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The longest city name I was able to find (that had a Zip code) was "La Canada Flintridge" which is in CA. I found that haphazardly via google. For testing our mailing addresses, I'd like to get a definite "this is the longest city name you could possibly mail to" out of a USPS database.

How would I go about finding this information a) for free and b) quickly?

To the "Not Programming Related" closers: This determines the field length of a City field in our database. That is programming related.

Even Mien
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jcollum
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  • Then what do you do when a longer city name appears? For example, in Minnesota, the cities of Norwood and Young America merged, with the name of "Norwood-Young America". What happens if that city merges again, or La Canada Flintridge merges and extends its name? – David Thornley Feb 05 '10 at 17:28
  • As long as you have the zip code, I wouldn't worry about the possibility of a chopped-off city name. –  Feb 05 '10 at 17:30
  • @David: things change and we have to deal with it. I can't code into the future, so I don't worry about it. – jcollum Feb 05 '10 at 17:33
  • @Dying: if you have the City State and ZIP4 on one line, which I think is what you are supposed to have, the ZIP4 can get pushed out of the address window if you're using a windowed envelope. That is a huge problem. – jcollum Feb 05 '10 at 17:34
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    It will get pushed out if you don't put a certain max on the printed city name. Print it so that the zip+4 is visible even if the city name gets chopped off in the process. For example: Los Angel, CA 90210. –  Feb 05 '10 at 17:38
  • @jcollumn - I ran into the same potential situation; I truncate the city name so the ZIP + 4 won't get pushed off the envelope window. – Jay Riggs Feb 05 '10 at 17:38
  • @Jay / Dying: that seems like a reasonable solution. – jcollum Feb 05 '10 at 17:42
  • It turns out that my spec for the mailing address window was wrong! 20 characters for a city name is reasonable if you're using a windowed #10 and 12 pt type. A few towns in America would get truncated, but as long as the ZIP is correct it's A-OK. – jcollum Feb 05 '10 at 18:46
  • @jcollum, be careful if you're using proportional fonts (as most of them are). It's impossible to tell how long something will print just by the number of characters. Monospaced fonts are more predictable but tend to be wider. – Mark Ransom Feb 05 '10 at 22:28
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    BTW, this is useful for UI design too — you want to know how big of a field you need to design to display typical city names without scrolling / overflowing. – ElBel Aug 28 '13 at 18:31
  • @ElBel I'll repeat my warning about proportional fonts. A name with a lot of i's in it will be shorter than one full of m's and w's even when they're the same number of characters. – Mark Ransom Jun 17 '21 at 03:35
  • @MarkRansom Yes, thanks for the warnings, but if you use a large enough sample of place names, you can in fact implicitly account for the relative prevalence of different characters within a given language. I literally did the work to measure the physical width across a huge set of place names for different typefaces. It's simply statistics. – ElBel Oct 18 '21 at 12:04

4 Answers4

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The USPS databases use a maximum of 28 characters for the place name. Currently there are 6 mailable place names that long (all truncated to fit in 28 chars): GREAT SAND DUNES NATIONAL MO, INDIAN SPRINGS AIR FORCE AUX, KINGSVILLE NAVAL AIR STATION, ROANOKE RAPIDS AIR FORCE STA, SOUTHERN UTE INDIAN RESERVAT, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE ACAD.

However, the USPS database also provides a 13-character form for any place name longer than that. Eg, YOSEMITE NTPK is the short form for YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK. As of 8/1/09, CASS software (used to standardize addresses to USPS regulations) is required to automatically provide 13-character place names when looking up addresses.

Brad Larson
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joe snyder
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The USPS recommends line lengths for addresses:

http://pe.usps.com/text/pub28/pub28c2.html

Edit: the above link is dead, but general address formatting guidelines can be found at https://pe.usps.com/text/pub28/28c2_001.htm. They're quite extensive and broken down into small sections, so searching through them is a pain. I can no longer find a reference for a maximum length. The recommendation to use the official city/state list still holds.

There's also a file with city and state names (only a sample is available for downloading):

http://www.usps.com/ncsc/addressinfo/citystate.htm

Edit: this link is dead too - your tax dollars at work. The city/state file is still available at a cost of $420, but I couldn't find a sample anymore: https://postalpro.usps.com/address-quality/city-state-product.

Mark Ransom
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  • I'm not gonna mark this as the answer because the link says basically "look in our City State product": It is strongly recommended that addresses use only approved Last Line (city) names as described in the Postal Service City State File currently in effect. -- That's not free. If there's a line in that link that says "City names should not exceed X characters", I'm not seeing it. – jcollum Feb 05 '10 at 18:18
  • Well it's the only one with any upvotes so it's the answer automatically. – jcollum Feb 10 '10 at 00:49
  • Both links are broken... this is why we put the answer *in the answer*. – IronEagle Jun 17 '21 at 01:32
  • @IronEagle when the information is subject to change, a link is really the only way to keep it from going stale. I'll update the links if I can. – Mark Ransom Jun 17 '21 at 03:30
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According to Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_word_in_English#Place_names It's Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg But that's a lake.. forget it.. :|

The US Geological Survey’s database has these as the longest non-hyphenated community names, with the number of characters:

Mooselookmeguntic, ME (17) Kleinfeltersville, PA (17) Chickasawhatchee, GA (16) Chancellorsville, VA (16) Eichelbergertown, PA (16)

at http://askville.amazon.com/longest-Canadian-city-town/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=3617728

tinky05
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  • And the "real" name for LA : El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de la Porciúncula I don't know if somebody would use that... – tinky05 Feb 05 '10 at 17:33
  • Another interesting link : http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080726133323AAsesKs – tinky05 Feb 05 '10 at 17:35
  • All the cities that you listed are less than 20 characters. I know for a fact that there are cities with at least 20 characters, so that source sucks. – jcollum Feb 05 '10 at 17:36
  • @jcollum: Got a source for that? – Pekka Feb 05 '10 at 17:40
  • @Pekka: put this address into USPS ZIP4 lookup: 1012 WILADONDA DR LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE CA – jcollum Feb 05 '10 at 17:47
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The longest name of any incorporated place in the United States is Bellefontaine Neighbors, Missouri, 23 characters including spaces.

Guest050914
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