When you are sending anything to a physical address, whether that be packages, cards, or documents, you will help yourself greatly by knowing the state postal abbreviation.
It can be hard to memorize all 50 two-letter state postal abbreviations as there’s so many to remember! Especially as some states are spelled with, or start with very similar letters. Here’s more information on the Maine state abbreviation.
The Maine state abbreviation is slightly trickier than most two-letter US postal abbreviations, this is because the first two letters of Maine are the same as two other states – Maryland and Massachusetts.
Because alphabetically Maine (The Pine Tree State) is ahead of both other states beginning with the same first two letters, some may assume Maine would have the postal abbreviation of “MA”. However, this isn’t the case, in fact, Maine’s state abbreviation is actually “ME” – the first and last letter. You’ll need to use this in various situations when referencing the state of Maine. If you would like to see what the Maryland state abbreviation and the Massachusetts state abbreviation are, then you can head over to their respective pages.
Maine Initials
Now that you know the Maine initials, it makes sense to know what the longer name abbreviation is for Maine. The regular abbreviations to states’ names came out in 1963, but many were three to four letters in length and it was decided they would be too long to include on envelopes and packages as addressing equipment couldn’t accommodate these longer state abbreviations along with zip codes.
Maine is one of only 7 states to not have a name abbreviation. Due to the state name being only 5 letters, and subsequently small in size, Maine was never assigned a long-form abbreviation other than its postal abbreviation of “ME”. You may also be interested to know what the Maine state motto means, “Dirigo”. This Latin phrase translates in English to “I Direct” or “I Lead”.
People use the Maine initials all the time in everyday life and business, it is beneficial to know the unique two-letter abbreviation representing each state in the U.S. as the probability of you needing to memorize it is very high. If you are interested in keeping up to date with the minimum wage in Maine, including updates and the latest increases, check out our page dedicated to this.
Check out our United States Abbreviations table where you can see not just the Maine initials, but each state’s unique two-letter postal abbreviations and regular abbreviations.
