Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses

I read this article a long time ago and I took it seriously. So instead of asking for address, postal/zip code, city, state/province, I just put up a big text area labeled "Full address" so that people have complete freedom about what to fill in. 80% of the users ended up only filling in their street address, not their postal/zip code, city and state/province, even though they're from countries where (most?) addresses satisfy that format. We ended up reverting to…

The article remains western- (and especially UK-) centric in outlook, a more international business will probably find plenty others. For instance japans disprove: * The address format is uniform across the country (Sapporo has its own, and Kyoto uses an alternative system on top of the standard one) * Addresses go from the most specific to least (e.g. flat number to postal code), japan is the exact opposite * Addressing systems don't change (Japan's was reformed in 1998) * Building…

Here's a completely legal and fully specified address in Singapore: 238801 Or if you're sending international mail: SINGAPORE 238801 Explanation: Singapore is a city-state with no divisions for states, counties etc, and every single house and building has its own unique 6-digit postcode, so that number is all you need to receive mail or locate an address. Of course, in practice people usually put in the regular road address as well for redundancy, but it's not really necessary. Ion Orchard…

In the USA, addresses are somewhat more regular, due to the US Post Office and The Bell System both working on making addresses more consistent. For instance, most "burgh towns had their names changed to "burg. But of course "Pittsburgh" is an exception. The old Bell Operating Companies (Pacific Bell, Mountain States Bell, etc) actually had "address bureaus" that worked with cities they serviced. Since The Bell System broke up over 40 years ago, and the US Postal Service has…