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What is the minimal possible UK address?

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Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#61

Post by pavlov »

ClapperHeid wrote: post #52
pavlov wrote: post #40

In Finland, you can send a letter to Santa Claus with only this address: Joulupukki 99999 Korvatunturi Where "Joulupukki" is the Finnish name for Santa, and "Korvatunturi" is the mountain where he supposedly lives. Postal code 99999 was reserved for this purpose.

>and "Korvatunturi" is the mountain where he supposedly lives... But then the Post Office nearest that mountain would have to re-direct all those letters to the North Pole... where he actually lives!

That's some kind of American legend. Everybody in Finland knows he lives at Korvatunturi!

He also has a tourist trap at Rovaniemi (a city in Lapland) where the letters actually end up.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#62

Post by cassianoleal »

scrollaway wrote: post #24
dmurray wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends on the country you post from, but I'd expect "UK" to be more universally understood than "GB".

GB is the correct ISO country code for Great Britain.

Funny, since Great Britain is not a country.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#63

Post by jen20 »

sph wrote: post #35
dmurray wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends on the country you post from, but I'd expect "UK" to be more universally understood than "GB".

UK is also more correct because it includes Northern Ireland and the other smaller islands (which are not in Great Britain, the main island)

It's only more correct if the address is in Northern Ireland or one of the other islands that make up the UK but not Great Britain - which London is definitely not.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#64

Post by willyt »

I had a friend who was a farmer in a rural part of Britain and you could send him a letter by just writing First Name, Last Name, County and he would get the letter as his family had been farming that land for hundreds of years and the postal service could figure it out somehow.

I also remember an art project where they put the address in the form of various different kinds of puzzles and had letters successfully delivered.

I think there's some kind of ancient law that the postal service has to try everything possible to find out how to deliver a letter. I suspect that there is a legal aspect to this as well because I was told once that if you send someone a legal notice in Britain by Royal Mail, saying, e.g. 'You have 28 days to comply blah blah' the key date is the date it was posted, not the date it was received, unless the recipient can prove they received it late, not sure if that is still true since the post office was privatised.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#65

Post by ClapperHeid »

scrollaway wrote: post #24
dmurray wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends on the country you post from, but I'd expect "UK" to be more universally understood than "GB".

GB is the correct ISO country code for Great Britain.

But eph is right. All addresses in "Norn Iron" have a UK postcode, beginning BT [for Belfast]. So while a letter addressed to...

Someone

BTXX XXX

GB

...would probably get there, it would technically be incorrect. Mind you...

Someone

BTXX XXX

UK

...might not get there either, if your postie was a dyed-in-the-wool republican!

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#66

Post by closewith »

sph wrote: post #35
dmurray wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends on the country you post from, but I'd expect "UK" to be more universally understood than "GB".

UK is also more correct because it includes Northern Ireland and the other smaller islands (which are not in Great Britain, the main island)

Although interestingly, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands have the ISO country code GB, but Gibraltar (GI), the Isle of Man (IM), the Falklands (FK), and many others do not. Some are Crown Dependencies, which I suppose is understandable, but others are part of the UK.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#67

Post by helsinkiandrew »

pavanto wrote: post #54
djm_ wrote: post #18

I remember working with SagePay as a payment provider back in 2008 (before we knew of Stripe!) and finding it interesting that card address validation was only done on the numbers in a full address. For example, from "20 Windsor Road, London, SE1 6JH" it would extract 2016 and validate that against the banks details. I thought that was quite a smart way as UK addresses can come in all forms, shapes and sizes (as the…

How would it work where the house has a name instead of a number e.g. Wisteria cottage, Bristol, BS1 1AA?

It would just be 11

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#68

Post by qubex »

pavanto wrote: post #54
djm_ wrote: post #18

I remember working with SagePay as a payment provider back in 2008 (before we knew of Stripe!) and finding it interesting that card address validation was only done on the numbers in a full address. For example, from "20 Windsor Road, London, SE1 6JH" it would extract 2016 and validate that against the banks details. I thought that was quite a smart way as UK addresses can come in all forms, shapes and sizes (as the…

How would it work where the house has a name instead of a number e.g. Wisteria cottage, Bristol, BS1 1AA?

I presume that ‘hashes’ to 11.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#69

Post by djm_ »

qubex wrote: post #68
pavanto wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would it work where the house has a name instead of a number e.g. Wisteria cottage, Bristol, BS1 1AA?

I presume that ‘hashes’ to 11.

Correct. Which means if you’re taking deliveries it’s probably better to have a house number as you get validated more frequently.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#70

Post by jimlongton »

closewith wrote: post #48
pshirshov wrote: post #8

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

Although An Post don't use EirCodes, so I wonder if an EirCode alone is enough? Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/an-post-staff-fail-to-use...

Interesting large delivery companies do not use EirCode either. It was not primarily designed for deliveries but taxation. It's still annoys me to this day.

The Irish government had a problem administering Property tax and the TV Licence due to data sharing restrictions between departments. Unique Eircodes per property was the solution. This was explicitly stated by the Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte at the time of launch. The proposed Broadcasting Charge to replace TV licenses was not rolled out due to public opposition but EirCodes remain. Due to their random nature they are also less useful to emergency services.

Delivery companies have taken courtcases against the government over the EirCode rollout and there is an ongoing courtcase over allegations of corruption relating to the awarding of the EirCode contract[1].

[1] https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2022/11/28/firm-claims-c...

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