Does one need Chinese character addresses when mailing to Taiwan? No. In 99.9% of the cases, the local Taiwan post office can decipher even the most mangled of romanized Taiwan addresses.
But say we want to romanize a Chinese character Taiwan postal address? Well, here's some examples of what I do:
台灣的住址翻成英文怎翻？ 本人的翻法舉例：
1-6 QINGFU ST
DONGSHI 42351 TAIWAN
2F 44 ALY 99 LN 333 DONGSHAN RD SEC 1
TAIZHONG 40663 TAIWAN
Note:
We can use the simple three digit (e.g., 406), or more precise 3+2 (e.g., 40663) postal codes. On http://www.post.gov.tw/ you can even find romanizer and/or postal code look-up pages. They produce longer versions of my above examples, and even offer different choices of romanizations. Of course I recommend Hanyu Pinyin (which the rules still don't apply to city/county names, alas.)
My style above meets the US Postal Service's no punctuation, all CAPS standard. See appendix C, where we choose ALY for alley, etc. For floor we can use just F as is local habit, instead of FL. Same with SEC instead of SECT, for section, seen in appendix G. (Speaking about addressing standards, here is a 2010 standard from URISA.)
We must use LN, ALY etc. abbreviations or else we will run out of space even faster then at present.
Yes it's true that the street line is often too long. Anyways, in western addressing systems often one is only given three lines: 1. person's name. 2. street and house number. 3. city, state, postal code and country...
Regarding capitalization, of course if we were making street signs, we would only make the first letter capital, as studies say it is more readable, so therefore an international road sign standard practice.
I always just use the city or town （鄉鎮市） name and ignore the county (xian4, 縣， which ranks above it) or district (qu1, 區， below it) name, putting the burden of identifying that upon the postal code. If we didn't do this we might cause confusion and even worse, make addresses that we can't squeeze into many western databanks or label systems. The confusion would come from many of Taiwan's cities and counties having the same names. 我不寫縣名，又不用區名，它們改由郵遞區號承擔，僅用鄉鎮市名。
The above is my own personal style, which differs from the Taiwan post office's recommendations. Hmmm, perhaps this could even work in Taiwan's part of Fujian Province, e.g., DONGYIN 212 TAIWAN, but this seems risky, especially as those postal codes look like Taibei County's! (Brilliant. Don't blame me.) By the way, the post office still calls that "Taiwan Area" 「台灣地區」.
See also 探索郵局3+2郵遞區號查詢及轉碼軟體 Exploring the Taiwan Post Office's postal code software
Yes there is no reason to use English if you already know the address in Chinese. Just remember to add "TAIWAN" at the bottom for the US Post Office to see. Wait, Frank's compulsive guide to postal addresses says Section 122 the USPS IMM says:
Addresses in ... Chinese characters must bear an interline translation in English of the names of the post office and country of destination...
Like US wards and precincts, they can be omitted. We can always omit Lin. We can omit Cun and Li if there is also a already a road address, which is the case except for a few rural addresses. Perhaps use e.g., 旭光里２４之４號： 24-4 XUGUANG LI (or XUGUANG VLG, I suppose?!)
ZHONG 1 RD, YIDUO 1 RD, TONGYI 8 RD, I suppose. (Dropping the 1st, 2nd, 3rd stuff.
I guess I'm just following some traditions.
Box 9876 at the Taibei City 99th branch post office, postal code 11099. Yes it will still get there without the postal code. Just "P. O. Box 73 ..." I believe is box 73 at the main post office.
EMI MUSIC PUBLISHING LTD A&R DEPT
7F-B1 126 NANJING E RD SEC 4
TAIBEI 105 TAIWAN
6F 35 LN 11 GUANGFU N RD
TAIBEI 105 TAIWAN
10F 48 NANGANG RD SEC 3
TAIBEI 115 TAIWAN
444 ZHONGZHENG 2 LN BEN ST
DONGSHI 423 TAIWAN
(其實，此址之「本街」可刪 Actually, the BEN ST of this case can be deleted.) 另比較 Compare:
444 LN 2 ZHONGZHENG RD
Note:
我們發現我們並非只是把中文排序作相反，如 We see that address component ordering customs are not just a simple reversal of the Chinese order, which would instead give us:
$ echo 東山 路 1 段 333 巷 99 弄 44 號 2 樓 |2006/11: By the way, in the Taiwan post code database one finds that they are now writing e.g., "Sec. 2, Wanshou Rd." for 萬壽路２段, so Section can now come before Road.
A 郵局一表 Taiwan Post Office chart 見到下譯 translates these:
衖 Sub-alley 弄 Alley 鄰 Neighborhood 里、村 Village 區 District 鄉、鎮 Township
Always use Hanyu Pinyin for everything (for us Hanyu Pinyin movement supporters, yes even "Taibei"). Never mind whatever romanization is currently on the Taiwan post office website, at least as of 2004. See other parts of my website on why one should ignore the government. Yes, even valuable packages have been received successfully using the examples above. Also see http://www.pinyin.info/
For my pinyin campaign I write Taibei with a "b". I assume it will work fine, and hopefully will become the majority fashion, replacing the "p" written by the government still. 註： 因為我拼音意識形態， 「台北」我用ｂ寫， 希望有一天為多數人的寫法。
I write Taibei no matter if 99.9% of everybody else writes Taipei. All my address translations are my idea of what looks good and is compact. Use at your own risk. What one can dig out of the official http://www.post.gov.tw/ is usually different.
無擔保聲明： 以上譯法為我個人所想的， 並無任何形式的擔保責任， 包括信件丟了。 官方譯法常異。
In our examples we used no unnecessary "ROC" (Republic of China) to clutter things up. This has caused packages to go to Romania. More ROC stories. 網友說：幾年前到美國阿拉巴馬州受訓， 結訓時有一些資料要寄回台灣， 我加了Ｒ．Ｏ．Ｃ．， 結果收到時上面寫說從羅馬尼亞轉來的， 以後我就不加Ｒ．Ｏ．Ｃ．了。
See also: 台灣門牌號碼規劃（Taiwan address planning）
Explanation for those who didn't grow up in Taiwan.
Simple example: "8F 22 ALY 33 LN 44 DONGGUAN RD". This means "Eighth floor, house number 22, Alley number 33, Lane number 44, of Dongguan Road".
It turns out this format is better for mountain house location than any system I have seen in North America.
Full example: an address "11F-7 22-6 ALY 333 LN 444 DONGGUAN RD SEC 5 DONGSHI 423 TAIWAN" means in the town of Dongshi, postal code 423, we go down Dongguan Rd. till we get to section 5 (sections are perhaps maybe 1-2 km long). We continue down Dongguan Rd. to where house 444 would be, turn onto the lane there, we go down this Lane 444 until we get to where house 333 would be, turn onto the alley there, go down this Alley 333 until we arrive at the house marked 22. We the look around nearby for a house called 22-6, perhaps between 22 and 24. We then go to the 11th floor of this 22-6 house, and look for unit 7... or maybe look for unit 7 and then go to its 11th floor. (Maybe they could also throw in a block A, B, C...)
Rural example: the houses 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4 etc. are scattered thru the hillside on various small roads about 1-2 km. from house 1. For instance I live at 1-6 but have no idea where 1-1, 1-2 are. Only deep in the records of the households bureau does anybody know.
為圖論之何標籤法？ I know this road/lane/alley stuff must be a mathematical graph labeling algorithm, but I don't know which one.
One notices Taiwan has some major roads, 健康路 "Health Road", 食品路 "Food (products) Road", whose names seem to call out "發展中國家 developing nation". I'm not sure if new roads would be called such.
臺北市道路列表路名由來。
見 拼音頁。 See Pinyin page.
Last modified: 2010-03-09 14:33:33 +0800