United States postal abbreviations.html



U.S. states

Abbreviations and codes for the states and possessions of the United States are used for postal addresses, data processing, general abbreviations and other purposes.

List

Traditional abbreviations

The traditional abbreviations for U.S. states and territories were widely used in mailing addresses prior to the introduction of two-letter U.S. postal abbreviations. The traditional abbreviations are still commonly used for other purposes (such as legal citation), and are still recognized (though discouraged) by the postal service.

Prior to 1987, when the U.S. Secretary of Commerce approved the two-letter codes for use in government documents, the United States Government Printing Office (GPO) suggested a specific set of abbreviations, with some states being left unabbreviated.

In addition, the Associated Press Stylebook, the usage guide for most United States newspapers, counsels the use of abbreviations for most state names, when appended to a city name (for example, "Miami, Fla."). AP suggests spelling out "Alaska," "Hawaii," and all state names with five or fewer letters; and, unlike the GPO, AP suggests spelling out the names of all non-state territories, with the exception of the District of Columbia (D.C.). Legal citation manuals, such as the Bluebook and ALWD Citation Manual, typically use these "traditional abbreviations" as well.

Postal abbreviations

The United States Postal Service has established a set of abbreviations to help process mail with optical character recognition and other automated equipment.¹ There are also official USPS abbreviations for other parts of the address, such as street designators (street, avenue, road, etc.).

These postal abbreviations are distinguished from traditional abbreviations for U.S. States (such as Calif., Fla., or Tex.). Both the Chicago Manual of Style and the Associated Press Stylebook state that in contexts other than mailing addresses, the traditional state abbreviations should be used².

The postal abbreviation is same as ISO 3166-2 subdivision code for all fifty states.

These codes do not overlap with the thirteen Canadian subnational postal abbreviations.

Methodology

For each state, the initial letter of the abbreviation is the initial letter of the state's name. The second letter of each abbreviation fits at least one of the following patterns:

• Each of the 10 two-word state names is abbreviated with the initial of each word:

NC, ND, NH, NJ, NM, NY, RI, SC, SD, WV

• 19 states' names are each abbreviated with the first two letters of the name:

AL, AR, CA*, CO*, DE*, FL, ID, IL, IN, MA, MI, NE, OH, OK, OR, UT, WA, WI, WY

• 15 states' names are each abbreviated with the initial and final letter of the state's name:

CA*, CO*, CT, DE*, GA, HI, IA, KS, KY, LA, MD, ME, PA, VA, VT

• 9 states' names are each abbreviated with the initial and another letter from the state's name, often the second consonant:

AK, AZ, MN, MO, MS, MT, NV, TN, TX

* These three states (California, Colorado, Delaware) have the same second letter and last letter. Missouri, Mississippi, and Tennessee also match this pattern, but use another letter in their abbreviation.

Other abbreviations and codes

The Federal Information Processing Standard establishes numeric and alphabetic state codes for each state and for many outlying areas. The FIPS numeric code is marked 'FIPS' on the table above. The FIPS alphabetic state code is the same as the USPS code except for U.S. Minor Outlying Islands which have a FIPS code (UM) but no USPS code, and the U.S. Military Mail locations which have USPS codes (AA, AE, AP) but no FIPS code.

The U.S. Coast Guard uses a set of 2-letter prefixes for vessel numbers³, which are marked (USCG) on the table above but are not shown for the 39 states and District of Columbia where it is the same as the USPS abbreviation. USCG prefixes have also been established for five outlying territories, all of which are listed above, though it is only different from the USPS code for the Mariana islands.

References

1. ^ United States Postal Service Publication 28 - Postal Addressing Standards. Accessed February 4, 2007.
2. ^ State Abbreviations
3. ^ 33 C.F.R. Pt. 173, App. A

External links

• The Riverside Publishing Company. (1984). Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary. ISBN 0-395-33957-X
• Chicago Manual of Style and AP Style Manual state abbreviations
• FIPS State Codes of the US and Outlying Areas
• search on WN
• Official addressing instructions and abbreviations from the USPS (including abbreviations for street addresses)

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