Re: Posting limits

On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 17:29:47 +1000, Tristan Mc Leay
<kesuari@...> wrote:
> (Some things---generally international---use two-letter abbreviations
> for all Australian states/territories, including Queensland, Victoria,
> the ACT, New South Wales and Tasmania, which we normally give
> three-letter abbreviations (Qld, Vic, ACT, NSW, Tas). My mother was
> reading something related to international travel which said 'Melbourne,
> VI', which she read as 'Melbourne, 6', and wondered what on Earth they
> could mean by that. Terminal no., perhaps?)
Presumably, those as ISO 3166-2 codes: short alphanumeric codes for
subdivisions of countries.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2 for ISO 3166-2 in general
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2:AU for the codes for
Australia. (The code for Victoria in this system is indeed AU-VI,
which could be shortened to VI, I suppose, if the country is clear
from context.)

Though I can imagine that they're unfamiliar; the German codes (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2:DE ) aren't really used,
either, or at least I haven't often seen them - though the code for
the city-state Hamburg, where I live, matches the car registration, so
it's easy for me to remember.

(Come to think of it, German states aren't often abbreviated at all,
perhaps in part because they're not used in addressing things.)

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

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