings, but unlike England, never by the Romans or Normans.

Ireland's capital is Dublin. Ireland is not part of the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth. Thus contrary to popular belief, Ulster is not a proper synonym for Northern Ireland.

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. NP 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. As you can see from the map of the first 3 digits of zip codes , the digits after the first are also generally assigned from east to west. In the map, 0 is closer to white and 9 is much more vivid.

It's easy to follow the gradient across each of the zones even though there are a few exceptions such as the southwest tip of Georgia which uses 39XXX like central Mississippi. Despite the fact that ZIP codes seem to be geographic in nature, that wasn't their intended purpose. They are intended to group mail to allow the USPS to deliver mail more efficiently.

Some ZIP codes will span multiple states in order to make mail routing and delivery more efficient. In most cases, addresses in close proximity to each other are grouped in the same ZIP code which gives the appearance that ZIP codes are defined by a clear geographic boundary. However, some ZIP codes have nothing to do with geogaphic areas. When ZIP codes appear to be geographically grouped, a clear shape cannot always be drawn around the ZIP code because ZIP codes are only assigned to a point of delivery and not the spaces between delivery points.

In areas without a regular postal route or no mail delivery, ZIP codes may not be defined or have unclear boundaries. The main issue is discussed above: there simply isn't always a clear geographic boundary for a ZIP code. The Census Bureau and many other commercial services will try to interpolate the data to create polygons shapes using straight lines to represent the approximate area covered by a ZIP code, but none of these maps are official or entirely accurate.

They provide a very close approximation of the area covered by a ZIP code.