International codes for the US
December 13, 2004 11:46 PM Subscribe
What is the International Postal Code for the United States? And what is the Country Code for the United States (for dialing phone numbers). [More Inside]
I apologize for the simiplicity of the question, but google was riddled with zip code spam. I think the Country Code is +1, right?, but I had never heard of an international postal code.
I apologize for the simiplicity of the question, but google was riddled with zip code spam. I think the Country Code is +1, right?, but I had never heard of an international postal code.
Sometimes the postal code is pre-fixed with the country code. For example my postal code is usually CH-8050 (CH=Switzerland) but I have never seen it for US postal codes.
I usually address it like borkingchikapa says.
posted by sebas at 11:58 PM on December 13, 2004
I usually address it like borkingchikapa says.
posted by sebas at 11:58 PM on December 13, 2004
Each country will have slightly different mail addressing standards, and you should use those of the country you are mailing from. In the absence of any other information you should address the mail in an English-speaking country to "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA," the official Universal Postal Union name of the U.S. In a non-English speaking country use the translation of the U.S. first, for example, "ETATS UNIS - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA."
The country codes you speak of are not really used internationally, but they are when sending mail within Europe. Sometimes. There is disagreement as to whether these should be UN car codes (you know, the 1-3 letter codes that go on those oval decals on the back of cars), or ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 codes (like Internet country code top-level domains1. It would be USA and US respectivelly, but don't use these unless your country's mail standards tell you to.
1except Great Britain and Northern Ireland is GB, not UK
posted by grouse at 12:32 AM on December 14, 2004
The country codes you speak of are not really used internationally, but they are when sending mail within Europe. Sometimes. There is disagreement as to whether these should be UN car codes (you know, the 1-3 letter codes that go on those oval decals on the back of cars), or ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 codes (like Internet country code top-level domains1. It would be USA and US respectivelly, but don't use these unless your country's mail standards tell you to.
1except Great Britain and Northern Ireland is GB, not UK
posted by grouse at 12:32 AM on December 14, 2004
Country Code is +1. For mail, I've always used "USA" at the end.
posted by signal at 4:05 AM on December 14, 2004
posted by signal at 4:05 AM on December 14, 2004
International dialing code is 001. That's what you dial when you're actually overseas. You write "+1 (xxx) nnn-nnnn" I don't know why.
posted by zpousman at 6:32 AM on December 14, 2004
posted by zpousman at 6:32 AM on December 14, 2004
Zpousman, the extra 00 is your local convention (which *is* popular worldwide) for dialing overseas without operator intervention.
The "+" in "+1" indicates to add additional digits as necessary by your phone system.
Of course, I'm not a guru in this, so perhaps a professional operator could give us more information.
posted by shepd at 6:41 AM on December 14, 2004
The "+" in "+1" indicates to add additional digits as necessary by your phone system.
Of course, I'm not a guru in this, so perhaps a professional operator could give us more information.
posted by shepd at 6:41 AM on December 14, 2004
zpousman: Sorry, that's not correct. The E.164 country code for the North American Numbering Plan (includes Canada and parts of the Carribean) is 1. The call prefix (what goes in the +) varies by country. From the NANP area, you use 011 to dial another country instead of 00.
posted by grouse at 11:01 AM on December 14, 2004
posted by grouse at 11:01 AM on December 14, 2004
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by borkingchikapa at 11:49 PM on December 13, 2004