Japanese Addressing System - Address Order

Address Order

In Japanese, the address is written in order from largest unit to smallest, with the addressee's name last of all. For example, the address of the Tokyo Central Post Office is

〒100-8994
東京都中央区八重洲一丁目5番3号
東京中央郵便局

〒100-8994
Tōkyō-to Chūō-ku Yaesu 1-Chōme 5-ban 3-gō
Tōkyō Chūō Yūbin-kyoku

or

〒100-8994
東京都中央区八重洲1-5-3
東京中央郵便局

〒100-8994
Tōkyō-to Chūō-ku Yaesu 1-5-3
Tōkyō Chūō Yūbin-kyoku

The order is reversed when writing in roman letters, to better suit Western conventions. The format recommended by Japan Post is:

Tokyo Central Post Office
5-3, Yaesu 1-Chome
Chuo-ku, Tokyo 100-8994

In this address, Tokyo is the prefecture; Chuo-ku is one of the special wards; Yaesu 1-Chome is the name of the city district; and 5-3 is the city block and building number. In practice it is common for the chōme to be prefixed, as in Japanese, resulting in the somewhat shorter

Tokyo Central Post Office
1-5-3 Yaesu, Chuo-ku
Tokyo 100-8994.

Note while almost all elements of the address are reverse in roman, connected strings of numbers are treated as units and not reversed. Firstly, the "city block and building number" is a unit, and its digits are not reversed – in this example it is "5-3" in both Japanese and roman, though the Japanese (literally Yaesu 1-Chōme 5-3) is partly reversed to "5-3, Yaesu 1-Chōme" in roman if chōme is separate. Similarly, if the chōme is included, these also form a unit, so in this example the string is 1-5-3 in both Japanese and roman.