Several sets of codes and abbreviations are used to represent the political divisions of the United States for postal addresses, data processing, general abbreviations, and other purposes.

Table

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.

+ Legend Code Description ISO ISO 3166 codes (2-letter, 3-letter, and 3-digit codes from ISO 3166-1; 2+2-letter codes from ISO 3166-2) ANSI 2-digit codes from the ANSI standard INCITS 38:2009 (supersedes FIPS 5-2) USPS 2-letter codes used by the United States Postal Service and ANSI INCITS 38:2009 USCG 2-letter codes used by the United States Coast Guard GPO Older variable-length official US Government Printing Office abbreviations AP Abbreviations from the AP Stylebook Court Abbreviations used by the United States federal judiciary system

+ Codes and abbreviations for U.S. states, federal district, territories, and other regions Name Status of region ISO ANSI USPS USCG GPO AP Court Others Federal state 00 U.S. U.S.A. State 01 AL Ala. State 02 AK Alaska Ak. State 04 AZ Ariz. State 05 AR Ark. State 06 CA Calif. Cal. Cal. State 08 CO Colo. State 09 CT Conn. State 10 DE Del. Federal district 11 DC D.C. Dis. Col. State 12 FL Fla. State 13 GA Ga. Geo. State 15 HI Hawaii Haw. Hi.; Haw. State 16 ID Idaho Ida. State 17 IL Ill. State 18 IN Ind. State 19 IA Iowa Ioa. State 20 KS Kan. Ka. State 21 KY Ky. Ken., Kent. State 22 LA La. State 23 ME Maine Me. State 24 MD Md. Mar., Mary. State 25 MA Mass. State 26 MI Mich. State 27 MN Minn. State 28 MS Miss. State 29 MO Mo. State 30 MT Mont. State 31 NE State 32 NV Nev. State 33 NH N.H. State 34 NJ N.J. N. Jersey State 35 NM New M., New Mex. State 36 NY N.Y. N. York State 37 NC N.C. N. Car. State 38 ND State 39 OH Ohio O.,. See for a live page with the same table in HTML form. Oh. State 40 OK Okla. State 41 OR Or. State 42 PA Pa. Penn., Penna. State 44 RI R.I. R.I. & P.P. State 45 SC S.C. S. Car. State 46 SD SoDak State 47 TN Tenn. State 48 TX Tex. State 49 UT Utah Ut. State 50 VT Vt. Verm. State 51 VA Va. Virg. State 53 WA Wash. Wn. State 54 WV W. Va. W.V., W. Virg. State 55 WI Wis. Wisc. State 56 WY Wyo. Insular area (Territory) 60 AS A.S. Insular area (Territory) 66 GU Guam Guam Insular area (Commonwealth) 69 MP M.P. N. Mar. I. CNMI Insular area (Commonwealth) 72 PR P.R. P.R. Insular area (Territory) 78 VI V.I. V.I. U.S.V.I. U.S. Minor Outlying Islands Insular areas 74 UM Baker Island Island 81 XB Howland Island Island 84 XH Jarvis Island Island 86 XQ Johnston Atoll Atoll 67 XU Kingman Reef Atoll 89 XM Midway Atoll Atoll 71 QM Navassa Island Island 76 XV Palmyra Atoll Atoll 95 XL Wake Island Atoll 79 QW Freely associated state 68 MH Freely associated state 64 FM Freely associated state 70 PW U.S. Armed Forces – Americas US military mail code U.S. Armed Forces – Europe US military mail code U.S. Armed Forces – Pacific US military mail code Obsolete postal code NB Obsolete postal code CM Obsolete postal code CZ Obsolete postal code PI Obsolete postal code TT

History As early as October 1831, the United States Postal Service recognized common abbreviations for states and territories. However, they accepted these abbreviations only because of their popularity, preferring that patrons spell names out in full to avoid confusion.

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

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. 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.

Since 1963, only one state abbreviation has changed. Originally Nebraska was "NB"; but, in November 1969, the Post Office changed it to "NE" to avoid confusion with New Brunswick in Canada.

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 its own set of abbreviations, with some states left unabbreviated. Today, the GPO supports United States Postal Service standard.U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual, 30th Edition Accessed April 21, 2009.

Current use of traditional abbreviations

Legal citation manuals, such as The Bluebook and The ALWD Citation Manual, typically use the "traditional abbreviations" or variants thereof.

Codes for states and territories

ISO standard 3166

ISO 3166-2:US is the entry for the United States in ISO 3166-2, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which defines codes for the names of the principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states) of all countries coded in ISO 3166-1.

ANSI standard INCITS 38:2009 The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) established alphabetic and numeric codes for each state and outlying areas in ANSI standard INCITS 38:2009. ANSI standard INCITS 38:2009 replaced the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) standards FIPS 5-2, FIPS 6-4, and FIPS 10-4. The ANSI alphabetic state code is the same as the USPS state code except for U.S. Military Mail locations, which have USPS codes ("AA", "AE", "AP") but no ANSI code.

Postal codes

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

These two-letter codes are distinguished from traditional abbreviations such as Calif., Fla., or Tex. The Associated Press Stylebook states that in contexts other than mailing addresses, the traditional state abbreviations should be used. However, the Chicago Manual of Style now recommends use of the uppercase two-letter abbreviations, with the traditional forms as an option.

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

These codes do not overlap with the 13 Canadian subnational postal abbreviations. The code for Nebraska changed from NB to NE in November 1969 to avoid a conflict with New Brunswick. Canada likewise chose MB for Manitoba to prevent conflict with either Massachusetts (MA), Michigan (MI), Minnesota (MN), Missouri (MO), or Montana (MT).

Coast Guard vessel prefixes The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) uses a set of two-letter prefixes for vessel numbers;, App. A 39 states and the District of Columbia have the same USPS and USCG abbreviations. USCG prefixes have also been established for five outlying territories; all are the same as the USPS abbreviations except the Mariana Islands. The twelve cases where USPS and USCG abbreviations differ, listed below, include three inland states with a small Coast Guard contingent. These twelve abbreviations were changed to avoid conflicting with the ISO 3166 two-digit country codes.

+ Mismatched USPS and USCG state codes State USPS Code USCG Code CA CF CO CL DE DL HI HA KS KA MI MC MS MI MA MS NE NB WA WN WI WS MP CM

See also Australian abbreviation system Canadian abbreviation system ISO 3166-2:US United States Postal Service address formatting information

Notes

References

External links USPS acronyms and abbreviations U.S. Census Bureau