How about Puerto Rico (in those cases where Puerto Rico is listed as a country instead of a state-like entity, which is how the US Postal Service treats it)? Hungary? Japan? Germany? Anywhere else that doesn't use a state in the postal address?
Edit on second thought: how about the vast majority of forms of this nature, which have a helpful dropdown list of the fifty valid states, and sometimes DC for the District of Columbia, but almost never PR for Puerto Rico, let alone Guam, the Virgin Islands, and the other areas of the world that the US Postal Service (and law) considers part of the United States?
I lived in Puerto Rico for years, and this is an utterly rampant problem for millions of actual American citizens living in the United States, let alone the rest of the world, all due to the fact that most Americans don't know jack about the world they inhabit.
How about Puerto Rico (in those cases where Puerto Rico is listed as a country instead of a state-like entity, which is how the US Postal Service treats it)? Hungary? Japan? Germany? Anywhere else that doesn't use a state in the postal address?
"State" is really just equivalent to "second-level subdivision" (a bit like how "ZIP code" can mean "postal code" in general, as long as the box allows freeform input). Most countries don't call their second-level subdivisions "states" but counties, municipalities, council areas, and the like. Puerto Rico has municipalities and Japan has prefectures, for instance.
the other areas of the world that the US Postal Service (and law) considers part of the United States?
The places you mention are all unincorporated organized territories, meaning they are not considered to be "part of the United States proper." The word "proper" is somewhat important in this distinction, of course, and the USPS's definitions do nothing to help clear the waters on this one.. :-)
They do if you want to receive mail. Puerto Rican municipalities have nothing whatsoever to do with mailing addresses (and in fact the situation is worse, since many PR addresses include an "urbanization").
Moreover, Indiana has counties that correspond to Puerto Rican municipalities. Drawing this sort of specious parallel is entertaining, to be sure, but doesn't help people place orders.
Drawing this sort of specious parallel is entertaining, to be sure, but doesn't help people place orders.
It does if the order form requires this information. A little extraneous information on the postage label isn't going to cause significant delays for your mail as long as the underlying details are right (street address and ZIP code for most of the US - everything else is filler). Mail delivery systems are designed to deal with this (hence the introduction of the ZIP code in the first place) because people don't always address their mail to technical specifications.
Edit on second thought: how about the vast majority of forms of this nature, which have a helpful dropdown list of the fifty valid states, and sometimes DC for the District of Columbia, but almost never PR for Puerto Rico, let alone Guam, the Virgin Islands, and the other areas of the world that the US Postal Service (and law) considers part of the United States?
I lived in Puerto Rico for years, and this is an utterly rampant problem for millions of actual American citizens living in the United States, let alone the rest of the world, all due to the fact that most Americans don't know jack about the world they inhabit.