ISO Standard Street Addresses?

Question

Is there an ISO standard address format? I can't seem to find one, and I'd like to know for object- and database-design purposes.

(One interesting document that shows a bunch of formats is this: http://www.bitboost.com/ref/international-address-formats.html, but it's insane!)

Answer 1

There are none. However, you can also consider that place is usually contained in a bigger place.

So, you can also use the hierarchical structure of places in following an address format. Which also means it differs from country-to-country.

You can read stuffs about this on:

• Universal Postal Union's paper Addressing the world, an address for everyone
• Place ontology from schema.org
• PostalAddress ontology from schema.org
• ISO 19160-4 standard

2023 Update

There is a new technological concept on this area. Some consider such solutions as de facto standards. The new concept is to use longitude and latitude coordinates to specifically pinpoint a location. However, since longitude and latitude coordinates are difficult to remember, you need to use a representation of these coordinates. Such solutions are:

Representation	Vendor	Example raw identifier	Example
Plus codes	Google	HXJG+GFF	HXJG+GFF, Roxas Blvd, Ermita, Manila, 1000 Metro Manila
3 words	what3words	///storage.gazette.icons	///storage.gazette.icons, Roxas Blvd, Ermita, Manila, 1000 Metro Manila

Using such geocoordinates representations will make the names of the administrative locations as just mere supplementary details.

Answer 2

Check out the address below.

Address standards A collection of information on address standards ISO 19160, Addressing

https://standards.iso.org/iso/19160/

http://www.isotc211.org/

Answer 3

No; each country defines its own standard.

There have been a number of questions about this in times past, including:

• Best practices for storing postal addresses in an RDBMS
• Is there a common street address database design for all addresses of the world

The second of those itself has references to a number of other SO questions.

You might want to check out the grandiosely named Universal Postal Union and its standards.