# Giving a United States to somebody in Germany - zip code use? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 14, 2014, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-a-united-states-to-somebody-in-germany-zip-code-use/686086 "2014-04-14T15:20:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ornery\_Bob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/da6949/32.png) [@Ornery\_Bob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ornery_Bob)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-a-united-states-to-somebody-in-germany-zip-code-use/686086/21 "2014-04-14T19:05:23Z")
FWIW, I once got a letter sent to me from the US that had my name but no street address. They did, however, get my London Post Code correct and the postman delivered it without a hitch. He told me the post code got it routed to him for sorting and he recognized my name so he was able to know where it belonged. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-a-united-states-to-somebody-in-germany-zip-code-use/686086/22 "2014-04-14T19:29:49Z")
The custom in most countries, especially in Europe, is to prefix the country code before the postal code, separated by a hyphen. For example, an letter to Switzerland would have, on the last line, CH-2846, or to Spain E-34080. But then, when writing from the USA, you have to put as the last line the name of the country in English, such as “Switzerland” or “Spain”. ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-a-united-states-to-somebody-in-germany-zip-code-use/686086/23 "2014-04-14T19:47:14Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > The custom in most countries, especially in Europe, is to prefix the country code before the postal code, separated by a hyphen. For example, an letter to Switzerland would have, on the last line, CH-2846, or to Spain E-34080. But then, when writing from the USA, you have to put as the last line the name of the country in English, such as “Switzerland” or “Spain”. Prepending the country code used to be the recommended method, but (at least here in Germany) it has been deprecated for some time. Nowadays you are supposed to put the name of the destination country, in capitals, on the last line. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-a-united-states-to-somebody-in-germany-zip-code-use/686086/24 "2014-04-14T23:01:34Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > And all you really need is the zip code. The state and city information is encoded in that, but it does make for a good error-check. I’ve once, for fun, just sent a letter to NAME, ADDRESS, ZIPCODE and it got there fine (although I probably annoyed someone along the way, so I haven’t done it since.) > [@Chronos](#): > > In general, the post offices of various countries will do whatever they can to get a letter to the intended recipient, and will sometimes go to extreme lengths to figure out who the intended recipient is. One example I’ve heard of is a letter addressed simply to “Mother Theresa, India”, which was delivered. There was an anecdotal story, some years back, that someone sent a letter to Herb Caen (late columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle), addressed only as: (Icon of marijuana leaf) (Icon of man’s walking cane) San Francisco … and it got delivered! ETA: IIRC, the originator of the letter was not in or near San Francisco. I don’t recall if it came from outside the United States. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-a-united-states-to-somebody-in-germany-zip-code-use/686086/25 "2014-04-14T23:17:50Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > As a side note, Bangkok postal codes tend to match New York City ZIP codes – they’re called ZIP codes only in the US, as “ZIP” is an acronym for [“Zone Improvement Plan”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_code) – and a lot of my mail from the US has gone to NYC. Here’s even worse: Certain island places (Guam, Micronesia, Marshall Islands) have their own Social Security systems, and assign numbers that sometimes collide with American social security numbers. Creditors sometimes report deadbeats to the major credit reporting bureaus, using these numbers, which then ends up in the wrong person’s file, leading to major clusterfuck headaches. [How were Social Security numbers given away?](http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2009673725_apusidentitysharing.html) ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-a-united-states-to-somebody-in-germany-zip-code-use/686086/26 "2014-04-15T00:02:41Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > There was an anecdotal story, some years back, that someone sent a letter to Herb Caen (late columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle), addressed only as: > > (Icon of marijuana leaf) (Icon of man’s walking cane) > San Francisco > > … and it got delivered! > > ETA: IIRC, the originator of the letter was not in or near San Francisco. I don’t recall if it came from outside the United States. Reportedly, Mad Magazine received a letter addressed only with a picture of Alfred Neuman on the envelope. I read this in their letter column years ago. Their response was “Take that, Playboy.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Piranha\_Brothers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@The\_Piranha\_Brothers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Piranha_Brothers)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-a-united-states-to-somebody-in-germany-zip-code-use/686086/27 "2014-04-16T23:03:53Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > The custom in most countries, especially in Europe, is to prefix the country code before the postal code, separated by a hyphen. For example, an letter to Switzerland would have, on the last line, CH-2846, or to Spain E-34080. But then, when writing from the USA, you have to put as the last line the name of the country in English, such as “Switzerland” or “Spain”. Never heard of this, or practiced this, sending post to many countries. In case it wasn’t already a call for captain obvious: The postmen read from bottom to top, that is why the last line is the destination country, then working upwards it gets more and more specific, until the first line is the actual person you’re writing. WWSHAT? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-a-united-states-to-somebody-in-germany-zip-code-use/686086/28 "2014-04-17T00:09:24Z")
> [@The\_Piranha\_Brothers](#): > > Never heard of this, or practiced this, sending post to many countries. I can vouch for its existence. When I lived in Hungary, the recommendation at the time was to prefix the post code with “H” followed by a hyphen. That said, I don’t recall making the same sort of prefixes when writing to, say, Germany. ETA: Though, looking online, I do see some German addresses that do use the “DE-” prefix before the postal code. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/giving-a-united-states-to-somebody-in-germany-zip-code-use/686086.md?page=1)