<story><title>Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses</title><url>http://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-addresses/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jzwinck</author><text>US addresses exhibit neither increasing nor decreasing specificity.  Apartment numbers are usually written in the middle, like &quot;30 Tristan Way, Apt. 107, Gwyneth VA 27384&quot;.  This never seemed strange to me until I saw it being done more sensibly elsewhere.&lt;p&gt;Singapore is another good one: its postcode scheme changed twice in less than a century, and being a city-state, there is nothing useful to put in a &quot;city&quot; field (mail is often sent to &quot;Singapore Singapore&quot;, or even &quot;Singapore Singapore Singapore&quot;).</text></item><item><author>masklinn</author><text>The article remains western- (and especially UK-) centric in outlook, a more international business will probably find plenty others. For instance japans disprove:&lt;p&gt;* The address format is uniform across the country (Sapporo has its own, and Kyoto uses an alternative system on top of the standard one)&lt;p&gt;* Addresses go from the most specific to least (e.g. flat number to postal code), japan is the exact opposite&lt;p&gt;* Addressing systems don&apos;t change (Japan&apos;s was reformed in 1998)&lt;p&gt;* Building numbers are street-based (Japan&apos;s are block-based)&lt;p&gt;It also expands on things like &quot;addresses will have a street&quot;: standard japanese addressing is subdivision-based so addresses provide the prefecture, the ward (~county), the district and the city block.&lt;p&gt;Except for Sapporo and Kyoto (see 1): Kyoto allows an denoting blocks as the intersection of two streets and the position relative to the intersection (north, south, east or west). One reason is that some wards have multiple districts with the same name... Sapporo uses a system where blocks are addressed by their distance (in blocks) + direction from city center, so you might be told the address is &quot;the 4th building, 3 blocks north and 5 blocks east&quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>thaumasiotes</author><text>This really bothered me when I had mail shipped to me in Shanghai from amazon (US). Amazon forces you to provide a state. Shanghai is its own administrative unit, at a level with Chinese provinces. So my address ended up being &quot;&amp;#60;street&amp;#62;, Shanghai, Shanghai China&quot;.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ve seen natives handle that problem by filling in their district in the &quot;city&quot; field, so e.g. in my case &quot;&amp;#60;street&amp;#62;, Minhang district, Shanghai China&quot;, analogous to e.g. &quot;&amp;#60;street&amp;#62;, Nob Hill, San Francisco, USA&quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses</title><url>http://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-addresses/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jzwinck</author><text>US addresses exhibit neither increasing nor decreasing specificity.  Apartment numbers are usually written in the middle, like &quot;30 Tristan Way, Apt. 107, Gwyneth VA 27384&quot;.  This never seemed strange to me until I saw it being done more sensibly elsewhere.&lt;p&gt;Singapore is another good one: its postcode scheme changed twice in less than a century, and being a city-state, there is nothing useful to put in a &quot;city&quot; field (mail is often sent to &quot;Singapore Singapore&quot;, or even &quot;Singapore Singapore Singapore&quot;).</text></item><item><author>masklinn</author><text>The article remains western- (and especially UK-) centric in outlook, a more international business will probably find plenty others. For instance japans disprove:&lt;p&gt;* The address format is uniform across the country (Sapporo has its own, and Kyoto uses an alternative system on top of the standard one)&lt;p&gt;* Addresses go from the most specific to least (e.g. flat number to postal code), japan is the exact opposite&lt;p&gt;* Addressing systems don&apos;t change (Japan&apos;s was reformed in 1998)&lt;p&gt;* Building numbers are street-based (Japan&apos;s are block-based)&lt;p&gt;It also expands on things like &quot;addresses will have a street&quot;: standard japanese addressing is subdivision-based so addresses provide the prefecture, the ward (~county), the district and the city block.&lt;p&gt;Except for Sapporo and Kyoto (see 1): Kyoto allows an denoting blocks as the intersection of two streets and the position relative to the intersection (north, south, east or west). One reason is that some wards have multiple districts with the same name... Sapporo uses a system where blocks are addressed by their distance (in blocks) + direction from city center, so you might be told the address is &quot;the 4th building, 3 blocks north and 5 blocks east&quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sageikosa</author><text>&amp;#62;US addresses exhibit neither increasing nor decreasing specificity. Apartment numbers are usually written in the middle, like &quot;30 Tristan Way, Apt. 107, Gwyneth VA 27384&quot;. This never seemed strange to me until I saw it being done more sensibly elsewhere.&lt;p&gt;Best to think of it as an onion.  On the outer layers (beginning and end) automated and semi-automated sorting can be applied most easily (the ZIP code was designed for automated sorting and routing).  Apartment and suite numbers in the middle are handled (usually) manually by carriers already at or near the service address.</text></comment>