Postal Question: US to London

Technically the country is "United Kingdom"

I usually write England. Stuff's gotten there every time.

Back when I was writing to someone over there, I usually wrote "UK," I think.

I always put UK on the SASE I put in with my snail mail queries. They all made it back.

It's more a question for the local (US) mail service, but I know they will all work from the US. If you go to counries speaking languages other than English, then you sometimes need to be more careful.

Strictly speaking, the name is United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But you'll probably run out of envelope space.

I don't send much mail to London but I do send mail to the UK, some to Northern Ireland in which case I just put "Northern Ireland" as the country and it arrives.

I'm sending stuff all the time, I either put UK or United Kingdom.

I think technically, under IPU style it's 'Great Britain' but I almost exclusively see 'United Kingdom'.

The problem with 'Northern Ireland' is it risks a miss-sort to the Republic of Ireland. In the same way 'Cook Islands' is sometimes miss-sorted as 'Cork, Ireland'.

I use United Kingdom. Make sure you drop down a line in printing or typing so that it stands alone. And you'll have to fill out one of the customs forms at the counter if it's a large envelope. They just created (yet another) new customs form, so if you had some stocked that you've been using--like I did--it's changed again. Sigh...

I've always written UK but to be sure, call the post office.

Here's a curious thing. When my agent's assistant first sent me the contracts to sign -- New York to UK -- they never arrived. It was very awkward, because I was waiting for them and waiting and I didn't know whether to nudge or not. Finally the assitant nudged and it was cleared up; she sent them by email, I signed and posted Recorded Mail on a Tuesday; by Friday they had not arrived. Sent again on Saturday, this time by normal mail. They arived on the following Monday!

And again I've been waiting for my copy to be returned. Hasn't come. Nudged today; she sent it on 17th May. I don't know whose postal service is at fault, the US or the UK. But it's very strange.

There's always http://usps.gov or whatever it forwards to.

This looks like good info:
http://www.usps.com/international/addressingintlmail.htm

Becca_H said:

I think technically, under IPU style it's 'Great Britain' but I almost exclusively see 'United Kingdom'.

The problem with 'Northern Ireland' is it risks a miss-sort to the Republic of Ireland. In the same way 'Cook Islands' is sometimes miss-sorted as 'Cork, Ireland'.

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Really? I've never had that happen and I've been sending mail there since the early 1980's!!

London, and then on another line UK. For some reason, I always underline UK a few times, because that's how I've seen everyone else do it.

Do you need help with post codes? They're similar to zip codes in the US, but organized a bit differently. Every borough of London has a 2 or 3 character code, and then there's a 3 character code that's even more specific that comes after. If you know the borough that the letter is being sent to, you can just google "postal code for ---" and it will tell you. I don't know quite how the second 3 digit code works, but I do know that it's both letters and numbers.

For some reason, I always underline UK a few times, because that's how I've seen everyone else do it.

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I always do this to make sure the US post office immediately recognizes it as international mail.

Kitti said:

I always do this to make sure the US post office immediately recognizes it as international mail.

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LOL, for some reason, I have this superstition that it's really important. I stand there with pen poised, thinking "now what does this REALLY accomplish?" or a "hee hee, I'll show them! I won't underline!" and then I always do it anyway. Better safe than sorry.

Cyia said:

If sending a letter from the US to England via snail mail, do I end the address with "United Kingdom" or "Great Britain" or "England"?

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UK or United Kingdom is usually fine.

Don't use England unless you are sending it to england, in which case it's fine.

Jstwatchin said:

I usually write England. Stuff's gotten there every time.

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Again, england is just one of FOUR countries that make up the UK - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. - they aren't even all on the same landmass, so just writing England might cause problems.

PinkAmy said:

I've always written UK but to be sure, call the post office.

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In my experience (and I do alot of international posting through work) you can use UK or the country (england, scotland etc) the MAIN thing is that you use the postcode, that narrows down the address to the street it's on.

Becca_H said:

I think technically, under IPU style it's 'Great Britain' but I almost exclusively see 'United Kingdom'.

The problem with 'Northern Ireland' is it risks a miss-sort to the Republic of Ireland. In the same way 'Cook Islands' is sometimes miss-sorted as 'Cork, Ireland'.

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My brother used to repeatedly get very late mail which had gone via Australia until he started asking people to add "EUROPE" to the end of his address. He lives in Austria.

I don't know how universal it is, but I was taught to always put a country name in an address in block capitals.