U.S. POSTAL ABBREVIATIONS

The following is a list of abbreviations used by the United States Postal Service. They are used to help the postal service process mail with optical character recognition and other automated equipment. [1]

[edit] States

Postal codes alphabetized by postal abbreviation (not by state)

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

[edit] Other codes

[edit] Federal districts

[edit] Insular areas

[edit] Freely associated states

[edit] Armed Forces

[edit] Obsolete Codes

[edit] Example of Address

JOHN DOE
358 OAK LANE
FLORHAM PARK NJ 07932

[edit] Trivia

Of the 50 states:

• 19 states are abbreviated by their first two letters:

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

• 15 state abbreviations are the first and last letter in a state's name:

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

• 10 two-word states are abbreviated by the first letter of each word:

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

• The second letter for 9 states is from elsewhere in the name, often the second consonant:

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

* three states (CA*, CO*, DE*) are same for first two letters and first and last letters.

[edit] See also

• List of U.S. states by traditional abbreviation
• ISO 3166-2 International standard codes for subdivisions of countries – lists similar abbreviations for many more countries
• Canadian subnational postal abbreviations
• FIPS state code for the numerical equivalents that should be used by computer systems for storage

[edit] External links

• Official addressing instructions and abbreviations from the USPS (including abbreviations for street addresses)
• Official US State Abbreviations (including state capital postal abbreviations)