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What's the point of having a state field at all? Isn't there a unique mapping between zip code and state? About the phone numbers, my favorite annoyance is whe
by lutorm 17y ago
What's the point of having a state field at all? Isn't there a unique mapping between zip code and state?
About the phone numbers, my favorite annoyance is when companies, who always are fond of making stupid mnemonics out of the letters corresponding to their phone number, don't let me enter my mnemonic for my phone number, which I picked from Google Voice specifically because it makes my name, but insists on numbers.
- dionidium 17y agoWhat's the point of having a state field at all? Isn't there a unique mapping between zip code and state? No. Zip codes may cross state lines.
- joshfinnie 17y agoI am not sure that is completely true. I thought ZIP codes could not cross state lines (at least in the US). And after looking at them, I couldn't find any that were not unique.[http://www.aggdata.com/free/zip-code http://www.aggdata.com/free/zip-code] Edit: Sorry, There are a few that cross state lines, when using the first two digits as the state code. However, each ZIP code is unique to a town; therefore, one could use it in the above scenario.
- showerst 17y agoWikipedia used to have a list of them, I remember there being at least 5, possibly more.
- tokenadult 17y agoGoogle brought me to this article; I'm showing the jump to near where the issue is mentioned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code#By_geography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code#By_geography
- freiheit 17y ago"Each ZIP code is unique to a town"? No, not really. Small towns without their own post office typically share a ZIP code with the closest city because that's where the post office that delivers their mail is.
- joshfinnie 17y agoI guess my point is, the ZIP code should be a pretty good indication of the state that the person resides in. No, it is not perfect, but I think it lends itself to be somethng that can help with the OPs concerns.
- Semiapies 17y agoThey certainly can include multiple municipalities.
- tokenadult 17y agoZip codes may cross state lines. Example, please?
- vibhavs 17y ago"Fort Campbell (ZIP code 42223), primarily in Kentucky, also has some roads in Tennessee." source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code#By_geography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code#By_geography
- lincolnq 17y agoWhat's the point of having a state field at all? Isn't there a unique mapping between zip code and state? Redundancy. The postal service can usually deliver if you screw up one of city, state, and zip code. If you got rid of city/state then any error in zip code would result in failure to deliver.
- lutorm 17y agoI only proposed getting rid of the state field, not the city. I have no idea whether cities share zip codes, but that seems a lot more probable than states sharing zip codes. And even if they did, unless that zip code also had two cities named the same, it would still be uniquely identify an address.
- vital101 17y agoYou could probably do without city as well if using zip codes. Obviously this doesn't hold water for international setups, but it could be nice for the US.
- showerst 17y agoUnfortunately, no, you can't. There are plenty of zip codes in Missouri that have a dozen small towns that all have 1001 Broadway as valid addresses. There are at least 5 zip codes (possibly more, there used to be a list on wiki) that cross state, county, and city boundaries. So it's entirely possible that without the zip+4, you'd have to have both the city and the state to correctly locate an address.
- detst 17y agoUntil the wrong zip code is written or it's illegible. They go to great lengths to deliver mail that is damaged, incorrect, etc. and not having this extra information would end up being too expensive to continue this practice. They would have to say "get it right or we throw it out".