@MadGez and other Aussies

Why do people never write the city in their address?

I am collecting all my companies preorders into one Excel sheet and the city column is almost bare for Australian buyers. They mention the state (like NSW or SA) but never the city. I checked the individual areas and they are clearly in cities, but still no mention of the city. It's just weird to me, that for an internationally sent product, they wouldn't write their city.

For example, I get a few "Macquarie Park, NSW". That's in SYDNEY!!! Why not state that piece of info? I guess with the post code and the street address, it's not going to not arrive. That's not the issue here. I mean, even leaving off the state and neighbourhood, it would still arrive, so long as it has a post code and a street address. I still don't get why they never write the city. I've had some that were in a suburb of Melbourne, but there's no mention of Melbourne in their address. I'd say Melbourne is a pretty big city in Australia, and an important part of the address if you live there, no?

In the UK, we always state everything; the street address, city, county (the UK equivalent of states), and post code. US addresses mostly state the city and state.

That's freaking weird lol why is that MadGez?

Is it considered redundant when used in conjunction with a postal code?

I mean typically in the U.S. you include both in case either weren't legible.

Yes, Jiffy is right. The simple answer is that all that matters is the street address and post code.

20 years ago - many people would put in an address as follows:

<Street Address>
<Suburb>
<Capital City>, <Post Code>, <State>
<Country>

Example below:

12 Main St
Albert Park,
Melbourne, 3206 VIC
Australia

Even though they didnt need to, they often put in the capital city - ie. Melbourne or Sydney, Adelaide etc

But some time in the 90s, there was a big push regarding the importance of post codes. All envelopes (even birthday cards) were printed with 4 gold boxes for the post code to be clearly noted in. This enabled computerised scanning and sortation at mail depots.

The focus was now on the importance of the Address and Post Code and the "correct" way of writing an address (i recall TV ads at one stage) was confirmed as the following;

<Street Address>
<Suburb>
<State> <POST CODE>
<Country>

Example below:

12 Main St
Albert Park,
VIC 3206
Australia

The suburb correctly substitutes for the capital city. I tell people from overseas that i am from Melbourne, but locally I'm from a suburb of Melbourne. Melbourne is comprised of over 350 suburbs all within 1 hour of the central business district so adding "Melbourne" into the address is redundant.

Melbourne CBD itself has a post code (3000) as many businesses, HQs are based there - as are an increasing number of residents so that's the only time you would list Melbourne as your "city". But a suburb only 1km away such as Carlton has its own postcode and would be the city/suburb listed on an envelope, not Melbourne.

Yes, so this is what I thought. Great comment, by the way. But why not also remove the state as well if the post code can identify it?

Over here you use the street address, postal code and city, but the latter isn't really necessary because the postal code is what they use for postal services. It makes sense, I mean that code was specifically added for postal services.

Yeah most mail will make it based on the address and post code alone. The state i guess helps in the event that the post code is not legible and the city/suburb name is not unique to one state.

Yeah city isn't really that important here either. People write it, but I think it's more of a habit as address and post code is pretty much enough for the mail to find its way. I once received a letter that had the address and the post code right, but the city was wrong yet I still received it.