East Asian Address Format Explained

Addresses in East Asia generally follow a large-to-small hierarchy. They start with the broadest administrative area and descend through successively smaller ones, finishing with the building and the recipient. This is the opposite of the layout many readers know from Europe or North America.

The general pattern

A traditional East Asian address, written in the local language, tends to read like this:

1. Country or top-level area
2. Province, prefecture or city-level unit
3. District or ward
4. Neighbourhood, town or sub-district
5. Block, lot or street
6. Building and unit
7. Recipient name

Names often come last, which can surprise readers used to seeing the person's name at the top.

Blocks and areas instead of street names

In some parts of the region, buildings are identified by their position within a numbered block or area rather than by a street name and number. A building may be located by naming its district, a block number and a lot number within that block. Because of this, an address may describe where a building sits in an area rather than where it sits along a road.

Writing for local delivery

For deliveries inside the country, writing the address in the local script is almost always best. Local staff and sorting systems are tuned to it. A romanised version can be added for foreign senders, but the native script should be present when possible. See writing addresses in non-Latin scripts.

Writing for international mail

When sending mail to the region from abroad, the usual advice is:

• Write the destination country in capitals on the last line.
• Keep each administrative unit as given by the recipient; do not translate it.
• Include the postal code exactly as supplied.
• Ask the recipient for a copy of their address in both local script and Latin letters.

More general advice is in how to write an international shipping address.

Common pitfalls

Reordering a local-script address line by line to match your own habits can break the hierarchy, and romanised spellings may vary, as explained in transliteration in addresses. Both are frequent causes of misrouted parcels.

Summary

The East Asian approach is a clean hierarchy from big to small. If you understand that each line sits inside the one before it, the format becomes straightforward to read, even when the details of each country differ.