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How does the American Postal office expect addresses to be written? #5

Open martinheidegger opened 8 years ago

martinheidegger commented 8 years ago

URL?

jabusch24 commented 8 years ago

house number:5109 street address:Green Avenue city:Village Six state:Illinois zip code:61624-1438 country: US

JoeMatta commented 8 years ago

The standard approach if you are writing it by hand is as follows:

line 1: Full Name of Recipient line 2: [building number] [street name], [apartment #, suite #, floor#, if applicable] line 3: [city name], [state abbreviation] [5 digit zip code]

The zip code typically contains all of the necessary information to determine city and state.

There are two types of zip codes: 5 digit zip codes and "5+4" digit zip codes (5 digits followed by a dash with 4 additional digits). The 4 additional digits signify a more specific area with the broader boundaries of the 5 digit zip code.

There are four types of ZIP codes:

Unique: assigned to a single high-volume address Post Office Box only: used only for PO Boxes at a given facility, not for any other type of delivery Military: used to route mail for the U.S. military Standard: all other ZIP codes.

Each number of zip code has a rule / meaning. The farthest number to the left indicates the broadest area/territory. For example, the first letter of the 5 digit zip code indicates the following:

0 = Connecticut (CT), Massachusetts (MA), Maine (ME), New Hampshire (NH), New Jersey (NJ), New York (NY, Fishers Island only), Puerto Rico (PR), Rhode Island (RI), Vermont (VT), Virgin Islands (VI), Army Post Office Europe (AE), Fleet Post Office Europe (AE) 1 = Delaware (DE), New York (NY), Pennsylvania (PA) 2 = District of Columbia (DC), Maryland (MD), North Carolina (NC), South Carolina (SC), Virginia (VA), West Virginia (WV) 3 = Alabama (AL), Florida (FL), Georgia (GA), Mississippi (MS), Tennessee (TN), Army Post Office Americas (AA), Fleet Post Office Americas (AA) 4 = Indiana (IN), Kentucky (KY), Michigan (MI), Ohio (OH) 5 = Iowa (IA), Minnesota (MN), Montana (MT), North Dakota (ND), South Dakota (SD), Wisconsin (WI) 6 = Illinois (IL), Kansas (KS), Missouri (MO), Nebraska (NE) 7 = Arkansas (AR), Louisiana (LA), Oklahoma (OK), Texas (TX) 8 = Arizona (AZ), Colorado (CO), Idaho (ID), New Mexico (NM), Nevada (NV), Utah (UT), Wyoming (WY) 9 = Alaska (AK), American Samoa (AS), California (CA), Guam (GU), Hawaii (HI), Marshall Islands (MH), Federated States of Micronesia (FM), Northern Mariana Islands (MP), Oregon (OR), Palau (PW), Washington (WA), Army Post Office Pacific (AP), Fleet Post Office Pacific (AP)

From there it gets more specific with each new number. More information can be found in the "structure & allocation" section of this wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code#Structure_and_allocation

JoeMatta commented 8 years ago

It appears the Postal Service may offer some software package that allows for developers to confirm addresses input into a field form. I am still looking more into this but wanted to post here:

https://ribbs.usps.gov/index.cfm?page=address_certification

CASS enables the Postal Service™ to evaluate the accuracy of address matching software programs in the following areas.

5-digit coding ZIP + 4/ delivery point (DP) coding Carrier route coding DPV® or DSF2® LACSLink ® SuiteLink® eLOT® RDI™

CASS allows developers, vendors and mailers the opportunity to test their address matching software packages and after achieving a specified percentage of compliance to be certified by the Postal Service. CASS enables mailers to measure and diagnose internally written, commercially available, address matching software packages. The effectiveness of service bureaus' matching software can also be measured.