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50 postal codes · landscape · Letter or A4 · vector

Printable abbreviations US map

Every state marked with its two-letter USPS code — TX, NY, ND — on one landscape page. The codes fit inside even the smallest states, so this is the cleanest labeled sheet for the Northeast.

Two-letter codes are drawn on the map. Press State names to swap them for full names. Alaska (AK) and Hawaii (HI) print in the inset boxes.

What prints

The 48 contiguous states with a two-letter code centred in each, and Alaska and Hawaii in the inset boxes at the bottom left. Because a code is two characters, it fits inside Delaware, Rhode Island and New Jersey without leader lines, which is the main advantage over the full-name sheet. Borders are solid lines; no cities, rivers or county lines are printed. The codes are the 1963 USPS postal abbreviations, the ones used on envelopes and on almost every modern map; the older AP style (Calif., Mass., Wis.) is not shown.

Print settings

  1. Press the Print button on the map (or Ctrl+P / Cmd+P). The page switches to a print layout with the map only — no header, navigation or text.
  2. Orientation: Landscape. The contiguous states are about 1.6 times as wide as they are tall, which matches a landscape Letter or A4 sheet almost exactly.
  3. Margins: Default or Minimum. Turn off Headers and footers so the URL and date do not print.
  4. Scale: 100%, or Fit to page if your browser offers it.
  5. To make a PDF instead of a paper copy, choose Save as PDF as the destination.

Exercises

  1. Decode. Print this sheet and, next to each code, write the full state name. Then check with the labeled map. The eight M states (ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, MT) and the four A states (AL, AK, AR, AZ) are where the errors will be.
  2. Encode. Do it the other way: print the blank map, write the code in each state from memory, and use this sheet as the key.
  3. Pattern sort. Circle the codes that are the first two letters of the name (19 of them), underline the codes that are initials of a two-word name (10), and box the rest (21). Learning which group a state belongs to is faster than learning fifty codes cold.
  4. Neighbours. Pick a state and write out the codes of every state it touches, in clockwise order. Tennessee: KY, VA, NC, GA, AL, MS, AR, MO.
  5. Address check. Write five fictional addresses with wrong codes (Portland, OR written as Portland, ME) and have students find the mistake on the map.

Related sheets

The state abbreviations list has all fifty codes in a table with the older forms. The abbreviations quiz tests the same thing on screen.

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