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What is the minimal possible UK address?

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Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#381

Post by andix »

Symbiote wrote: post #362
andix wrote: post #96

Austria can top this, there are towns without street names, so the shortest address you could have for example would be (in this example the number is 0, to not post a real address here) 5222 Ach 0 (Which translates to the town of Ach in the ZIP code 5222, and house number 0) If you write it like this it may be even an international valid address (for some countries) A-5222 Ach 0

Britain is still smaller if we can choose an arbitrary address. S1 1AA There will be hundreds of complete addresses with this pattern, and many thousands if we add a house number before it. This is the first I found that is valid. It's the central post office in Sheffield.

Is that a ZIP code that maps to one specific building, or is it really a valid post address, matching any valid speicification, rules and laws?

In Austria we also have Buildings that have a 4-digit ZIP code. But it's not a valid address, because a valid address needs a city, street and house number. "5222 Ach 0" has it all ;)

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#382

Post by Daviey »

I once ordered something and wrongly selected the country next to mine on a drop down "Uganda" rather than "United Kingdom". The letter was sent from the UK, and eventually arrived to me ~2 months late stamped with "miss-routed to Uganda".

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#383

Post by fennecfoxy »

Yes, this is one thing I love about the UK compared to NZ.

My first postcode here pointed right to the apartment building I was in, so it was essentially: 9, WXXXX.

Now my postcode points to the group of flat buildings I'm in and is now 8, NXXXXX.

Obviously things get a tiny bit looser as you leave less populated/central areas but it's still a really neat system, but as per usual it's corrupted by UK's history, things being added in etc and it's not based on any sort of co-ordinates beyond compass/regions.

Would be amazing to see a grid based co-ordinate system that could be adopted as an international standard over time. Then again it does lose the character of the full address/street name (which is something important to people from the UK).

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#384

Post by reustle »

polygotdomain wrote: post #269
jrochkind1 wrote: post #80

In the US, someone I know who had a Post Office box liked writing simply `box-number zip-code` as their address. It worked. Eg, if you wrote on an envelope: 1034 21240 It would get there! You might want to add a "Box" before the "1034" to be safe -- and to disambiguate between a house number, as in OP? (I'm not sure just a house number would ever work in the USA?) But it looks cooler with just two numbers. Especially…

This is true. As others have pointed out, all PO Boxes can be appended to a 5 digit zip to get to the box (e.g. ZIP-BOX#) No city or state should be needed (zip covers that), nor name (not needed for mail in general, but might cause other issues). The US Postal System actually uses a full 11 digit number to identify a "Delivery Point". The "+4" after a zip code is basically a subroute within that zip code, but there…

Dang, I came to post my ultra lean address from years ago, but wish I had known this!

PO 1234 NY, NY 10010

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#385

Post by benj111 »

throwawaymobule wrote: post #366
benj111 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a submission on here a while back with someone using weird addresses etc. One required a cross word to be filled in and it got delivered.

came into the comments to post this, or see if anyone had. couldn't find the URL using the sitewide search. https://www.meversusanpost.com/

I don't think that was the one. I'm fairly sure it was based in the UK.

I found this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/6226641.stm

But that isn't it either.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#386

Post by handelaar »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #253
YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm that " New York New York, Las Vegas, Nevada 89109" doesn't work. They wanted the actual street address of the hotel. Which surprised me, as I'm used to big hotels being well-known enough that you can just write a room number, hotel name and city and have it arrive in the right place.

I wonder if it would have worked at a hotel that does not share the name of a place.

That particular hotel is some distance outside Las Vegas, too, in Paradise NV

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#387

Post by M2Ys4U »

Symbiote wrote: post #165
cauthon wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if a sufficiently famous, public, and unique name could get delivered. Would a letter simply addressed “Biden” make it to the White House?

I'll bet "Rishi Sunak" would get to 10 Downing Street. Although that's also an address with it's own postcode, so "SW1A 2AA" would also get there.

Likewise "W1A 1AA" would get to the BBC's London Broadcasting House.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#388

Post by M2Ys4U »

pshirshov wrote: post #8

In Ireland it's just XXX XXXX (each property gets assigned with a unique EirCode)

The UK also has UPRNs (Unique Property Reference Numbers),[0] although they've only recently become a publicly-licensed dataset

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_Property_Reference_Numb...

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#389

Post by Symbiote »

andix wrote: post #381
Symbiote wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Britain is still smaller if we can choose an arbitrary address. S1 1AA There will be hundreds of complete addresses with this pattern, and many thousands if we add a house number before it. This is the first I found that is valid. It's the central post office in Sheffield.

Is that a ZIP code that maps to one specific building, or is it really a valid post address, matching any valid speicification, rules and laws? In Austria we also have Buildings that have a 4-digit ZIP code. But it's not a valid address, because a valid address needs a city, street and house number. "5222 Ach 0" has it all ;)

It is a post code for a specific building/business, and it is therefore also a valid address. It will work. However, it is not the recommended address, which is:

  Royal Mail
  Sheffield Delivery Office
  Pond Street
  Sheffield
  S1 1AA
For large businesses to get discounted posting rates they must use the recommended address, presumably the redundancy makes for more reliable OCR and less effort for the postman at the point of delivery.

It's fairly common to use the abbreviated addresses when handwriting a return address.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#390

Post by disjunct »

sequoia wrote: post #239

This is a fantastic post & I love mail art and experimenting with the mail. One thing I learned in the USA is that while a card can be 3x5 (LxW) it cannot be 5x3 (i.e. oriented in "portrait") because the machines aren't set up to read it that way. However, you can add $.20 in additional postage and write "No machine" so they hand-cancel the stamp rather than using the machine. This is useful for any time you don't wa…

Nonmachinable mail can be all sorts of shapes as well. I've had a lot of fun cutting cardstock into silhouettes and irregular polygons and mailing them.

When I moved, I sent postcards notifying people of my new address in the shape of my new state. US mail is quite flexible thanks to the nonmachinable surcharge.

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