4 ms·

Already on it! :)

by vladharbuz 4y ago

Already on it! :)

dmurray 4y ago
I suppose it depends on the country you post from, but I'd expect "UK" to be more universally understood than "GB".
- scrollaway 4y ago
  GB is the correct ISO country code for Great Britain.
  - dmurray 4y ago
    I would not be confident in postal systems routing letters based on ISO country codes. If you send your letter in Tennessee with AR at the bottom of it, it's going to Arkansas or nowhere, not Argentina.
    - zinekeller 4y ago
      Yes, there are actually standard postal country names assigned jointly by the country concerned and UPU (the organisation that manages how mail works globally). For example, the correct country name for ISO GB is "UNITED KINGDOM" (https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/PostalEntitiesFiles/addressingUnit/gbrEn.pdf https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/PostalEntitiesFiles/addres...) Pedantic: actually, there are (up to) two valid postal country names: the English one (UNITED KINGDOM) and the French one (ROYAUME-UNI, https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/PostalEntitiesFiles/addressingUnit/gbrFr.pdf https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/PostalEntitiesFiles/addres...). This is due to historical reasons: (jointly) Britain and the US (which use English) were the most advanced in postal services but the diplomatic language at the time is French.
  - reaperducer 4y ago
    GB is the correct ISO country code for Great Britain But is the mail in the source country sorted by people, computers programmed by people, or by the ISO committee?
  - cassianoleal 4y ago
    Funny, since Great Britain is not a country.
  - ClapperHeid 4y ago
    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!
  - Karellen 4y ago
    That always trips a lot of people up because .uk is the country-code top-level domain for Great Britain, and cctlds are assigned using the 2-letter ISO country code for that country. ...except for Great Britain, who were one of the first few other countries to be connected to the internet, and decided to use .uk before people realised that every country would need one, and using already-assigned ISO codes would be the best way to hand them out.
    - peteri 4y ago
      Partially this is because the Joint Academic NETwork (JANET) in the uk used addresses in the form of xyz@uk.ac.qmc.cs according to wikipedia the JANET NRS had uk as the top level prior to dns adopting ISO codes in 1984 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JANET_NRS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JANET_NRS
    - netsharc 4y ago
      Huh? The country is called "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", or the UK for short. Strictly speaking, if you talk about Great Britain, you're excluding Northern Ireland, but politically GB isn't a country... Wikipedia says "Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean", although historically there was also the Kingdom of Great Britain.
      - Karellen 4y ago
        Well, go complain to ISO then, not me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes#UNI2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes... Edit: Also, if you've ever seen UK teams compete in international sports, all their athletes have "GBR" on their team uniforms.
        zinekeller 4y ago
        Yeah, GP is shooting the messenger. If the GP is reading this, here is the address of the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency: ISO 3166-1:2020: Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 1: Country code ISO 3166-2:2020: Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 2: Country subdivision code ISO 3166-3:2020: Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 3: Code for formerly used names of countries Maintenance Agency ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency c/o ISO Central Secretariat BIBC II Chemin de Blandonnet 8 1214 Vernier Switzerland Tel: +41 22 749 01 11 E-mail: customerservice@iso.org Website: www.iso.org/mara/iso3166
- sph 4y ago
  UK is also more correct because it includes Northern Ireland and the other smaller islands (which are not in Great Britain, the main island)
  - jen20 4y ago
    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.
  - closewith 4y ago
    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.
    - dan1234 4y ago
      There's a CCP Grey video which take a decent stab at untangling everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10
    - BoxOfRain 4y ago
      Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands (among a few other places) aren't crown dependencies or part of the UK, they're the vestigial remnants of the British Empire that rejected full independence for various reasons. Until around the time of the Falklands War they were still called crown colonies but they're now called British Overseas Territories. They're not like France's equivalent where many are integral parts of France.
      - closewith 4y ago
        Even then, the Channel Island are a Crown Dependency and use the GB ISO code, while the Isle of Man is also a Crown Dependency and has its own ISO code. The British Indian Ocean Territory and the British Antarctic Territory are both British Overseas Territories, but unlike the Falklands, Bermuda, etc, do not have their own ISO codes. So the determination is more complex than that.
- gpvos 4y ago
  In fact, in some European countries it was until recently general usage to prefix a postcode with the country abbreviation for cars,[0] i.e., A for Austria, B for Belgium, D for Germany, FIN for Finland, H for Hungary, NL for the Netherlands, SLO for Slovenia, etc. But I guess the ISO country codes are now at least as well recognized and will also work. [0] http://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/postal/#europe http://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/postal/#europe "After World War II and up until the mid-1990s, all European postcodes included country-code prefixes. These were originally United Nations "car codes" (one, two, or three letters), kept in an annex, "Car (Or Road) Distinguishing Signs", to the 1949/68 United Nations Conventions on Road Traffic, adopted in part by the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT). These codes were not accepted by the Universal Postal Union as a world standard, but were widely used anyway."

Already on it! :)

dmurray 4y ago

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

scrollaway 4y ago
GB is the correct ISO country code for Great Britain.
- dmurray 4y ago
  I would not be confident in postal systems routing letters based on ISO country codes. If you send your letter in Tennessee with AR at the bottom of it, it's going to Arkansas or nowhere, not Argentina.
  - zinekeller 4y ago
    Yes, there are actually standard postal country names assigned jointly by the country concerned and UPU (the organisation that manages how mail works globally). For example, the correct country name for ISO GB is "UNITED KINGDOM" (https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/PostalEntitiesFiles/addressingUnit/gbrEn.pdf https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/PostalEntitiesFiles/addres...) Pedantic: actually, there are (up to) two valid postal country names: the English one (UNITED KINGDOM) and the French one (ROYAUME-UNI, https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/PostalEntitiesFiles/addressingUnit/gbrFr.pdf https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/PostalEntitiesFiles/addres...). This is due to historical reasons: (jointly) Britain and the US (which use English) were the most advanced in postal services but the diplomatic language at the time is French.
- reaperducer 4y ago
  GB is the correct ISO country code for Great Britain But is the mail in the source country sorted by people, computers programmed by people, or by the ISO committee?
- cassianoleal 4y ago
  Funny, since Great Britain is not a country.
- ClapperHeid 4y ago
  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!
- Karellen 4y ago
  That always trips a lot of people up because .uk is the country-code top-level domain for Great Britain, and cctlds are assigned using the 2-letter ISO country code for that country. ...except for Great Britain, who were one of the first few other countries to be connected to the internet, and decided to use .uk before people realised that every country would need one, and using already-assigned ISO codes would be the best way to hand them out.
  - peteri 4y ago
    Partially this is because the Joint Academic NETwork (JANET) in the uk used addresses in the form of xyz@uk.ac.qmc.cs according to wikipedia the JANET NRS had uk as the top level prior to dns adopting ISO codes in 1984 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JANET_NRS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JANET_NRS
  - netsharc 4y ago
    Huh? The country is called "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", or the UK for short. Strictly speaking, if you talk about Great Britain, you're excluding Northern Ireland, but politically GB isn't a country... Wikipedia says "Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean", although historically there was also the Kingdom of Great Britain.
    - Karellen 4y ago
      Well, go complain to ISO then, not me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes#UNI2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes... Edit: Also, if you've ever seen UK teams compete in international sports, all their athletes have "GBR" on their team uniforms.
      - zinekeller 4y ago
        Yeah, GP is shooting the messenger. If the GP is reading this, here is the address of the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency: ISO 3166-1:2020: Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 1: Country code ISO 3166-2:2020: Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 2: Country subdivision code ISO 3166-3:2020: Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 3: Code for formerly used names of countries Maintenance Agency ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency c/o ISO Central Secretariat BIBC II Chemin de Blandonnet 8 1214 Vernier Switzerland Tel: +41 22 749 01 11 E-mail: customerservice@iso.org Website: www.iso.org/mara/iso3166
sph 4y ago
UK is also more correct because it includes Northern Ireland and the other smaller islands (which are not in Great Britain, the main island)
- jen20 4y ago
  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.
- closewith 4y ago
  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.
  - dan1234 4y ago
    There's a CCP Grey video which take a decent stab at untangling everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10
  - BoxOfRain 4y ago
    Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands (among a few other places) aren't crown dependencies or part of the UK, they're the vestigial remnants of the British Empire that rejected full independence for various reasons. Until around the time of the Falklands War they were still called crown colonies but they're now called British Overseas Territories. They're not like France's equivalent where many are integral parts of France.
    - closewith 4y ago
      Even then, the Channel Island are a Crown Dependency and use the GB ISO code, while the Isle of Man is also a Crown Dependency and has its own ISO code. The British Indian Ocean Territory and the British Antarctic Territory are both British Overseas Territories, but unlike the Falklands, Bermuda, etc, do not have their own ISO codes. So the determination is more complex than that.
gpvos 4y ago
In fact, in some European countries it was until recently general usage to prefix a postcode with the country abbreviation for cars,[0] i.e., A for Austria, B for Belgium, D for Germany, FIN for Finland, H for Hungary, NL for the Netherlands, SLO for Slovenia, etc. But I guess the ISO country codes are now at least as well recognized and will also work. [0] http://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/postal/#europe http://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/postal/#europe "After World War II and up until the mid-1990s, all European postcodes included country-code prefixes. These were originally United Nations "car codes" (one, two, or three letters), kept in an annex, "Car (Or Road) Distinguishing Signs", to the 1949/68 United Nations Conventions on Road Traffic, adopted in part by the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT). These codes were not accepted by the Universal Postal Union as a world standard, but were widely used anyway."