Legal citation manuals, such as The Bluebook and The ALWD Citation Manual, typically use the "traditional abbreviations" or variants thereof.Ĭodes for states and territories ISO standard 3166 Current use of traditional abbreviations
Today, the GPO supports United States Postal Service standard.
Secretary of Commerce approved the two-letter codes for use in government documents, the United States Government Printing Office (GPO) suggested its own set of abbreviations, with some states left unabbreviated. To avoid duplications, some abbreviations are not intuitive. The two-letter postal abbreviation system is complicated by the fact that several state names begin with the same letter (e.g., eight state names begin with M and eight begin with N, four "New" and two "North").
Originally Nebraska was "NB" but, in November 1969, the Post Office changed it to "NE" to avoid confusion with New Brunswick in Canada. Since 1963, only one state abbreviation has changed. The purpose, rather than to standardize state abbreviations per se, was to make room in a line of no more than 23 characters for the city, the state, and the ZIP code. Modern two-letter abbreviated codes for the states and territories originated in October 1963, with the issuance of Publication 59: Abbreviations for Use with ZIP Code, three months after the Post Office introduced ZIP codes in July 1963. postal abbreviations, are still commonly used for other purposes (such as legal citation), and are still recognized (though discouraged) by the Postal Service. states and territories, widely used in mailing addresses prior to the introduction of two-letter U.S. However, they accepted these abbreviations only because of their popularity, preferring that patrons spell names out in full to avoid confusion. Older variable-length official US Government Printing Office abbreviationsĪbbreviations from the AP Stylebook (bold red text shows differences between GPO and AP)Īs early as October 1831, the United States Post Office recognized common abbreviations for states and territories. ISO 3166 codes ( 2-letter, 3-letter, and 3-digit codes from ISO 3166-1 2+2-letter codes from ISO 3166-2)Ģ-letter and 2-digit codes from the ANSI standard INCITS 38:2009 (supersedes FIPS 5-2)Ģ-letter codes used by the United States Postal ServiceĢ-letter codes used by the United States Coast Guard (bold red text shows differences between ANSI and USCG) states, federal district, territories, and other regions This table includes abbreviations for three independent countries related to the United States through Compacts of Free Association, and other comparable postal abbreviations, including those now obsolete.Ĭodes and abbreviations for U.S. See also: List of states and territories of the United States
0 kommentar(er)
