When sending packages, greeting cards, or business documents to someone, or even looking up an address online or filling in documents for business or personal purposes, you will realize the importance of knowing the US state abbreviations.
The United States is made up of 50 states, all with their own unique two-letter postal abbreviations. It can be a hard task memorizing the two letters required when filling in an address, especially when some states have very similar lettering. Here’s what you need to know about the Massachusetts state abbreviation.
Unlike many other states, the Massachusetts state abbreviation is an easy one to remember – being derived from the first and second letters of the state’s name, “MA”. You will need to use this in a multitude of situations when referencing Massachusetts.
Remembering the Massachusetts state abbreviation might seem easy enough, however, there is some confusion surrounding the MA state abbreviation. This is because there are other states with similar lettering to Massachusetts which may cause some people to assume those states have the “MA” abbreviation. Other states with similar spelling, letters, and abbreviations are the Maine state abbreviation and the Maryland state abbreviation. The three of these states are often confused with one another.
MA State Abbreviation
Now that you are familiarized with the MA state abbreviation, it makes sense to know the longer-form name abbreviation for Massachusetts.
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.
The bay state’s old abbreviation is just as memorable as the two-letter postal abbreviation, the MA state abbreviation is the first four letters in the state name ending in a period as follows: “Mass”.
If you are interested in keeping up to date with the minimum wage in Massachusetts, including updates and the latest increases, take a look at our page dedicated to this.
People use state abbreviations all the time in everyday life and business, it is important to understand the unique two-letter abbreviation representing each state in the U.S. as the probability of you needing to memorize it is very high.
Check out our United States Abbreviations table where you can see not only the Massachusetts postal abbreviation but each state’s unique two-letter postal abbreviations and regular abbreviations. All 50 states are listed in alphabetical order and there is a downloadable one-page table you can print and use for future reference.
