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Re: CHAT: postcodes

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Saturday, September 21, 2002, 21:49
En réponse à bnathyuw <bnathyuw@...>:

> > is the uk really odd in using this system ? does > anything similar exist elsewhere ? i haven't seen it > in the places i've been to, but that's not saying much >
The Netherlands use a similar system, but simpler, which goes DDDD LL, ie. four numbers followed by two letters. The four numbers mark a "zone" (IIRC it begins with somewhere in Amsterdam which is the 1000 zone), but I don't know how the zones themselves are organised. As for the two letters, they mark the street in the zone. So with only the postcode and the door number the address is complete. The idea behind the system was to stop using streetnames and town names. But people continue to put them on letters, although they are completely unnecessary. Something that was surprising for me the first time I came to the Netherlands was the fact that each house or apartment door has its own number, whereas in France apartment buildings have a single door number (so you have to specify the name of the person you send a letter to). In France, the postcode is simply made of five digits. The first two are the department number (I don't know how they do in Outer-Sea departments, but I guess they have three numbers there instead. And of course there are the departments 2A and 2B of Corsica). Departments are normally numbered by alphabetical order, but Corsica is an exception, as well as all the small departments around Paris (which get numbers beginning with 90, although there are less than 90 departments in France :)) ). The three other numbers normally specify the town and always end with a 0 for normal addresses. The department prefecture always gets the 000. I'd guess other towns are listed alphabetically. Of course, there are exceptions to the "end by 0" rule. First, towns with so-called "arrondissements" (pieces of towns with their own townhall), that's to say Paris, Lyon and Marseille (IIRC) get the number of the arrondissement in the three-digit number (so addresses in Paris normally don't have a 75000 postcode, but a 75001 to 75020 - since there are 20 arrondissements in Paris). Second, there are special addresses (used with administrations, TV channels and companies), often with a "Cedex" in it and no street address at all, and those addresses always feature a postcode with the normal department code, but with a three-number code that doesn't have anything to do with the town they are in, and is recognisable as it *never* ends with a zero. Anyway, it means that with French addresses you have to put the right name, street address and door number if you want to be sure your letter will get to the right person. Only the town name would be optional.
> i've always thought it really wasteful that each > person has a street address, a phone number, and an > email address here. why not have something that could > be used for everything ? >
Maybe because then it would be impossible for people to have more than one phone, or more than one e-mail address? I actually don't think such a system would be workable, as phone numbers, addresses and e-mail addresses are meant for very different communication systems, which have nearly nothing in common. Christophe. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

Replies

Irina Rempt <irina@...>
Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>