Address (geography) Totally Explained

Everything about Address Geography totally explained

An address is a code and abstract concept expressing the fixed location of a home, business or other building on the earth's surface.

Functions

Addresses have several functions:

Providing a means of physically locating a building, especially in a city where there are many buildings and streets,
Identifying buildings as the end points of a postal system,
A social function: someone's address can have a profound effect on their social standing,
As parameters in statistics collection, especially in census-taking or the insurance industry.

History

Until the advent of modern postal systems, most houses and buildings were not numbered. Streets may have been named for landmarks, such as a city gate or market, or for the professions of their inhabitants. In many cities in Asia, most minor streets were never named. This is still the case today in much of Japan. When postal systems were introduced, it became necessary to number buildings to aid in mail delivery.

Current addressing schemes

House numbering or naming

In most English-speaking countries the standard is an alternating numbering scheme progressing in one direction along a street, with odd numbers on one side (usually west or south) and even numbers on the other (usually north or east), although there's significant variation on this basic pattern. Cities in North America, particularly those planned on a grid plan, often incorporate block numbers, quadrants (explained below), and cardinal directions into their street numbers, so that in many such cities, addresses roughly follow a Cartesian coordinate system. Some other cities around the world have their own schemes.
Although house numbering is the principal identification scheme in the British Isles, it's also common for houses there to be identified by name, rather than number, especially in small towns. In these cases, the street name will usually follow the house name. A fictional example of such an address might read:
"Smith Cottage, Frog Lane, Barchester, Barsetshire, BA9 9BA".

Quadrants

In cities with Cartesian-coordinate-based addressing systems, the streets that form the north-south and east-west dividing lines constitute the x and y axes of a Cartesian coordinate plane and thus divide the city into quadrants. The quadrants are typically identified in the street names, although the manner of doing so varies from city to city. For example, in one city, all streets in the northeast quadrant may have "NE" prefixed or suffixed to their street names, while in another, the intersection of North Calvert Street and East 27th Street can only be in the northeast quadrant.

Street-naming conventions

Street names may follow a variety of themes. In many North American cities, such as Manhattan, San Francisco and Edmonton, streets are simply numbered sequentially across the street grid. Washington, D.C. has its numbered streets running north-south and lettered or alphabetically named streets running east-west, while diagonal avenues are typically named after states. In Salt Lake City, and many other Utah cities, streets are in a large grid and are numbered in increments of 100 based on their location relative to the center of the city in blocks, these blocks are usually surrounded by wide streets numbered in multiples of 400. A similar system is in use in Detroit with the Mile Road System. In some housing developments in North America, streets may all follow the same theme (for example, bird species), or start with the same letter. Streets in Continental Europe and Latin America are usually named after famous people or auspicious dates.

Postal codes

Postal codes are a relatively recent development in addressing, designed to speed the sorting and processing of mail by assigning unique numeric or alphanumeric codes to each geographical locality.

Postal alternatives to physical addresses

For privacy and other purposes, postal services have made it possible to receive mail without revealing one's physical address or even having a fixed physical address. Examples are post office boxes and poste restante (general delivery).

Address format

In most of the world, addresses are written in order from most specific to general information, starting with the addressee and ending with the largest geographical unit. For example:
Miss S Pollard 1 Chapel Hill Heswall BOURNEMOUTH BH1 1AA
   In English-speaking countries, the postal code usually comes last. In much of Europe, the code precedes the town name, thus: "1010 Lausanne". Often, the country code is still placed in front of the postal code: "CH-1010 Lausanne". However, this is no longer recommended by postal authorities.
   If a house number is provided, it's written on the same line as the street name; a house name is written on the previous line. When addresses are written inline, line breaks are replaced by commas. Conventions on the placing of house numbers differ: either before or after the street name. Similarly, there are differences in the placement of postal codes: in the UK, they're written on a separate line at the end of the address; in the United States and Canada, they often appear immediately after the state or province, on the same line; in Austria, Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands they appear before the city, on the same line.
   The Japanese addressing system uses the opposite ordering, starting with the town and ending with the addressee, except when using the Latin alphabet. The Hungarian system also goes from large to small units, except the name of the addressee is put into the first line.
   The Universal Postal Convention strongly recommends the following:
ť "The addressee’s address shall be worded in a precise and complete manner. It shall be written very legibly in roman letters and arabic numerals. If other letters and numerals are used in the country of destination, it'll be recommended that the address be given also in these letters and numerals. The name of the place of destination and the name of the country of destination shall be written in capital letters together with the correct postcode number or delivery zone number, if any. The name of the country of destination shall be written preferably in the language of the country of origin. To avoid any difficulty in the countries of transit, it's desirable for the name of the country of destination to be added in an internationally known language. Administrations may recommend that, on items addressed to countries where the recommended position of the postcode is in front of the name of the location of destination, the postcode should be preceded by the EN ISO 3166–1 Alpha 2 country code followed by a hyphen. This shall in no way detract from the requirement for the name of the destination country to be printed in full."

Mailing address format by country

Australia

Australian address are based on the same system used in the UK and USA.
   If the location is a flat or unit, then the street number should be preceded by "Flat" or "Unit" and the flat or unit number, for example "Flat 4  201 Broadway Ave" or "Unit 2  203 Broadway Ave". The street number and name line are replaced by "PO Box", "GPO Box" or "Reply Paid" and a number when applicable, for example "PO Box 123" or "Reply Paid 123". GPO Boxes are always in the state or territory capital city.
   Some large organisations such as universities don't use a street name or suburb, although the postcode is generally the same as the surrounding suburb.
   The last line should always be spelt in all capitals with no punctuation. The state or territory is typically abbreviated to the conventional two or three letter form. Handwritten mail should use the postcode boxes on the envelope if they're present.
   Note that "suburb" in Australia refers to a geographical subdivision of a metropolitan area. This portion of the address doesn't usually correspond to any political division, but is generally used by Australians for identifying parts of cities. These are nevertheless quite different from British postal towns (see below).

Belgium

You can write the address in Dutch or in French. If you're not sure what is the language of your customer, it can be better to write it in both languages.

Brazil

In Brazil, an address must be mailed this way:
ť Name

Streetname, number, complements (if exist) ť Neighbourhood

Municipality - State ť Postal code

Canada

Canada uses a similar system to the United States (below), but there are key differences.

Only Canada Post can deliver to a P.O. Box. For this reason the recipient may choose to insert their physical (aka street) address as line two, expanding the complete address to four lines. Providing both allows a sender to ship via the Canada Post or via a private carrier. Some locations have special drop-off points for couriers, such as a local convenience store. This is most common in small communities of around 30 people.

Mail will be delivered to the line immediately above the city, province, postal code line.

The province and type of street, for example Lane, is often abbreviated as shown in the PO standard.

Do not use periods or commas. Do not abbreviate North, South, East and West. Do not use numeric suffixes as in 2nd or 4th.

The postal code is used in the same way as the US Zip code. Postal codes come in a letter-number-letter-space-number-letter-number format, for example: A1A 1A1.

If sending a parcel from outside Canada, the name of the country must be placed at the very bottom.

People's Republic of China

The postal address in the People's Republic of China is written in English with the street number first but in Chinese Mandarin, the Country is stated first, then comes the municipality or province, then street number, building name, floor/level and if applicable the Business name.

Finland

Finland uses a five-digit postal number.

Germany

In Germany, the address is generally formatted as follows: ť (Company)

   (Department) ť Name (generally preceded by Frau=Ms or Herr=Mr)

   (Neighbourhood) ť Streetname + number

   Postal code + town
   The postal code is unique, and always consists of five numbers. The neighbourhood is only required if two streets in a municipality share the same postal code, which is extremely rare.

Hungary

In Hungarian mail addresses, the town name precedes the street address.
Format:

Addressee (name or company name)

City or town

Street name and number or P.O.Box number

Postal code

Italy

An internal address, in Italy, must be composed of three to five rows. Up to six rows can be used if the mail is sent abroad:

addressee's name and surname

optional - additional information about the addressee

optional - additional information about the building (building number, floor, apartment number)

street name and number (via/viale/corso/piazza...) or CASELLA POSTALE (P.O.Box number)

Postcode Town (Province abbreviation)

Foreign State name Line ordering may not be changed.

Japan

Netherlands

In the Netherlands, the address is generally formatted as follows: ť Name

   (Businesspark name etc.) ť Streetname + number

   Postal code + town
   The postal code is unique, and always consists of four numbers followed by a space and then 2 capital letters. TNT Post, the descendant of the Dutch state-run PTT, recommends putting two spaces between postal code and town, and also printing the town in capital letters.
   It is also possible to replace the street name line with a PO box (for example "Postbus 1200") or freepost number (for example "Antwoordnummer 150"), which have their own postal code.

Norway

Norway uses a four-digit postal number.

Russia, Belarus

Russia, Belarus, and some other post-Soviet countries have retained the address format used in the USSR. In domestic mail, the address starts with the city name, followed by street name, building number, apartment number (if any), and the addressee's name. Many pre-printed envelopes have a special field for entering the postal code, or if lacking that, it can be written before the city name.
Some neighborhoods may be planned in such a way that some, or most, apartment buildings don't face a named street. In this case, a number of expedients can be used. In older neighborhoods, such as the historical center of Moscow, a "main" building may have the same number as one or more "subsidiary" buildings accessible via driveways behind the main building. They will be addressed as for example ul. Lenina, d. 123, for example 123 Lenin St) An address may also cover one or more subsidiary buildings behind the main building, addressed as ul. Lenina, d. 123, str. 2 (123 Lenin St, unit 2, where str. (abbreviation for строение, stroenie) means a '(subsidiary) building'. In newer areas with more regular street plans, apartment buildings that don't face a named street may be designated with Cyrillic letters appended to the building number, for example 123-а, 123-б, etc., in alphabetic order.
In some microraion neighborhoods, with few, if any, buildings facing named streets, the name (or more likely number of the microraion (planned housing development)) would be used instead of the street name; thus someone may live at 4-th microrayon, d. 123, kv. 56, for example 123 - 4th Microraion, apt. 56.

United Kingdom

The minimum required format for an address is: ť Addressee's Name

Number and Street Name ť Locality

POST TOWN ť POSTCODE

This is the format preferred by Royal Mail. The locality is only required where its absence would be ambiguous. Post towns, which should be written in block capitals, rarely correspond to political boundaries and often group places that for all other purposes are quite separate. Sometimes the local authority or postal county is included after the post town. The postcode should be on its own line and should be the last line unless the country is also included.

United States

Format Variations:

Only the USPS can deliver to a P.O. Box. For this reason the recipient may choose to insert their physical (aka street) address as line two, expanding the complete address to four lines. Providing both allows a sender to ship via the USPS or via a private carrier.

Mail will be delivered to the line immediately above the city, state, zip code line.

The state and type of street, for example Lane, is often abbreviated as shown in the PO standard. Do not use periods or commas. Do not abbreviate North, South, East and West. Do not use numeric suffixes such as 2nd.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Address Geography'.

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