Canadian Postal Abbreviations For Provinces and Territories - Traditional Abbreviations

Traditional Abbreviations

Though deprecated as postal abbreviations, the following are still often used as abbreviations in other contexts. Some of the abandoned French versions included a hyphen. The eventual goal became to standardize all abbreviations into two-character units. In French, with the hyphen, it became a three-character abbreviation, yet, without it, conflict arose with US state abbreviations, e.g., a hyphenless T-N became TN (a duplicate of Tennessee); N-E became NE (a duplicate of Nebraska). Over time, the English forms became standard. Nunavut (created in 1999) does not have a former abbreviation because it did not exist when these codes were phased out, though some abbreviations can be found in other works.

• Alberta — Alta.
• British Columbia — B.C. and C.-B. (the latter is the French version, for Colombie-Britannique)
• Labrador — LB This appeared in Canada Post publications (e.g., The Canadian Postal Code Directory) for the mainland section of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
• Manitoba — Man.
• New Brunswick — N.B.
• Newfoundland — Nfld. and later NF (the two-letter abbreviation used before the province's name changed to Newfoundland and Labrador) and T.-N. (French version, for Terre-Neuve)
• Northwest Territories — N.W.T. and T.N.O. (French version, for Territoires du Nord-Ouest)
• Nova Scotia — N.S. and N.-É. (French version, for Nouvelle-Écosse)
• Nunavut — Nun. and Nvt.
• Ontario — Ont.
• Prince Edward Island — P.E.I. and Î.P.É. (French version, for île du Prince-Édouard);
• Quebec — Que. and P.Q. (French version, for Province du Québec); later, PQ evolved from P.Q. as the first two-letter non-punctuated abbreviation. Later still, QU evolved as the second two-letter non-punctuated abbreviation, making Quebec's abbreviation consistent with other provinces insofar as using letters solely from the name of the province, but not the word "province", as PQ did. There may also have been political considerations, as "PQ" was and is common shorthand for the Parti Québécois. New York State and New York City have decided arbitrarily to use "QB" to identify Québec Vehicle Licence Plates.
• Saskatchewan — Sask.
• Yukon — Yuk.